Who does gittip want its users to become? and consequently itself?

[balupton]

After consuming the Who do you want your customers to become? and watching Steve jobs on self-management, as well as battling to find my own sustainable funding model I've come to the following thoughts.

1. Gittip requires a paradigm shift with the way value is exchanged. source1 source2
2. Gittip is about letting people do what they love without constraint. source1 source2
3. Gittip is about donations in terms of an unconditional gift exchange rather than with a rewards/exchange system.

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Points 2 and 3 seem to invoke a chicken and a egg problem. You must give great value to receive great value, in other words, you must do great work, in order to receive money - problem here is doing great work, costs money (bills, life, etc). So how do you do great work, if you don't have money? This is where a rewards program comes in, that kickstarter promotes. We promise this for this - for $25 you get this, for $50 you get this. Gittip removes this exchange, in terms of - I believe in you, here is some money on an ongoing basis.

This ongoing basis thing is alot different from the impulsive - I WANT TO GIVE YOU MONEY NOW! impulse that the Patreon co-founder describes in the interview with Chad - perhaps gittip can solve this by implementing one off donations. Not everybody wants to donate recurring. It implies a massive commitment, versus the heart free, impulsive, lets give you something great now. For instance, perhaps we can get one off donations for something great now, and if we like you for a long time, I'll probably consider just making it a recurring payment. Saying go to paypal for one off donations, go to gittip for recurring, is a bit of a pain and convolutes the entire point - of gifting money.

A specific use case of this is also evident within the docpad community here. Some people dig recurring payments (especially creators). However people who need to a particular thing implemented, hate the idea, they just want something done. And this relates to point 1. Gittip requires a huge paradigm shift, and a lot of people are not in that paradigm yet. We should assist them to reach that, and also provide those stepping stones. Providing a one-off donation button, with a comment form, allows someone who wanted a particular feature done to say "Here's $50! Thanks for fixing issue 123". These people aren't yet ready yet to go down and do a recurring payment. Nor can they express their gratitude in the way the Patreon founder describes in the impulsive thank you take my money way on gittip. We should compensate this.

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Another issue that issue 2 raises. Is how do you get people to fund you in a sustainable fashion. Lets take my company Bevry as an example. We are a consulting company that has the following open-source projects: DocPad, Startup Hostel, History.js.

Now lets say DocPad receives $1000/week. And say DocPad is a team of 5 people. Should that money go according to percentage to those 5 people? (the way teams is currently implemented on gittip). Or should it go in a selective format. Hire the core maintainer full time, once done, trickle funds down to the next in line, once their full time, trickle the funds down to next, and repeat. This seems to have several pros over a way where the core maintainer gets say 50% of the revenue, and the other 5 or even 50 people get a portion. Where that money won't make much an impact compared to a trickle model. For instance, $1000/week could employ the core maintainer to work full time on the trickle model, versus having the core maintainer work a portion of the time on the waterfall model. Make that $1500/week, we have the core maintainer full time, and the second most active contributor half the time, versus the everyone a portion of the time. Tony Robbins would go crazy about this trickle model, as it allows for Tony's preached total immersion philosophy where people get a whole ton done.

Now lets say DocPad receives $4000/week, and at the same time Startup Hostel receives $4000/week. Now myself (the core maintainer of both) only has so much time. Where does my time now go? I don't have an answer to this.

Finally, lets say one user donates $1000/week and requests a particular feature on the roadmap be added, but you have 1000 other users not donating anything that requests another feature take priority. Who do you listen to? I don't have an answer to this.

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I want to use this space as a way to spout discussion and answers to these difficult questions. We need to figure out - as they say in the centup, patreon, gittip, flattr video - where each user can go, to get the financial assistance they need. Creators currently are left stranded in this area, there are a lot of tough questions remaining, and a lot of tough answers left to give. If we can figure out a clear definitive vision of who the users are and where they can go, then we will have a much easier time cultivating our vision of a sustainable funding model by being able to assist and direct the users to the place they need to be.

[balupton]

Some ideas are:

Gittip, the home for unconditional funding.

Gittip imagines a world where creators create, and if you like what they've done, their doing, or will do, you can assist their creations with financial support via one-time or recurring donations. This allows creators to focus on creating, and you on enjoying the creations.

Think of it like a pay-what-you-want restaurant. Anyone can eat there, be it millionaires, or bums. The restaurant does not discriminate itself against the poor. Anyone can enjoy it. However, as counter-intuitive and baffling as it is, the restaurant continues to operate sustainably! For the sole reason of the patrons who enjoyed it, gave what they consider an appropriate gift back, proportionate to the value they receive at the time, and what their wallets allowed. Enough people received amazing food to allow the restaurant to continue its practice. The more people enjoying food, the more the restaurant can grow. The more value the restaurant gives, the more value it receives. Without monetary discrimination. A model that allows everyone to benefit, and a model that provides sustainable growth. Gittip is the virtual equivalent, allowing you to pay-what-you-want for the value you receive.

For instance, you can use it to financially gift the following categories:

• Open-Source Masters; these are people who donate their time to build amazing tools, programs, and apps for other people
• Pay-What-You-Want Restaurants; love what they do, donate to them online, be it once for the amazing meal you received, or recurring if you go there a lot, or to allow them to grow even bigger
• The all round good person; know an amazing marketer and networker, or rather just an all round great person, who just loves being there for you at the right time, always the one you pick up the phone to call when you got an idea, do they love just being there for you? and others? Let them, donate to them weekly to help them be awesome full time.
• The activist! Know someone working for a cause! Donate to the cause! And the money will trickle down to the individuals working on making that cause happen!
• Open-Source Projects; is there an awesome project you're benefiting from? Do you love what they've done, what their doing, or where their roadmap leads? Say thank you and help make future great stuff happen by donating to them. With enough donations they'll be able to work on it full time.

[balupton]

@whit537 any thoughts?

[chadwhitacre]

@balupton One-off gifts are #5, and are a top feature request. More thoughts over there ...

For the bounty model, Gittip is partnering with Bountysource (which I see on docpad/docpad#532 (comment) that you're aware of). Right now you can connect your Bountysource account to your Gittip account. @corytheboyd is working on adding Gittip as a funding source within Bountysource. Mockup (note Gittip on right under "Backers"):

Last week we converted Gittip teams to use the trickle model you describe instead of percentages, with a twist: all members of a team set their own "take," and "kids eat first." Read more here:

https://medium.com/building-gittip/eba0a27825b8

You can convert any Gittip account into a Team by doing the following:

• Select "We are ..." under Profile > Statement > Edit.
• Add members on the now-visible "Members" tab.

What do you think of this change to teams?

I love the parallel of the pay-what-you-want restaurant! Just Googled and discovered Panera Bread, no less!

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2011-05-16-panera-pay-what-you-can_n.htm

Another one I'm aware of is Bon Jovi's Soul Kitchen:

http://www.jbjsoulkitchen.org/

Here's the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_what_you_want.

[chadwhitacre]

Seems like #1273 is the spiritual heir of this ticket.

[balupton]

@whit537 I'm not sure #1273 and this are the same, this is more aimed at the philsophical side of what is gittip, and who are it's users. Where #1273 is more aimed at how do we help users, reach full-time incomes (#95).

To add onto this issue, I feel Gittip is fills this need in society's commerce perfectly - http://youtu.be/tbcy_ZxXLl8?t=1h7m7s - and that should be the goal of gittip.

Another great video is this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMj_P_6H69g - explaining how we need to let users pay us, rather than coerce them to.

Gittip can be the platform for that.

More or less, we need to figure out one goal, and how that goal affects the people, anything besides that is non important. @whit537 did this quite well in his kickstarter video here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/whit537/1818838801

But it could be expanded a bit more.