> We considered this option: letting everyone contribute an amount of their choice to support the initiative. But Cartes.app is not a charity, nor is it a free software component on a shelf: it is a service that consumes resources with every use and must handle the load of thousands of daily users.
> Moreover, we still have many features to add to compete with Big Tech, which requires investments.
So you want the public to fund your business and what it gets in return is the honour of improving your business and "compete with Big Tech"?
I think there's a strong incentive to take their chances with Big Tech until a better alternative pops up. In my view, a public service should benefit (and be controlled by) the public. If it's not controlled by the public, there's little difference between a big US provider and a big Chinese or European one.
> So you want the public to fund your business and what it gets in return is the honour of improving your business and "compete with Big Tech"?
To fund an open-source and open-data business, yes.
> I think there's a strong incentive to take their chances with Big Tech until a better alternative pops up.
How do you think an alternative to duopolistic apps valued hundreds of billions could emerge without funding ? The problem is hard, we know it. We think the startup way, raising millions for a map app to compete with Google, has less chances of success than building a modern common.
> In my view, a public service should benefit (and be controlled by) the public.
Isn't open-source software the closer model to what you desire ? A "public" map app in the sense of "developed and hosted by the government" could enable large funding, but could also be quite frightening.
Actually, it's one of the reasons some Europeans want to quit Google & Apple maps : on top of being economic mastodons, they are excessively close to the US, a state that has gone the way of government corruption, to say the least.
2 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 17.2 ms ] thread> We considered this option: letting everyone contribute an amount of their choice to support the initiative. But Cartes.app is not a charity, nor is it a free software component on a shelf: it is a service that consumes resources with every use and must handle the load of thousands of daily users.
> Moreover, we still have many features to add to compete with Big Tech, which requires investments.
So you want the public to fund your business and what it gets in return is the honour of improving your business and "compete with Big Tech"?
I think there's a strong incentive to take their chances with Big Tech until a better alternative pops up. In my view, a public service should benefit (and be controlled by) the public. If it's not controlled by the public, there's little difference between a big US provider and a big Chinese or European one.
To fund an open-source and open-data business, yes.
> I think there's a strong incentive to take their chances with Big Tech until a better alternative pops up.
How do you think an alternative to duopolistic apps valued hundreds of billions could emerge without funding ? The problem is hard, we know it. We think the startup way, raising millions for a map app to compete with Google, has less chances of success than building a modern common.
> In my view, a public service should benefit (and be controlled by) the public.
Isn't open-source software the closer model to what you desire ? A "public" map app in the sense of "developed and hosted by the government" could enable large funding, but could also be quite frightening.
Actually, it's one of the reasons some Europeans want to quit Google & Apple maps : on top of being economic mastodons, they are excessively close to the US, a state that has gone the way of government corruption, to say the least.