Loadsharers: Funding the Load Bearing Internet People (original) (raw)

Loadsharers is a social network that has agreed to fund LBIPs through remittance services like Patreon, SubscribeStar, Liberapay, and PayPal.

Loadsharers take the following pledge:

"While I am gainfully employed, I will remit at least 30amonthtoone,two,orthreeLBIPs,preferably3."(Itisunderstoodthat30 a month to one, two, or three LBIPs, preferably 3." (It is understood that 30amonthtoone,two,orthreeLBIPs,preferably3."(Itisunderstoodthat30 may need to be inflation-adjusted in the future. Think: the cost of one moderately-priced restaurant meal.)

Because discovering where to direct support most efficiently isn’t easy, the Loadsharers network has a tier of advisers (experienced LBIPs themselves) who collect information on worthy people and projects from the network and make recommendations about good targets.

Distributed discovery means that as many eyes as there are loadsharers are on the problem of identifying LBIPs. The combination of that with three-way fanout should avoid all the funding being captured by a few high-visibility people.

Every loadsharer has total control of where their money goes at all times and can choose which advisers to follow (or to follow none!). This avoids the organizational-capture problem.

The rest is details.