Those poor, poor guys. Nobody deserves their awful fate: To have to try to invent an audacious new startup, with a hazily defined product that is bound to let half of the audience down when it doesn't have unicorns and rainbows, all the while living in a fishbowl, surrounded on all sides by a mob six thousand strong, a mob made of people who feel that, having kicked in thirty whole US dollars, they deserve something awesome.
It's not just a bad idea. It's really cruel. I have been to a first-rate grad school. I have read Pepper White's The Idea Factory, a book which gave me nightmares and made me want to travel across the campus offering hugs to every grad student I could find. And thus I have seen some of the best minds of my generation driven into near-suicidal depression by their self-perceived inability to live up to their expectations of greatness, or their parents' expectations, or their own perception of their parents' expectations. And these are people without an audience of thousands.
So I'm really afraid for these Diaspora guys. Way too much spotlight, way too soon. Startup ideas fail; that is what they do most of the time. Are these guys going to be given room to fail a few times? Or are they ultimately going to need therapy?
Let me try to help: If the Diaspora team gets together at the end of September and puts on a Youtube production of Springtime for Hitler I'll send them fifty bucks. If they ship some software as well, I'll make it sixty.
"I dunno, no one made them set out the promises they chose to make, that was their own decision."
Some people have a lot of problems dealing with peer pressure, and are willing to make promises because they think that's what people expect of them, not necessarily because they're convinced they can actually deliver.
Sure, they could have chosen not to make those promises, but you have to put it into context.
I am not sure about that. I think, at least, in this tech community that people forgot about Kickstarter and are focusing on Diaspora now. (Granted, I did not donate any money so I am not fiscally tied to Diaspora.)
I think Kickstarter is an awesome website and I really hope they don't get any ill will towards them due to the possible failure of Diaspora.
EDIT: removed the mini-rant since it clearly was not understood.
My own take: wake me when they've shipped real, working software I can actually use to replace Facebook while controlling my own data's access rights and durability. Until then, this is still pretty much another case of a few guys making a piece of software somewhere, that may or may not ship, that may or may not succeed, and they started only a month ago. Yawn.
3) Empathy is not a zero-sum game, in which giving it to one person implies that you must withhold it from another. Rather, empathy is like a muscle: If you work it, it gets stronger. The opposite is also true: If one makes a habit of sneering at the pain of the rich, one may soon find oneself sneering at the pain of the poor as well. Practice makes perfect.
I'm going to assume that by 'White People' you mean 'upper middle class'. This is based on my notion that Caucasians can suffer from cancer, starve to death, or live in Detroit with 2 crack addicts for parents.
Okay... how does it reference that? I thought that site was about sandwiches or something. I'll take this as an example of mixing up race and economic class, I guess.
Even though I didn't donate, I'm cheering for the team and their undertaking. Best of luck to them.
Your reference to Springtime to Hitler brings another question: have there been known cases of startups who raised money with intention to fail, The Producers-style?
(To clarify, this is obviously not a reference to Diaspora, just a tangential question.)
"Some of these schemes were plausible enough, and, had they been undertaken at a time when the public mind was unexcited, might have been pursued with advantage to all concerned. But they were established merely with the view of raising the shares in the market. The projectors took the first opportunity of a rise to sell out, and next morning the scheme was at an end. Maitland, in his History of London, gravely informs us, that one of the projects which received great encouragement, was for the establishment of a company "to make deal boards out of saw-dust." This is no doubt intended as a joke; but there is abundance of evidence to shew that dozens of schemes, hardly a whit more reasonable, lived their little day, ruining hundreds ere they fell. One of them was for a wheel for perpetual motion—capital, one million..."
"But the most absurd and preposterous of all, and which shewed, more completely than any other, the utter madness of the people, was one started by an unknown adventurer, entitled 'A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.' Were not the fact stated by scores of credible witnesses, it would be impossible to believe that any person could have been duped by such a project. The man of genius who essayed this bold and successful inroad upon public credulity, merely stated in his prospectus that the required capital was half a million, in five thousand shares of 100l. each, deposit 2l. per share. Each subscriber, paying his deposit, would be entitled to 100l. per annum per share. How this immense profit was to be obtained, he did not condescend to inform them at that time, but promised that in a month full particulars should be duly announced, and a call made for the remaining 98l. of the subscription. Next morning, at nine o'clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill. Crowds of people beset his door, and when he shut up at three o'clock, he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of 2,000l. He was philosopher enough to be contented with his venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again."
This, of course, is Mackay's account of the South Sea Bubble of 1720. There are countless subsequent examples.
(By the way, in case it isn't obvious: I am convinced that the Diaspora guys are absolutely serious and above-board. That is why it might be amusing to pretend otherwise.
And I'm rooting for them too. That's why I'm engaged in the vital project of talking down expectations. How else are they supposed to make a splash at this point?)
There are hundreds of technology 'startups' out there that exist to fleece investors. None of them go out with a bang as in The Producers, because it's far more lucrative to maintain the illusion of a technology perpetually on the cusp of commercialization so they can continue raising round after round of fresh investments.
I hate to say it, but this is what happens when you have a bunch of people, who have no idea what early stage investing is like, and have them invest in an early stage company. It results in:
* the wrong amount of money being given
* extremely high expectations
* 24 / 7 monitoring, with anger if any tiny mistake is made
BTW, Diaspora isn't a company and nobody invested in it. Donating to an open source project != early-stage investing.
In Diaspora's case, I suspect many of the donors have low expectations and are not monitoring the project carefully, because it doesn't make sense to spend much time following up on a $20 donation.
Joe Soap who donated might not be monitoring, but the media are. Diaspora was mentioned on the New York Times IIRC. They are going to want to do a follow up, even if it's "Facebook 'killer' is a dud"
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry
fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the
starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of
cities contemplating jazz,
I think that's completely the wrong offer. As you just said, they have way too much money.
What they need is some solid UI people to come take a look, and a few backend people wouldn't hurt either. They probably have something right now, they're just terrified of launching. What they need is a safe group to beta-test with who can help clean up some of the rough edges.
Well, I was thinking of offering them actual beer instead of money, but I don't want to be accused of enabling anything. When you're trying to stave off depression, handing out depressants does not help, even if they are really tasty depressants.
That said, if they don't want the money I'll bake a cake instead.
Your serious advice is, of course, perfectly fine, if serious advice is what the project actually needs. If, however, what the project needs is fewer expectations and more whimsy, I offer my services. I am a very poor substitute for _why, but open source projects must make do with what they can get.
I definitely empathize with the feeling of having too much attention too soon. That said, I think there are worse predicaments to be in - at the worst, their product flops or never comes out fully-baked, but they had the funds to live on during that process and will doubtless have learned a lot.
It's not just a bad idea. It's really cruel. I have been to a first-rate grad school. I have read Pepper White's The Idea Factory, a book which gave me nightmares and made me want to travel across the campus offering hugs to every grad student I could find. And thus I have seen some of the best minds of my generation driven into near-suicidal depression by their self-perceived inability to live up to their expectations of greatness, or their parents' expectations, or their own perception of their parents' expectations. And these are people without an audience of thousands.
So I'm really afraid for these Diaspora guys. Way too much spotlight, way too soon. Startup ideas fail; that is what they do most of the time. Are these guys going to be given room to fail a few times? Or are they ultimately going to need therapy?
Let me try to help: If the Diaspora team gets together at the end of September and puts on a Youtube production of Springtime for Hitler I'll send them fifty bucks. If they ship some software as well, I'll make it sixty.