Comment by xena
8 days ago
Fwiw currently I make the equivalent of CAD$22,150 per month at my job doing marketing for an object storage company (where ironically enough I tell people how to use generative AI). US$5,000 is my goal because it means I can reach the point of indefinite sustainability (as in the money velocity in my checking account stays flat instead of trending downwards); however that leaves no room for things going wrong, life expenses, or the ability to purchase a house like I want to. My full goal is closer to USD$15,000 per month, which is probably achievable when including subscription sales with corporate customers, contract work to implement features in Anubis, and more.
However, not gonna lie, I feel a lot less risk tolerant given that my husband is currently unemployed and as much as this is the worst possible place to do this, I really would love if he got a job somewhere. It would make things so much logistically simpler.
Thank you for your kind words though! Really, it made my day better.
I've also set up LiberaPay after getting many complaints about my choice of funding platforms: https://liberapay.com/Xe/.
Generally I don't feel comfortable doing self-promotion for financial things on Hacker News. I don't want to piss in the pool that we all swim in. I've also been considering making a Y Combinator application, if only because money would let me afford to be able to take a risk.
Sorry if this is overly ranty, it's really annoying to be one of those load-bearing dependency pegs that everyone complains about but relatively few people contribute to financially. It's making me wonder if making this liberally open source was a mistake.
I really appreciate the transparency, it says a lot. And I understand the self-promotion thing, I hate doing it myself but for some reason never have a problem promoting others haha.
I do think there is just a larger problem that we're just so bad at funding open source software despite their great utility and how much of our world is built off of these systems. My partner is studying economics and I always love to introduce her colleagues to OSS and it is definitely something they even have a hard time wrapping their heads around lol.
I know it doesn't pay the bills, but I am rooting for you and do want to say thanks for your work. Not just Anubis either. It's hard, but don't be afraid to ask for help. You're not being greedy and don't let people like rekabis bully you. People having it worse off doesn't make you or what you do any less valuable. The work speaks for itself, even if as a society we haven't figured out how to make that pay the bills.