Got questions? Hit me up, I may have answers. 🤙🏻🫂
Discussion
Okay, here's a basic question: Do you think it's weird to have a Nostr-based company, since everyone else on here is all anon and libertarian, and stuff?
Or do you think that would maybe make people take projects more seriously, since they could get letters of recommendation from a registered employer?
Nostr is not the product, it is the mechanism. Generally, individuals beyond tech enthusiasts won't care that a service uses nostr any more than they'd care about a service using postgres or mongodb. Build the interesting product on top of the tech and market that - keep the mechanism available for those curious
I meant more people working on the development team.
But, also, I guess I'd be more inclined to give my money to a real, discoverable human, that I could chase down to get it back, then to npubbunchofnumbers.
Just wondering if the ghosting thing can be combated by official registration.
Guess that would just depend on the development model you care about - do you want employees or are you okay with a more incremental, diffuse approach? I think i remember nostr:npub1utx00neqgqln72j22kej3ux7803c2k986henvvha4thuwfkper4s7r50e8 mentioning he paid based off of pull requests
That is probably Scheinselbständigkeit and illegal in Germany.
Granted, also pretty sure payments were in btc and non-kyc, so there was less formality and bureaucracy needed 🤫
Working on the black market sucks, tho. Know a lot of people trapped in that sort of situation.
Can confirm paid by pull request. Developers like this arrangement too. It's not a black market or illegal to hire contractors to build stuff for you. Not everyone wants to be tired down to a single employer.
The point being that you might be their only employer, in which case German law forbids it because they're tied down, but not covered by employee protections.
It would be clear if we had a larger market for paid-by-PR and they were pulling PRs from different projects. Then it's contracting. Perhaps we have that and they're pulling PRs from many different employers.
And, for the record, I'd want real project teams. That's the sort of development environment I'm used to working with, for startups and large corporations, and their efficiency is unbeatable, when the management doesn't micromanage them and they have a good rapport.
Also... it's just more fun and the working conditions and the pay tends to be better. 🤷
Companies get a bad rap.
Biggest bad rep comes from taking vc money and then ensues the enshittification and monetary capture process to milk the service so they can earn a profit back.
not knee deep into the formalities of creating a company but i have heard that cooperatives could be another route, but thats literally all i can say about that😅💁♂️
Nonprofits, maybe.
By nonprofit, if you mean a tax exempt organization, it could be difficult to raise funds in the US since the tax code is not favorable for donations in Bitcoin from a donor perspective. Again, I’m not familiar with other taxing authorities and I’m guilty of seeing everything in terms of US Tax Code/Law matters. In the USA, it’s really easy to create an LLC and file a few documents with the resident state office that licenses businesses. Also some states are friendlier Thant others about foreign LLC’s. I’d recommend anyone going down this road to start out with a single member LLC. Any payments to outside parties could be contract labor. At some point if a certain dev contributed in such a way that the owner of the LLC wanted to bring them in as a partner/member, it’s easy to convert the single member to a multi-member LLC. But when that happens, you file a separate tax return, which starts to complicate things for people not used to handling multiple return filings. Also it’s hard enough having a partnership with someone you know, so multiply the issue by 100 when you start to deal with people you really don’t know. As one heard more than once….your partner is your friend, until they not. If it’s your idea, make it your company and compensate the external contributors accordingly.
If you have a business purpose and you see it as a profitable venture, LLC’s are pretty easy to setup in the US. I know you’re currently not in the US, so not sure the process if you were attempting to setup a US LLC. I know of a foreign person who has created at Delaware LLC. I’ve been in some discussions with a NOSTR business that is in the process doing what you’re asking about. I can’t say for sure that it would be make people take it more serious though. We can talk more if you want.
Well, we're still developing the MVP. Let's see how the products run and how they're received. I'm very curious.
Interesting that some other Nostriches are having the same thought. Nice to see some entrepreneurship taking root.