If the point of the fundraiser is to convince her to join mastodon, wouldn't 450k send just as strong of a message as 500k? Do what you want with your money, but why? Why are we dumping hundreds of grand towards a politician (who's just raised over 300mil in two weeks) on the off chance they will decide to make a mastodon account? The fundraiser even says "encourage her to create a distinct presence on mastodon". The language is so noncommittal it seems like even the people who organized this don't expect anything to happen after they dump a cool half mil into a campaign that's already wildly successful.

Imo if the point of this fundraiser is to promote and grow mastodon/the fediverse then why isn't the money put towards ads, funding instances, developing the fediverse, or a million other things. That amount of money could go a very long way for the fediverse if it were put towards something other than a plea to Kamala Harris to pretty please maybe think about possibly signing up for mastodon

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"We have the chance to save U.S. democracy and rule of law, to elect the first woman President of the United States, and to send TFG packing. By contributing to Kamala Harris's campaign via this portal, we can also encourage her to create a distinct presence on Mastodon, not mediated by Threads or any other social media provider."

Promoting Mastodon isn't even a tertiary goal. It's just an "also encourage". The primary goal is fundraising for a political candidate.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I see two goals in that paragraph:

Fundraiser for Kamala

Encourage Kamala to make a mastodon account and promote on it over other social media

People have already donated hundreds of millions of dollars to her via more official channels. This is a grassroots fundraiser targeted specifically at mastodon users (and now the fediverse at large because of this post) with the stated incentive of trying to encourage Kamala to use mastodon over other platforms. You could chalk the mastodon but up as secondary but there isn't even a third thing in that paragraph for the mastodon portion to be less important than. Given the amount of press the Harris campaign has already received, it seems like this fundraiser's primary purpose is to promote mastodon via contributing to the campaign and tacitly asking Kamala to sign up.

If mastodon users wanted to donate to the campaign, they have probably been exposed to several other avenues to do that before they would have even seen this. So what's the point of doing a special "fediverse only" fundraiser? Apparently it's to encourage her to create an account. It's pandering and I don't see a point in shilling a super special fediverse fundraiser for a candidate who's already drowning in small donation money when that money could be used to promote the fediverse in a much more meaningful way

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This article is very good for the fediverse. Their introduction to the topic is superb.

https://mastodon.social/@democratsabroad is an official organization of the Democratic Party.

[–] hperrin 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If you’d like to start a different fund for that, that’s fine. This fund is for Kamala Harris, and the people who donated money to it did it with the understanding that that’s what it’s for.

You can’t just decide to use the money for something else, because that is called fraud, and it’s a crime.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The complaint is that people care more about Kamala joining mastodon than actually spending money on mastodon.

Your point is irrelevant. No one insisted that people's money should be used for a purpose other than what they consented (please show me where anyone implied that). No one implied that the money isn't paid for kamala Harris with that understanding. Rather, they are complaining about people following such misguided aims.

[–] hperrin 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Imo if the point of this fundraiser is to promote and grow mastodon/the fediverse then why isn't the money put towards ads, funding instances, developing the fediverse, or a million other things. That amount of money could go a very long way for the fediverse if it were put towards something other than a plea to Kamala Harris to pretty please maybe think about possibly signing up for mastodon

This text is implying that that amount of money has better uses, but we never raised that amount of money for any of those uses, so it’s completely pointless to talk about. I personally donated because it’s going to Kamala’s campaign. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t have, and I bet most other people wouldn’t have either.

The commenter completely misses the point of the fundraiser. It is not a Mastodon fundraiser. It is a Kamala fundraiser. Nobody donated to Mastodon here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm not suggesting the organizers of this fundraiser.missappropriate the money. I'm saying that this fundraiser seems pretty pointless and the money would be better spent elsewhere

[–] hperrin 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

That money wasn’t given to spend somewhere else. That’s like if I raise money for a school art program, and you say it would be better spent on a sports program, cause it’s so much money. That’s not what the fundraiser was for, and that’s not why the money was given.

And again, you are free to start a fundraiser for Mastodon. I honestly wish you luck if you do.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago

Idk I view it a little closer than that. Rather than an arts program v sports program I see it as an art program that wants to buy paint and I'm saying maybe it would be a better idea to buy easles, canvases, pencils, paper, and pastels instead