PeerTube’s Crowdfunding Success
Recently PeerTube, an Open Source Federated video platform, alternative to YouTube, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the upgraging of their mobile app.
The campaign was asking for 75000€, which I thought it could be an ambitious goal.
Stil, with a total of 1866 contributions, they managed to raise 100% of their goal!
75000k from “just” around 2000 people. This gives an average of 40€/person, which seems like an acceptable amount for a one time contribution to a project like this.
I was really impressed by this, and it made me think, how powerful small contributions can be when scaled and what the world could be if we all contributed a small amount to projects we care about.
How small contributions can make a difference
Let´s take a look at some numbers.
The world population is around 8 billion people. If we consider just 0.1% (8 Million people) of the populatation, where everyone donates 60€/year, or 5€/month, we would have a total of 480 million per year!
If we increase to 120€/year, or 10€/month, we would have a total of 960 million per year!
This is not big tech level money, but it would be larger than many medium size tech companies and startups.
Imagine what the community could build with that money. How many Open Source projects could be funded? How many social impact projects could be supported? How many people could be hired to work on those projects?
This exercise is mind-blowing and shows the tremendous potential of small contributions at scale.
Conclusion
Sometimes we think a small contribution is not worth it, or that it won’t make a difference. But when many people contribute, even small amounts can add up to something significant.
This Peertube crowdfunding campaign is a great example of this.
Be the change you want to see in the world. If you care about a project, a cause, consider contributing to it, even if it’s just a small amount.
Places like Liberapay, Open Collective, Ko-Fi, Patreon or GitHub Sponsors are great platforms to support your favorite projects and creators.
As a Software Engineer, your projects probably depend on many Open Source libraries and tools. Do a simple exercise and identify a few of your most used dependencies and contribute a small amount to them in a regular basis.
This can be a great way to give back to the community and support the projects that make your work possible.
Bonus points, if you convince your employer to do the same.
Personally, I have a few projects I support monthly, like Gorm, Task, LinuxServer or fzf. Then I also do bigger one-time donations, when I have some extra money available.
Together, we can make a big difference and make the world a better place.