this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025

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Matrix.org is Introducing Premium Accounts (matrix.org)

submitted 1 month ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 91 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (17 children)

Not trying to be a dick but the Executive Director can take a fucking pay cut.

I found a reddit thread from 4 months ago where he said his salary was $170k/year. I'm not saying he is making obscene money, but if that's nearly 15% of all operating costs he can shave that down to $80k-$100k and still live comfortably if he's willing to accept a more austere standard of living.

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to be paid well, but he's getting a damn sight better pay than moderators and community managers who seem to make up 50% of the budget for multiple people: the trust and safety team as well as the other employees at the foundation.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 115 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (11 children)

Depends on what that title actually means. Viewing it as a pie chart skews it so you don't realize that $170k in USD is pretty mediocre for a Director of Engineering role. If the project dies without this person, and that's what they need in salary to make it worth it to keep them there, then that's what they get paid.

It's not like they're even making an obscene amount of money ffs. That's a middling engineering salary, and this person is running the whole show. You should see what other "director" jobs at much shittier companies get paid. I think twice this amount would be a weak guess. If this person was a prick, they'd be milking that goat and taking all the free money.

This is an open source project backed by a non-profit foundation, granted, but this person is taking a massive pay cut just by working this job. Think about how that might impact their life to make that choice while trying to have a family.

$170k salary still won't you a fucking house in this country unless you live in the middle of nowhere, and this person is almost certainly in a major tech hub city, so that money means diddly when trying to pay the bills. It's barely above the poverty line in Silicon Valley after taxes for reference.

Everyone in here complaining because they make half this and think it's a lot of money because they live in Bumfuck, Idaho has no idea what it costs to live in the larger tech hubs around the world.

[–] Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 month ago

Exactly. I’m nowhere close to the top of the tech ladder, but I make more than that and still have to rent and will be renting for several more years. To buy an average house in this city, it would be like 7k/month without a 20% down payment. And household debt needs to be 30% of your total income so I would need to make $250k to even get approved for a loan for an average house in the city.

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[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 54 points 1 month ago (34 children)

170k for running a company? Shit. I wouldn't do that. You can make just as much being a halfway competent developer, and it's way less stress.

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[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Maybe. But $170K isn’t what it used to be, even 5 years ago. Especially if you have kids.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Does that matter if he is failing to secure enough funding to run the non-profit? If they're risking shutting down major portions of what they do as the guiding foundation for the Matrix protocol, isn't that literally his fault since he's in charge? If the non-profit fails are all the people who donated their fucking money in hopes of it succeeding going to be happy that instead of being willing to take a haircut on pay to save the damn organization he was instead using their donated funds to fund his fucking lifestyle instead of, I don't know, living in a more modest area and doing more of the foundation business remotely?

Maybe someone shouldn't be taking on this kind of major risk and asking people for donations for the project if his kids are so fucking expensive. Nobody forced them to have those kids or live in a high cost of living area. Christ.

Not trying to be rude but they are not meeting their funding goals, which is his job. That's the entire point of the foundation existing, is to meet funding goals so they can continue to develop the protocol. If they aren't making enough money, should he take a paycut, or should they shut the whole thing down? It seems to me like they want to save the project he could take a modest pay cut, but that's just me.

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[–] Myro@lemm.ee 17 points 1 month ago

To be fair, that's the lowest executive salary I've seen in a looong time.

[–] Exec@pawb.social 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Now 9 wonder if there's a similar report for Mozilla

[–] QBertReynolds@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago

You can pull the form 990 for any non-profit in the US pretty easily. Here's Mozilla's: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/200097189

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[–] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 47 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Matrix org isn't obligated to run a public instance at all - they could stick to developing the spec, and let other people run instances.

And honestly maybe they should, because then we wouldn't have this huge consolidation problem on matrix.org in the first place.

[–] mintiefresh@piefed.ca 31 points 1 month ago

so ... Matrix Nitro?

[–] IsaamoonKHGDT_6143@lemmy.zip 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Matrix became the new Discord

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 month ago

It would take hundreds of millions of dollars to make Matrix as shit as Discord is.

[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

The Matrix.org Foundation is a non-profit and only relies on donations to operate. Its core mission is to maintain the Matrix Specification, but it does much more than that.

Non-profit… only relies on donations…

This was taken quite literally at the bottom of that article.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 31 points 1 month ago (1 children)

At some point donations become unsustainable. Like literally their options are to start charging or close up shop.

The smarter thing to do would be to rotate instances on sign-up to decentralize the Matrix-verse but it's probably too late now.

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[–] nroth@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The context in the article is important. Similar to what FUTO preaches-- people don't donate. That's why corporate solutions usually win. Better to charge a bit of money so we can have nice things.

[–] msage@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago

I used to have $5 on Patreon... but it seemed dead. I wrote a message asking what's up, but no response.

The whole org is a shitshow from what little pieces of info I have, still waiting for Dendride, hoping the front-ends will stabilize.

I've been using Matrix selfhosted as my primary communication tool since 2017, not connecting it to matrix.org (tried once, deleted instance afterwards), and I love it, but the org... meh.

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[–] flux@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Wish the homeserver portability would be worked on more. The ability to change homeserver would really allow people to more easily move on from matrix.org.

Myself included ;).

Optimally it would even allow the switch "after the fact", so after your original homeserver is down, assuming your client has a local copy of the server-side secret storage. It would need to be based on some cryptographic identity then, I suppose.

[–] derin@lemmy.beru.co 6 points 1 month ago

Yes, this would be a great feature - but it's a big issue to implement. It's talked about in this video, worth watching if you're curious about it.

As far as status go, this issue on the matrix spec is what you want to follow.

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[–] lupusblackfur@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (9 children)

We have been communicating on the lack of funds in the Foundation for a while now, the latest being here. And whilst we’ve been working hard to gather new members and are happy to see the number of logos increasing (thank you all for seeing the need for Matrix to stay independent and safe, and the value in supporting it!), none of the big players in the ecosystem have actually committed to one of the higher membership tiers, so we need to find other ways towards sustainability.

🤔

Sounds like that business plan isn't working out like you hoped...

And/Or not enough users care to use your product.

🤷‍♂️

[–] nroth@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

The plan was to rely on donations, which doesn't usually work for hosted products.

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[–] zenpunk1337@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 month ago

I hope Matrix is not on its way to becoming Discord

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

i think the main problem was that when matrix was blowing up, matrix.org was the promoted server to sign up on.

i don't have a problem with this as it's just one server and you can always hop on another server if you like, though.

which reminds me, i do need to find another matrix (preferably queer focused) instance since i was on matrix.org

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

blahaj has one!

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[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For just $19.95 a month you can talk to all your friends!

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can do that for free. But for that low, low price, you can talk to your friends with a Matrix Green checkmark next your name! #worthit

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[–] kayky@thelemmy.club 5 points 1 month ago

Premium, dude!

Jokes aside, fuck this shit.

[–] Count042@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

XMPP

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