alt Hacker News> Are you telling me that with the multi-millions of dollars you get from law enforcement, you cannot delegate a manager to, as a minor part time duty, oversee the free work given to you?
Correct. We are not profitable, and frantically trying to get sustainable by focusing on things which generate money so we can keep paying our salaries, rather than taking on maintenance of new “free” contributed features when we’re still focused on the core. The reason we don’t have more $ is because we gave away everything as Apache licensed FOSS, and turned out most people were happy to use that gratis rather than paying for anything. The most likely manager to oversee custom emoji was laid off last year due to lack of $.
Fwiw, we make almost no money from law enforcement.
> there is a distinct distain for external work that does not generate immediate revenue for the company.
No. We really appreciate the various custom emoji PRs, and I personally feel awful they are stuck. At this point the most likely way to get them merged is if i do so myself.
> You’re maximizing profits with no care for the “freeloaders”.
No. We are not profitable. We are trying to stop losing money, so we might actually be sustainable.
If you don't mind my asking, what are the features that you're working on to become profitable?
I know custom emojis sound dumb, but they are basically the differentiation factor for how Discord gets their billions. People almost literally pay hundreds of dollars for Nitro just to get their emojis/reactions. Other than bigger uploads, that's all the lower Nitro tier does.
Some people just laugh in my digital face when I suggest Matrix, because they will never, ever, countenance losing their emojis. I don't know why they care that much, but they absolutely do.
It feels a bit like trying to sell a car without Bluetooth. You might think it's a trivial frill and a distraction from the best engine ever, but the interest will be lukewarm at the very best. I bought a car without Bluetooth but then I fitted my own adapter. Even that isn't possible here.