#business funding app

[generalwombatexpert]

As the title I am going to discuss most famous unlisted share app is India, where any one can invest easily and find out some awesome features of the app.

Planify is the name of that app where you can download and explore the features. Planify is the India's best fintech company and private market place. You can invest in top startups. If you are startup then you also go for funding. There are also some great feature which you should explore.

[brainblurb2023]

The Symbiotic Relationship between Startup Communities, Apps, and Venture Funding

In the dynamic landscape of entrepreneurship, the collaboration between startup communities, innovative apps, and venture funding plays a pivotal role in driving economic growth and fostering technological advancements. This article explores the interconnected relationship between these elements and how they contribute to the evolution of the startup ecosystem.

The Rise of Startup Communities:

Startup community are thriving ecosystems that bring together entrepreneurs, investors, mentors, and support networks. These communities act as catalysts for idea exchange, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing. The communal spirit within these ecosystems provides a fertile ground for aspiring entrepreneurs to develop their ideas, refine their business models, and connect with like-minded individuals.

The Role of Apps in the Startup Ecosystem:

In recent years, apps have emerged as indispensable tools for startups, offering solutions for various aspects of business operations. From project management and communication to marketing and customer engagement, apps streamline processes and enhance efficiency. The development of innovative apps not only aids individual startups but also contributes to the overall vibrancy of the startup community by creating a digital infrastructure that supports growth and scalability.

Startup Community Apps:

Building Bridges and Fostering Collaboration: Specifically designed for startup communities, a new wave of community-centric apps has emerged. These platforms serve as virtual hubs, facilitating communication, resource sharing, and collaboration among community members. Features such as forums, event calendars, and mentorship programs create a digital space where entrepreneurs can connect, learn, and support each other.

Venture Funding:

Fueling Innovation and Growth: While startup communities provide the foundation, and apps offer the tools, venture funding acts as the lifeblood that propels promising startups toward success. Venture capitalists play a crucial role in identifying and investing in innovative ventures with high growth potential. This injection of capital enables startups to scale their operations, conduct research and development, and expand their market reach.

The Interplay between Startup Communities, Apps, and Venture Funding:

The synergy between these elements is evident in successful startup stories. Startup communities provide the nurturing environment where ideas are conceived, refined, and validated. Apps serve as the technological backbone that empowers startups to operate efficiently and competitively. Venture funding, in turn, accelerates growth by providing the financial resources needed to bring groundbreaking ideas to market.

Challenges and Opportunities:

While the relationship between startup communities, apps, and venture funding is symbiotic, challenges such as competition, market volatility, and resource constraints persist. However, these challenges also present opportunities for continuous innovation, adaptation, and resilience within the startup ecosystem.

Conclusion:

In the ever-evolving landscape of entrepreneurship, the collaboration between startup communities, apps, and venture funding forms a powerful trifecta that propels innovative ideas from conception to market success. This interconnected relationship not only fuels individual startups but also contributes to the overall health and dynamism of the global startup ecosystem, fostering a culture of innovation and driving economic progress.

[7roaches]

LAST POST FOR THE NIGHT I FIGURED OUT THE PREV TAG THING YOU CLICK ON THE WHITE SPACE ON THE NAME BAR

[dhrubo-organization]

Unlocking Startup Success with Business Plan Writing Services

Starting a new business can be an instigative and grueling adventure, but having a logical business plan in position is essential for success. A well- penned business plan can support you secure backing, attract investors, and guide your business missions. still, not all entrepreneurs have the time, moxie, or coffers to produce a complete business plan on their own. That is where business plan…

[crazymoneyapp]

7 Tips To Effectively Pitch Your Business To Potential Investors

After you have established your business and started earning revenue, it’s time to get on the next step of your entrepreneurial journey - raising funding for your startup. Nowadays, you can register on a startup funding app to present your business idea to potential investors. Read more

[sitehec]

Get personal Investing MOBILE APPs & WEBSITES

[zvaigzdelasas]

Uber Technologies and Lyft on Thursday agreed to adopt a $32.50 hourly minimum pay standard for Massachusetts drivers and pay $175 million to settle a lawsuit by the state’s attorney general alleging they improperly treated drivers as independent contractors who can legally receive lower compensation than employees.

The companies also agreed to give drivers paid sick leave, accident insurance, and healthcare stipends and to stop funding or supporting a ballot initiative that would have asked voters in November to cement app-based drivers’ status as contractors, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said.[...]

The agreement requires Uber to pay $148 million and Lyft to pay $27 million to the state. At least $140 million will be paid out to drivers, according to a court filing.

28 Jun 24

[gootarts]

as of 8/3, the most recently updated version of this post is here (it's a reblog of this exact post with more info added)

as a lot of you know, limbus company recently fired its CG illustrator for being a feminist, at 11 pm, via phone call, after a bunch of misogynists walked into the office earlier that day and demanded she be fired. on top of this, as per korean fans, her firing went against labor laws---in korea, you must have your dismissal in writing.

the korean fandom on twitter is, understandably, going scorched earth on project moon due to this. there's a lot currently going on to protest the decision, so i'm posting a list here of what's going on for those who want to limit their time on elon musk's $44 billion midlife crisis impulse purchase website (if you are on twitter, domuk is a good person to follow, as they translate important updates to english). a lot of the links are in korean, but generally they play nicely with machine translators. this should be current as of 8/2.

Statements condemning the decision have been issued by The Gyeonggi Youth Union and IT Union.

A press conference at the Gyeonggido Assembly will occur on 8/3, with lawmakers of the Gyeonggi province (where Project Moon is based) in attendance. This appears driven by the leader of the Gyeonggi Youth Union.

The vice chairman of the IT union--who has a good amount of experience with labor negotiations like these--has expressed strong support for the artist and is working to get media coverage due to the ongoing feminist witch hunts in the gaming industry. Project Moon isn't union to my knowledge, but he's noted that he's taken on nonunion companies such as Netmarble (largest mobile game dev in South Korea) by getting the issue in front of the National Assembly (Korea's congress).

Articles on the incident published in The Daily Labor News, Korean Daily, multiple articles on Hankyoreh (one of which made it to the print edition), and other news outlets.

Segments about the termination on the MBN 7 o' clock news and MBC's morning news

Comments by Youth Union leaders about looking into a loan made to Project Moon via Devsisters Ventures, a venture capital firm. Tax money from Gyeonggi province was invested in Devsisters in 2017, and in 2021, Devsisters gave money to Project Moon. The Gyeonggi Youth Union is asking why hard-earned tax money was indirectly given to a company who violates ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles.

Almost nonstop signage truck protests outside Project Moon's physical office during business hours until 8/22 or the company makes a statement. This occurs alongside a coordinated hashtag campaign to get the issue trending on Twitter in Korea. The signage campaign was crowd-funded in about 3 hours.

A full boycott of the Limbus Company app, on both mobile and PC (steam) platforms. Overseas fans are highly encouraged to participate, regardless if whether they're F2P or not. Not opening the app at all is arguably the biggest thing any one person can do to protest the decision, as the app logs the number of accounts that log on daily. For a new gacha such as Limbus, a high number of F2P daily active users, but a small number of paying users is often preferable to having a smaller userbase but more paying users. If the company sees the number of daily users remain stable, they will likely decide to wait out any backlash rather than apologize.

Digging up verified reviews from previous employees regarding the company's poor management practices

Due to the firing, the Leviathan artist has posted about poor working conditions when making the story. As per a bilingual speaker, they were working on a storyboard revision, and thought 'if I ran into the street right now and got hit by a car and died, I wouldn't have to keep working.' They contacted Project Moon because they didn't want their work to be like that, and proposed changes to serialization/reduction in amount of work per picture/to build up a buffer of finished images (they did not have any buffer while working on Leviathan to my knowledge). They were shut out, and had to suck it up and accept the situation.

Hamhampangpang has a 'shrine' section of the restaurant for fans to leave fan-created merch and other items. They also allow the fans to take this merch back if they can prove it's theirs. Fans are now doing just that.

To boost all of the above, a large number of Korean fanartists with thousands of followers have deleted their works and/or converted their accounts from fanart accounts to accounts supporting the protests. Many of them are bilingual, and they're where I got the majority of this information.

[note 1: there's a targeted english-language disinformation campaign by the website that started the hate mob. i have read the artist's tweets with machine translation, and they're talked about in the second hankyoreh article linked above: nowhere does she express any transphobic or similarly awful beliefs. likewise, be wary of any claims that she supported anything whose description makes you raise eyebrows--those claims are likely in reference to megalia, a korean feminist movement. for information on that, i'd recommend the NPR/BBC articles below and this google drive link of english-language scholarly papers on them. for the love of god don't get your information about a feminist movement from guys going on witch hunts for feminists.]

[note 2: i've seen a couple people argue that the firing was for the physical safety of the employees, citing the kyoani incident in japan. as per this korean fan, most fans there strongly do not believe this was the case. we have english-translated transcripts of the meeting between the mob and project moon; the threats the mob was making were to......brand project moon as a feminist company online. yes, really. male korean gamers aren't normal about feminism, and there's been an ongoing witch hunt for feminists in the industry since about 2016, something you see noted in both the labor union statements. both NPR and the BBC this phenomenon to gamergate, and i'd say it's a pretty apt comparison.]

let me know if anything needs correction or if anything should be added.

[kirschteinoir]

twelve minutes.

zayne (love&deepspace) x reader.

❝ seeing both of your eyes at the same time shouldn't be this attractive... ❞

zayne is uncharacteristically late and you're not pleased, but the reason why definitely makes up for it.

wc; 1.8k

[zayne forehead zayne forehead zayne forehead...inspired by this gorgeous art by sesamefruit on twt / X!!! i haven't stopped thinking about it since i saw it like UGH HE LOOKS SO SCRUMPTIOUS!!! implied suggestive stuff towards the end bc i couldn't help myself so 17+ please! ]

he was late.

zayne was never late. in fact a small but prominent part of his personality was that he was always on time - something he was so fond of reminding you about every time you happened to arrive a minute or two after him to your scheduled date. you sort of understood him though; his job was a harsh reminder that time waits for no one, especially a cardiac surgeon hours into a surgery with a life on the line.

your eyes dart to the giant clock ticking warily above you in the ballroom, its ornate hands and roman numerals mocking you as you stood in the corner with half a glass of champagne in your hand.

it had occurred to you to perhaps text him, although you pulled a face at the thought of being too clingy or rushing him. you trusted zayne and you knew he wouldn't be late without a good reason - you just hoped that he knew what he was doing by showing up almost fifteen minutes after your agreed meet time.

tonight was a charity gala, or something like that, hosted by akso hospital to raise funds for various wards, ones you hadn't even heard of before. the bulk of the guestlist included important patrons of the hospital who most likely had relatives in akso’s care, all of the most significant hospital staff and whoever they brought as a plus one - which is the category you and zayne fall into, respectively.

despite being a guest on zayne’s behalf, the two of you had arrived in separate cars. this was not something you had initially agreed to as the image of showing up on zayne’s arm with both of you dressed to the nines had been all too alluring and a small, smug part of you had wanted to show him off to everyone in attendance. but as always, zayne's work had shattered your grandiose dream and thus he couldn't make it on time to pick you up; he'd paid for your taxi to the venue though, and tracked your location on an app to make sure you arrived safely.

apart from a sending you a happy snowman emote at your arrival to the gala's location, he hadn’t given you any indication of when he would show up. you think back to his text from earlier this afternoon, scrunching your nose slightly as you recall how he'd said that he would definitely be there in time for dessert - his attempt at humour, you supposed.

so here you are, waiting nervously amongst the growing crowd with a watchful eye on the entrance. many of zayne’s colleagues had already arrived and greeted you with a sympathetic look as they knew all too well how busy the schedule of the cardiac surgeon could be. you took their pitiful gazes in your stride, assuring them with an easy-going laugh that he would be here soon. you hoped you sounded more convinced than you felt as an ugly apprehension gnawed at your stomach at the thought of zayne standing you up tonight.

oh well, at least you looked good.

throwing caution to the wind you swallow the last of your champagne with a slight pained expression and discreetly whip out your phone. your fingers find his contact reflexively and are about to hit the 'call' button when suddenly a hushed whisper sweeps through the room like a blizzard and your curiosity is piqued for a moment. the only thing that stops you from going through with the call is the sound of zayne's name rippling through the crowd and then the placid lilt of his voice that you knew so well.

zayne was finally here!

_

an hour or so ago, zayne had been stood in front of his bathroom mirror, his usually composed visage marred by a troubled expression. remnants of his steamy shower clouds the glass and his deep sigh adds to the frostiness as he continues to stare at himself in discontent.

he was already dressed for the evening, his shirt sleeves cuffed and tie clipped, but had yet to style his hair. usually, it would be the easiest part of his routine as he doesn't stray much from his signature windswept fringe. something was different today though and maybe out of the sudden urge to surprise you, he itched for something new. he was nervous as he weighed out the potential cons - what if it didn't suit him? what if you didn’t like it? what if he stuck out too much? was a fancy gala really the best time and place to experiment with his appearance?

as much as he was nervous, he was also tired of looking the same every time you saw him. well, except for when he was fresh out the shower and his hair was damp, but it was still relatively similar to his daytime look...

zayne looks at the short video tutorial on his phone again, replaying it a second time for good measure. the tub of gel was as daunting as his surgical scalpels as he carefully unscrewed the lid. he pauses the video on a particular shot of the final styled product, tentative fingers dipping into the cool gel.

he ended up leaving the house twelve whole minutes later than he had expected and his slight rushing had caused a few strands to break free from their gelled confines already - he thought it would at least hold until the first course of the evening. he was late enough as it was and didn't want to push it by continuing to style it in his parked car, knowing that you were probably growing restless as you waited for him inside.

_

you peer through the crowd that seems to have coagulated at the entrance of the grand hall, wishing you were just that bit taller so you could catch zayne’s eye and let him know where you were.

“excuse me,” you mumble to no one in particular as you push through, side-stepping and shimmying your way to your date. a few of them grumble at your forcefulness and you mentally apologise, only thinking of zayne at the moment.

“has anyone seen- ah, never mind.”

you hear zayne approach before you see him, the timbre of his voice suddenly swirling in a comforting embrace around your ears.

the first thing you're met with is his expensive suit, the woven navy fibres filling your field of vision. you stumble back a little, afraid of bumping into him, and take in his appearance properly. he was wearing a classic three-piece, navy with a black waistcoat, and you remember that you picked it out for him on your last shopping date. at the time he had seemed indifferent to your choices, but your cheeks suddenly feel warm as you realise right there and then how much zayne really likes you.

“zayne, there you are! i-“ you begin, looking up at him with a smile.

expecting to see pear green eyes hidden by a gauze of black fringe, you're shocked when instead those same eyes are crystalline and unobstructed as they regard you with an amused expression, perfectly poised underneath an arched black eyebrow.

the soft skin of his forehead, which you had often traversed with your fingertips on countless sleepy nights, was now exposed to the warm glow of the ballroom. his fringe, which so often tickled your cheek as he burrowed into the crook of your neck, exhausted after an overnight surgery, was gelled neatly back. some rogue strands still burst forward, daring to defy zayne's signature put-togetherness, but even they looked purposefully rogue and elegantly styled to suit his new look.

you could do nothing more than gape at him dumbly as he became increasingly concerned at your lack of response. he'd been fraught with worry about your reaction to his tardiness, expecting to get chewed out for being so ungentlemanly as to leave you standing alone in a room full of his colleagues that you hardly knew. but he surmises quickly that it was all worth it as he takes in your dumbfounded expression; he has to hold back a chuckle at the way you not so subtly check him out. however you aren’t the only one who’s doing so in the room, and he softly clears his throat to bring you away from your thoughts for a moment.

“here i am,” he says smoothly, taking another step forward. he offers his arm to you, his ears tinting that pretty shade of crimson that you loved so much as he finally cracks under the scrutiny of everyone else in the room.

“let’s find some privacy, my dear.”

dazed, you just nod as zayne leads you away from the crowd. it disperses soon after anyway, although everyone is now whispering about that cardiac surgeon and zayne's popularity seems to grow just that little bit more.

he takes the two of you to a more secluded part of the room, exhaling softly when you're finally by yourselves. he's almost disappointed by your silence at his new look and he no longer has his fringe to hide behind as his eyebrows knit together slightly.

“you haven’t spoken a word since you saw me,” he comments, reaching out to brush a strand of hair away from your cheek. he almost gasps in shock as your hand stops his, gripping his wrist gently. “what’s wro-“

his voice trails off as he notices the change in your expression, one he recognises all too well from the privacy of your bedroom. his own ears colour more and he peers down at you in confusion.

“seeing both of your eyes at the same time shouldn’t be this attractive,” you finally murmur, unable to stop staring at zayne.

he clears his throat again at your words, looking around you briefly to make sure no one was listening in.

“i take it you’re fond of my new look?” he asks, hopeful undertones betraying his casual question.

he was so cute, you wanted to squeeze him.

you smile, a mischievous glint in your eye as you suddenly grab him by the tie with your other hand, tugging his face down to hover inches in front of yours. his eyes widen almost comically, his vulnerable expression fully exposed to your devilish eyes.

“i can show you exactly how fond, my love. it doesn't hurt to have dessert first tonight, right?”

as a bashful zayne crowds your giddy self into the empty bathroom stall and locks the door behind him with unusually shaky hands, he thanks astra for those extra twelve minutes he spent in front of the bathroom mirror today.

about me. 

[generalwombatexpert]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats – including elected officials – all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked. Collectively, it would be much cheaper for all the victims to band together and hire a fancy law firm to invalidate the patent, but individually, it makes sense for them all to pay. A collective action problem:

https://locusmag.com/2013/11/cory-doctorow-collective-action/

Musicians get royally screwed by Spotify. Collectively, it would make sense for all of them to boycott the platform, which would bring it to its knees and either make it pay more or put it out of business. Individually, any musician who pulls out of Spotify disappears from the horizon of most music fans, so they all hang in – a collective action problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/#universally-loathed

Same goes for the businesses that get fucked out of 30% of their app revenues by Apple and Google's mobile business. Without all those apps, Apple and Google wouldn't have a business, but any single app that pulls out commits commercial suicide, so they all hang in there, paying a 30% vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

That's also the case with Amazon sellers, who get rooked for 45-51 cents out of every dollar in platform junk fees, and whose prize for succeeding despite this is to have their product cloned by Amazon, which underprices them because it doesn't have to pay a 51% rake on every sale. Without third-party sellers there'd be no Amazon, but it's impossible to get millions of sellers to all pull out at once, so the Bezos crime family scoops up half of the ecommerce economy in bullshit fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

This is why one definition of "corruption" is a system with "concentrated gains and diffuse losses." The company that dumps toxic waste in your water supply reaps all the profits of externalizing its waste disposal costs. The people it poisons each bear a fraction of the cost of being poisoned. The environmental criminal has a fat warchest of ill-gotten gains to use to bribe officials and pay fancy lawyers to defend it in court. Its victims are each struggling with the health effects of the crimes, and even without that, they can't possibly match the polluter's resources. Eventually, the polluter spends enough money to convince the Supreme Court to overturn "Chevron deference" and makes it effectively impossible to win the right to clean water and air (or a planet that's not on fire):

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/us-supreme-courts-chevron-deference-ruling-will-disrupt-climate-policy

Any time you encounter a shitty, outrageous racket that's stable over long timescales, chances are you're looking at a collective action problem. Certainly, that's the underlying pathology that preserves the scholarly publishing scam, which is one of the most grotesque, wasteful, disgusting frauds in our modern world (and that's saying something, because the field is crowded with many contenders).

Here's how the scholarly publishing scam works: academics do original scholarly research, funded by a mix of private grants, public funding, funding from their universities and other institutions, and private funds. These academics write up their funding and send it to a scholarly journal, usually one that's owned by a small number of firms that formed a scholarly publishing cartel by buying all the smaller publishers in a string of anticompetitive acquisitions. Then, other scholars review the submission, for free. More unpaid scholars do the work of editing the paper. The paper's author is sent a non-negotiable contract that requires them to permanently assign their copyright to the journal, again, for free. Finally, the paper is published, and the institution that paid the researcher to do the original research has to pay again – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year! – for the journal in which it appears.

The academic publishing cartel insists that the millions it extracts from academic institutions and the billions it reaps in profit are all in service to serving as neutral, rigorous gatekeepers who ensure that only the best scholarship makes it into print. This is flatly untrue. The "editorial process" the academic publishers take credit for is virtually nonexistent: almost everything they publish is virtually unchanged from the final submission format. They're not even typesetting the paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1

The vetting process for peer-review is a joke. Literally: an Australian academic managed to get his dog appointed to the editorial boards of seven journals:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals

Far from guarding scientific publishing from scams and nonsense, the major journal publishers have stood up entire divisions devoted to pay-to-publish junk science. Elsevier – the largest scholarly publisher – operated a business unit that offered to publish fake journals full of unreveiwed "advertorial" papers written by pharma companies, packaged to look like a real journal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090504075453/http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

Naturally, academics and their institutions hate this system. Not only is it purely parasitic on their labor, it also serves as a massive brake on scholarly progress, by excluding independent researchers, academics at small institutions, and scholars living in the global south from accessing the work of their peers. The publishers enforce this exclusion without mercy or proportion. Take Diego Gomez, a Colombian Masters candidate who faced eight years in prison for accessing a single paywalled academic paper:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

And of course, there's Aaron Swartz, the young activist and Harvard-affiliated computer scientist who was hounded to death after he accessed – but did not publish – papers from MIT's JSTOR library. Aaron had permission to access these papers, but JSTOR, MIT, and the prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz argued that because he used a small computer program to access the papers (rather than clicking on each link by hand) he had committed 13 felonies. They threatened him with more than 30 years in prison, and drew out the proceedings until Aaron was out of funds. Aaron hanged himself in 2013:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Academics know all this terrible stuff is going on, but they are trapped in a collective action problem. For an academic to advance in their field, they have to publish, and they have to get their work cited. Academics all try to publish in the big prestige journals – which also come with the highest price-tag for their institutions – because those are the journals other academics read, which means that getting published is top journal increases the likelihood that another academic will find and cite your work.

If academics could all agree to prioritize other journals for reading, then they could also prioritize other journals for submissions. If they could all prioritize other journals for submissions, they could all prioritize other journals for reading. Instead, they all hold one another hostage, through a wicked collective action problem that holds back science, starves their institutions of funding, and puts their colleagues at risk of imprisonment.

Despite this structural barrier, academics have fought tirelessly to escape the event horizon of scholarly publishing's monopoly black hole. They avidly supported "open access" publishers (most notably PLoS), and while these publishers carved out pockets for free-to-access, high quality work, the scholarly publishing cartel struck back with package deals that bundled their predatory "open access" journals in with their traditional journals. Academics had to pay twice for these journals: first, their institutions paid for the package that included them, then the scholars had to pay open access submission fees meant to cover the costs of editing, formatting, etc – all that stuff that basically doesn't exist.

Academics started putting "preprints" of their work on the web, and for a while, it looked like the big preprint archive sites could mount a credible challenge to the scholarly publishing cartel. So the cartel members bought the preprint sites, as when Elsevier bought out SSRN:

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/17/disappointing-elsevier-buys-open-access-academic-pre-publisher-ssrn/

Academics were elated in 2011, when Alexandra Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub, a shadow library that aims to make the entire corpus of scholarly work available without barrier, fear or favor:

https://sci-hub.ru/alexandra

Sci-Hub neutralized much of the collective action trap: once an article was available on Sci-Hub, it became much easier for other scholars to locate and cite, which reduced the case for paying for, or publishing in, the cartel's journals:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14979

The scholarly publishing cartel fought back viciously, suing Elbakyan and Sci-Hub for tens of millions of dollars. Elsevier targeted prepress sites like academia.edu with copyright threats, ordering them to remove scholarly papers that linked to Sci-Hub:

https://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

This was extremely (if darkly) funny, because Elsevier's own publications are full of citations to Sci-Hub:

https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/

Meanwhile, scholars kept the pressure up. Tens of thousands of scholars pledged to stop submitting their work to Elsevier:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Academics at the very tops of their fields publicly resigned from the editorial board of leading Elsevier journals, and published editorials calling the Elsevier model unethical:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/may/16/system-profit-access-research

And the New Scientist called the racket "indefensible," decrying the it as an industry that made restricting access to knowledge "more profitable than oil":

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/

But the real progress came when academics convinced their institutions, rather than one another, to do something about these predator publishers. First came funders, private and public, who announced that they would only fund open access work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7

Winning over major funders cleared the way for open access advocates worked both the supply-side and the buy-side. In 2019, the entire University of California system announced it would be cutting all of its Elsevier subscriptions:

https://www.science.org/content/article/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

Emboldened by the UC system's principled action, MIT followed suit in 2020, announcing that it would no longer send $2m every year to Elsevier:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#nerdfight

It's been four years since MIT's decision to boycott Elsevier, and things are going great. The open access consortium SPARC just published a stocktaking of MIT libraries without Elsevier:

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/

How are MIT's academics getting by without Elsevier in the stacks? Just fine. If someone at MIT needs access to an Elsevier paper, they can usually access it by asking the researchers to email it to them, or by downloading it from the researcher's site or a prepress archive. When that fails, there's interlibrary loan, whereby other libraries will send articles to MIT's libraries within a day or two. For more pressing needs, the library buys access to individual papers through an on-demand service.

This is how things were predicted to go. The libraries used their own circulation data and the webservice Unsub to figure out what they were likely to lose by dropping Elsevier – it wasn't much!

https://unsub.org/

The MIT story shows how to break a collective action problem – through collective action! Individual scholarly boycotts did little to hurt Elsevier. Large-scale organized boycotts raised awareness, but Elsevier trundled on. Sci-Hub scared the shit out of Elsevier and raised awareness even further, but Elsevier had untold millions to spend on a campaign of legal terror against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan. But all of that, combined with high-profile defections, made it impossible for the big institutions to ignore the issue, and the funders joined the fight. Once the funders were on-side, the academic institutions could be dragged into the fight, too.

Now, Elsevier – and the cartel – is in serious danger. Automated tools – like the Authors Alliance termination of transfer tool – lets academics get the copyright to their papers back from the big journals so they can make them open access:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Unimaginably vast indices of all scholarly publishing serve as important adjuncts to direct access shadow libraries like Sci-Hub:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#cornucopia-concordance

Collective action problems are never easy to solve, but they're impossible to address through atomized, individual action. It's only when we act as a collective that we can defeat the corruption – the concentrated gains and diffuse losses – that allow greedy, unscrupulous corporations to steal from us, wreck our lives and even imprison us.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

[brainblurb2023]

Nurturing Innovation: The Crucial Role of Community in Startup Funding

Introduction:

In the dynamic landscape of entrepreneurship, the synergy between co-founders, community, and startup funding plays a pivotal role in shaping the success trajectory of new ventures. The journey from ideation to realization requires a collaborative ecosystem, where the intertwining threads of innovation and support from the fabric of sustainable growth. In this article, we will explore the symbiotic relationship between co-founders and the community, shedding light on how this connection is instrumental in securing crucial startup funding.

The Power of Co-Founders:

Successful startups often emerge from the shared vision and complementary skills of co-founders. The diversity of perspectives and expertise that co-founders bring to the table creates a robust foundation for problem-solving and decision-making. Investors are more inclined to support ventures led by a cohesive team that demonstrates resilience and adaptability in the face of challenges. Co-founders who can effectively communicate their shared mission and the unique value proposition of their startup are better positioned to attract funding.

Building a Supportive Community:

Communities are the lifeblood of startups, providing the necessary resources, mentorship, and validation during the critical early stages. Networking events, co-working spaces, and online forums serve as incubators for ideas, connecting entrepreneurs with like-minded individuals and potential collaborators. Engaging with a community not only enhances a startup's visibility but also opens doors to valuable insights and partnerships. Investors often take note of startups with strong community ties, recognizing the inherent potential for growth and scalability.

Community as a Validation Metric:

In the eyes of investors, a startup that has garnered support from a vibrant community is seen as less risky. A loyal user base or a group of enthusiastic early adopters serves as proof of concept, validating the market demand for the product or service. This validation significantly increases the attractiveness of the startup to potential investors. Community feedback can also help refine the startup's offerings, ensuring alignment with market needs and preferences.

Crowd funding and Grassroots Support:

The rise of crowd funding platforms has democratized the funding landscape for startups. These platforms allow entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas to a global audience, inviting individuals to contribute small amounts of money in exchange for early access or other incentives. Beyond the financial aspect, crowd funding serves as a powerful means of community engagement, turning backers into brand ambassadors. This grassroots support not only injects capital into the startup but also fosters a sense of shared ownership and loyalty.

Impact on Traditional Funding Channels:

Establishing a robust community can also positively influence traditional funding channels. Venture capitalists and angel investors are more likely to be swayed by startups that have a solid foundation of user engagement and community support. This collective backing can serve as a testament to the startup's potential for scalability and long-term success, mitigating some of the perceived risks associated with early-stage investments.

Conclusion:

In the intricate tapestry of startup success, the interplay between co-founders, community, and startup funding is evident. A strong sense of community not only provides startups with the necessary validation and support but also enhances their appeal to investors. Co-founders who recognize the importance of cultivating and leveraging community connections position their ventures for sustained growth and resilience. As the entrepreneurial landscape continues to evolve, the collaboration between co-founders and community emerges as a key differentiator in securing the funding needed to turn visionary ideas into reality.

[aos-presents]

multiple streams of income means:

• a la carte offer

• new customers offer

• loyal customers offer

• bundling your offer

• optimizing your offer

having your top selling product only on social media is the old way..

#optimizeyouroffer

having your top product optimized on multiple sales channels is the goal, making more money as you build your business is the name of the game vs showing up for show and tell like you have it all together ...

#maximizeyourpotential

while you're figuring out how to get your point across effectively, ppl are searching for what you offer.. depending on what you sell your content probably doesn't matter...

what matters is claiming your business page on Google, and Facebook 👀

#getmoreratingsandreviews

ratings and reviews 💎 are priceless $$$ mixed with your offer helps, set you apart from other local business competitors 🎯

Bookmark 🔖 this post as a reminder to promote your ratings and reviews 💎

Want more new customers from search?

Book Your 1:1 smart.bio/aceofsolutions

[beatingtheouijaboardallegations]

forever tired of our voices being turned into commodity.

forever tired of thorough medaocrity in the AAC business. how that is rewarded. How it fails us as users. how not robust and only robust by small small amount communication systems always chosen by speech therapists and funded by insurance.

forever tired of profit over people.

forever tired of how companies collect data on every word we’ve ever said and sell to people.

forever tired of paying to communicate. of how uninsured disabled people just don’t get a voice many of the time. or have to rely on how AAC is brought into classrooms — which usually is managed to do in every possible wrong way.

forever tired of the branding and rebranding of how we communicate. Of this being amazing revealation over and over that nonspeakers are “in there” and should be able to say things. of how every single time this revelation comes with pre condition of leaving the rest behind, who can’t spell or type their way out of the cage of ableist oppression. or are not given chance & resources to. Of the branding being seen as revolution so many times and of these companies & practitioners making money off this “revolution.” of immersion weeks and CRP trainings that are thousands of dollars and wildly overpriced letterboards, and of that one nightmare Facebook group g-d damm it. How this all is put in language of communication freedom. 26 letters is infinite possibilities they say - but only for the richest of families and disabled people. The rest of us will have to live with fewer possibilities.

forever tired of engineer dads of AAC users who think they can revolutionize whole field of AAC with new terrible designed apps that you can’t say anything with them. of minimally useful AI features that invade every AAC app to cash in on the new moment and not as tool that if used ethically could actually help us, but as way of fixing our grammar our language our cultural syntax we built up to sound “proper” to sound normal. for a machine, a large language model to model a small language for us, turn our inhuman voices human enough.

forever tired of how that brand and marketing is never for us, never for the people who actually use it to communicate. it is always for everyone around us, our parents and teachers paras and SLPs and BCBAs and practitioners and doctors and everyone except the person who ends up stuck stuck with a bad organized bad implemented bad taught profit motivated way to talk. of it being called behavior problems low ability incompetence noncompliance when we don’t use these systems.

you all need to do better. We need to democritize our communication, put it in our own hands. (My friend & communication partner who was in Occupy Wall Street suggested phrase “Occupy AAC” and think that is perfect.) And not talking about badly made non-robust open source apps either. Yes a robust system needs money and recources to make it well. One person or community alone cannot turn a robotic voice into a human one. But our human voice should not be in hands of companies at all.

(this is about the Tobii Dynavox subscription thing. But also exploitive and capitalism practices and just lazy practices in AAC world overall. Both in high tech “ mainstream “ AAC and methods that are like ones I use in sense that are both super stigmatized and also super branded and marketed, Like RPM and S2C and spellers method. )

[blackwoolncrown]

Hey allies - I could use support <3 (Black, autistic, NB femme, orphan of estrangement)

So long story short I've been through the ringer lately- The great part is things that I've been working towards for the past 2 years are finally coming to fruition!

The hard part is that I've been dealing with frequent fees and expenses in the process and Oct-Nov promise even more.

If you don't know, I was displaced from FL during the housing crisis and just couldn't keep up with what the US was demanding of me for survival, so I moved to another country at the suggestion and helping hand of a friend.

Recently, I've managed to get part of my residency process under way, but the trip to do so cost me ~$2k for travel, food and lodgings, I'd JUST had my car fixed.

When I got back to the country I was told that completing the process would be another $100 fee; my lease is up next month and in order to move I'll need to pay 2x rent wherever I go.

It's just a lot building up and I make a modest income right now; my savings is drained from taking care of things with my business and having to travel back and forth to a town 1.5 hours away bc my place got robbed and I've been having to handle things w the police & my landlord while I stay at a friends (still, unfortunately, paying rent at the place I can't stay at rn). I'd love to focus on my work to help w this but I only do payroll once a month, and I'll need to pay fees & rent sooner than that because next month I have to move AND drive 3 days to pay a bunch of money to import my car.

There's more and I'd be happy to give more detail/proof if anyone wants it (DM me) but overall I have just been really financially drained, burned out, and I need funding to assist w covering groceries, deposit and legal fees for this month into Oct & Nov.

**I am not at risk of being houseless or unfed atm so this is really for anyone with privilege who can comfortably help out***

C***app: $moonseye

!!!PLEASE DO NOT TAG!!!!