However, I’m worried about what Rossmann says in regards to profit and maintenance. The app is moderated/worked-on by (I think paid) professionals and we should pay a license of $9.99 yet the app is also unprofitable and may never turn a profit. So, what’s the point in paying for the app?
By paying for the app, you’re merely donating to FUTO. As Rossmann mentioned in his video, it is completely optional to pay.
There’s nothing wrong with any app being unprofitable IMO. Public transport and car infrastructure is unprofitable and we don’t have a problem with those… heck even my personal website is unprofitable, that’s about $200-300 a year being funnelled into something nobody uses or visits.
Rossmann has a millionaire backing up his repair business
This is incorrect
Rossmann’s personal repair business is financially independent from his employer, FUTO, who only partially sponsors Rossmann’s R2R advocacy with the assistance of community donations. Rossmann frequently publishes hour long videos on his main channel crawling through the finances, and has spreadsheets online for public viewing where viewers can do an audit themselves
So, is some of this being funded by that person and other investors of FUTO or is our money the only thing keeping this afloat
AFAICT, FUTO is comparable to organisations like NLNET - the same people at sponsor the Lemmy devs. The aim is generally not to fund projects forever, but to eventually open source them after they’ve been developed to the agreed level of functionality. Seeing as this app is mainly a Rossmann initiative there could be an exception here though - such as Rossmann donating his own money towards development.
The app is niche and I can’t see too many people paying for a license
I also can’t see too many workers staying unless they are passionate. Something isn’t adding up unless I’m wrong.
A lot of people who follow Rossmann are passionate about R2R, actually owning what you pay for, and not giving excessive control to monopolies like Google.
Grayjay is more along the lines of this spirit, and as soon as they have their DHT video hosting thing ready I’ll gladly donate some of my storage space towards it 👌