Files
hermes-brain/projects/passepartout/strategy/pds-as-a-service.org
Hermes 0a8e77e949 Reorganize brain: projects/ top level, rename filenames, update homepage
- Moved everything from ideas/passepartout/ to projects/passepartout/
- Moved legal structures to projects/flags/
- Created missing _index.org files for all subdirectories
- Stripped redundant passepartout- prefix from filenames
- Rewrote root _index.org as generalized brain index (projects + concepts)
- Updated Hugo nav to Projects/Concepts
- Updated build script section descriptions
- Deleted stale ideas/passepartout-economics.md orphan
2026-05-24 18:54:14 +00:00

1.8 KiB

Personal Data Store as a Service

Classic open-core SaaS model (GitLab, Sentry, PlanetScale). The Merkle fact store exposed on the social protocol can be self-hosted (free, AGPL) or hosted by the early player.

  • Free tier (self-hosted): full AGPL PDS, runs on any Lisp host, full control, no cost
  • Basic hosted tier: $10-$20/month, 10GB fact store, 10M queries/month, automated backup, automatic upgrades
  • Business hosted tier: $100-$500/month, 100GB+ fact store, unlimited queries, SLA, dedicated relay, compliance logging
  • Enterprise hosted tier: $1,000-$10,000/month, air-gapped appliance management, dedicated support, regulatory-compliant data residency, SIEM integration

The free self-hosted version drives adoption and trust (you can inspect every line). The hosted version captures value from users who value convenience over control. Bluesky already demonstrated demand at ~$10/month for a simpler PDS.

Target: 100K subscribers at $15/month average = $18M/yr recurring, near-zero marginal cost per additional subscriber (the symbolic engine is CPU-bound, not per-user metered).

Combined with premium usernames: $28M/yr from social protocol services alone before compute marketplace revenue. The hosted model also creates infrastructure lock-in as users build their Merkle fact stores on the platform, making migration costly. The AGPL licensing model is described in Licensing.