Files
hermes-brain/ideas/pds-as-a-service.org
Hermes 3e32ea9959 Promote entire passepartout-economics/ to ideas/ root
All 31 files from ideas/passepartout-economics/ promoted to ideas/ root.
- Subfolder's passepartout-economics.org (42-line index) renamed to
  triad-index.org to avoid collision with root-level full doc
- index.org removed (redundant — triad-index.org replaces it)
- Root-level passepartout-economics.org: stripped file:passepartout-economics/
  prefix from all cross-references (now simple file:foo.org links)
- compliance-framework-mapping.org: same prefix cleanup
- All internal file: links within the economics docs already used simple
  names (no prefix) — they resolve correctly from ideas/ root
2026-05-23 06:09:08 +00:00

1.6 KiB

Personal Data Store as a Service

Classic open-core SaaS model (GitLab, Sentry, PlanetScale). The Merkle fact store exposed on Agora 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 Agora 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.