Please don't I love your pics

Here's my interpretation of what's going on with the IMVU thing and what it might lead to.

We all know that Dragoneer has been having a lot of problems for the past couple years, no matter how anyone wants to interpret that.

He probably sees this IMVU deal as some kind of "Deus ex Machina" that will lift him out of the hole he's gotten into - providing him with unlimited resources and loyal paid staff that he can work with to basically do whatever he wants, thereby leading to an improved site and reduced drama in the long run with him maintaining his position and rebuilding his reputation.

The more likely truth is that such magic solutions are rare and come with hidden costs. I think at the very least we can expect to see more ads and more advertisers from outside the furry community. Maybe even a little bit of data mining (though anyone who uses Google has already given up a lot).

What would concern me most is if at some point IMVU started making major changes to the site in terms of what is acceptable content or conduct on the site, effectively killing the free spirit we enjoy as a furry site where anything adult and almost anything weird you can think of is available and welcomed. If that starts to happen, then the gradual loss of members to other sites will become a flood, and I'll probably join them.

I already use SoFurry and I think its a wonderful site. I would definitely recommend it if things here start going bad. For the moment though, I'm willing to give this a chance and see how it goes. If the community starts getting warped or interfered with, I'll have to leave too.

I don't think he does see it as some Dues ex Machina. I think he went with greed. There were other offers out there, ones that were listed on that journal. $50k buy in to establish a board where he'd have 41% of the vote and need only one of the investors to support him to have things happen.

Legally speaking, the journal I linked is more reasonably sound than anything else I've read, including the official FA posts. Dragoneer has bosses, and without legal papers saying otherwise, IMVU has full control of FA. Just because Dragoneer and IMVU is saying that FA will not be altered, those words are not legally binding in any way.

I also think it's extremely shady and backhanded to raise $20k in donations and then sell the site.

As to unlimited resources, that's not true at all. IMVU is a corporation meant to make money. They're either going to monetize FA or ignore it. There's no way they're going to dedicate any engineer to FA--they're a Bay Area company, one single engineer is being paid $100k+ salary easy.

IMVU is getting something out of this, the question is what. It's not the staff. They're volunteers. I doubt it's the code-base--it's nothing unique and kinda crappy. That leaves one two things: the userbase or the content. Since IMVU is more of a content-focused company, I'd guess it's the latter.

Maybe I want to not see the worst in people, but I know this site is expensive to run. I have a feeling he didn't know he was going to sell the site when he took in those donations. Nevertheless, even if that wasn't his intention, it does look bad.

I have a feeling there were other reasons why he probably rejected that offer. Maybe he didn't like specifically who he was going to have to answer to on that board, or felt that IMVU would offer him more autonomy, or perhaps he'd already negotiated the deal with IMVU.

We don't know really. I just hope things turn out well.