Why DFOS?

Since January, the Metalabel Studios squad has lived and worked almost entirely inside DFOS.

Nearly every message, conversation, document, idea, and plan has passed through our own private DFOS space.

There are many things we find remarkable about this. We made DFOS, so of course we would say that. But there’s one advantage that’s especially easy to measure:

DFOS saves groups like us a lot of money.

Before DFOS, we used the status quo stack many communities and collaborators use today: a knowledge base like Notion, an internal communications tool like Slack, and external publishing and audience tools like Mailchimp or Substack.

It sounds simple, but the costs quickly add up. Ten people using this status quo stack would pay:

Notion: $120/month
Slack: $87.50/month
Mailchimp: $25/month

That’s $232 a month, or almost $2,800 a year, just to communicate, organize, and reach an audience. Add Shopify Basic if you're selling something and the total rises to more than $3,200 a year just to exist together online.

Our own costs were higher. With more advanced Notion features, our stack before DFOS was costing us nearly $8,000 a year.

For a creator, publication, or community making $10,000 a year, those costs take a big bite of what you earn. They can be the entire difference between making enough money to keep going or being so resource-starved you have to stop.

DFOS approaches this differently.

One place instead of a pile of products

With DFOS, we collapsed the tools we were previously paying for into one place where a group can:

• Communicate privately
• Organize its work and knowledge
• Publish to the web
• Send newsletters
• Host events
• Offer paid memberships
• Sell things
• Pay people through a shared treasury
• Customize the design and function of their space

This describes DFOS Basic, which is free. When a group earns money through DFOS, we charge a 10% transaction fee, plus credit card fees.

DFOS Pro is coming soon, with a low monthly cost and additional features.

For a group earning $10,000 a year, the difference can be dramatic. Using a typical stack, the group might spend $3,200+, plus transaction fees.

Using DFOS, the group can keep far more of what it earns.

DFOS product updates

The DFOS product continues to improve and tighten.

This week we made it so store items can be public — the start of a new shop product that will be rolling out over the next month — as well as the foundations for spaces for paid access.

We've also been happy to see adoption of the new Front Page feature, which allows a DFOS to better control its public face.

A few Front Pages and spaces to highlight:

• DFOS Home — Public space for DFOS squad
• Sol Invicto — Band featuring members of the Deftones and Cypress Hill
• Tech Itch Recordings — Pioneering drum 'n bass label
• Artist Corporations — Community space for legislation
• Yancey Strickler — My personal archive and catalogue
• Otherwise — Deep, weekly explorations of plants
• fromntoi — An imaginative personal studio space
• Black Stone Sanctuary — "An interfaith dark retreat project in Oregon"

These spaces are all different: a band, a record label, a legislative community, a publication, a personal archive, a sanctuary.

What they share is a desire to create a place of their own. Not just a public page, but a world where people can gather, communicate, publish, organize, and make things together.

This is what DFOS provides: the front stage and the backstage, together in one world of your own.

What could your group do with its own internet?