Sorry, this is sketchy. If you're not clear about your revenue generation and finances, how do I know your project isn't just about harvesting as much user data as possible?
Open-source projects obviously need to pay the bills, but if you're not clear on how you are achieving this or hoping to achieve this then there's really zero trust in using this.
It's peer to peer, anyone using the protocol is entitled to share and collect as much data as the protocol permits, and the founders have no more power than any other user.
It's way less sketchy than anybody operating a server and asking you to trust that they're doing so responsibly--which is pretty much everybody.
I don't think that everything can or should be made zero-trust. But if this can, then that's a win.
The alternative isn’t just some random person hosting a random server.
It’s dealing with a company where you agree to a policy that describes how they can use your data. That means you have legal recourse if they violate that agreement.
It also means you know who actually has your data which isn’t the case with these federated networks. Every entity that has your data on their server is another entity can use it in a way you don’t agree with
On top of that, the alternative solutions are pretty clear how they make money.
If you're powerful enough to have a lawyer for such things, then I guess that's a significant difference. But for most of us, your description of the alternative is indeed tantamount to "some random person hosting a random server". And you're right that federated designs are susceptible to bad behavior on the part of the server admin. I assume that's why the radicle protocol guide (https://docs.radicle.xyz/guides/protocol) has a section differentiating P2P from federated.
I don't know these people, maybe they are indeed up to something nefarious, but their design is inherently more trustworthy than federated or hosted solutions. If I must chose between transparency into finances and a nonhierarchical design which presents no high value targets for corruption to focus on, I'll take the better design over the financial transparency every time.
If they turn out to be actually shady I can just configure my node not to talk to them or their friends and keep on using it, which is a lot more than can be said for most of the alternatives.
Besides, it's a publishing platform. What is this "your data" you're talking about? The whole point is to spread it far and wide and to collect contributions from far and wide.
Open-source projects obviously need to pay the bills, but if you're not clear on how you are achieving this or hoping to achieve this then there's really zero trust in using this.