to me, it’s not necessarily a question of “realistic”, it’s more out of an environmentalist motivation - uploading 100 24 megapixel photos with one starling in each, instead of one 24 megapixel photo of a whole starling flock just makes me think of the water and energy needed to run the server that has to host all of them!
I think this is an issue with the base concept of RG on inat, or maybe not so much an “issue” and more a question of what it was designed for. there are more energy efficient ways to keep count of individuals in a species (namely, just storing the number n. instead of n large files. think great backyard bird count!), but with those methods, you’ve removed the step of identifying the species (and at the same time excluded the people who can’t identify the species). I’ve seen iNat users who are clearly experts in their fields, post “empty” observations of common species, probably precisely to keep track of them, but iNat doesn’t move these posts out of casual, because it wasn’t designed for this way of “counting”, even if it would be scientifically valuable. Everything about the setup of the platform screams “this is for identifying, not for counting”.
When the funds run out, there will be ads. Travel ads, outdoors, gardening and photo gear - not a big deal.
When the current generation of prolific identifiers retire, the notion that everything needs to be identified retires with them. The next generation will be more picky.
There will be identification software that recognise glossary entries from photos or videos and identifies by keys. It won’t be general, it won’t be free and won’t be part of iNat (see 1)
There will be new versions of iNat apps
Short term I can’t see much changing, which is both the good news and the bad news, depending on what you expect.
Just a heads-up, all large photos are resized to be no bigger than 2048 pixels on the longest side. I’m not disputing that posting many photos doesn’t have a cost, just clarifying that the photos being stored and served are not that large.
Correct, iNaturalist is not designed for recording abundance.
I could envision some ads slipping into the website in the future. Someone’s gotta pay the bills and funding has a way of disappearing. Not that I’d like to see that happen.
I donate some each month (not a lot) but unless a majority of users do that I’m dubious that it would be enough to meet the monthly costs, absent other sources such as grants. (Not that I’m in the know about iNat’s finances! Just based on other non-profits I’m aware of.) I figure my donations offset my own use of the site.
The problem with allowing ads is not the presence of ads themselves. It is markedroids and advertizers squeezing themselves into ruling positions and enforcing content manipulation (e.g. hiding or deleting rare species at places where the corporation being advertized for intends to build a factory). In forums, they would enforce or automatically upvote confrontational messages in order to keep people busy so they see more ads (similar to what we see right now on facebook). Social media are not simply like the society at large, they are much worse than that due to intentional amplification of evil content.
There are websites that manage to find a way to use ads without allowing the advertisers to manipulate the activities on the website itself. I see no reason to assume that iNat would change the way that users can search for and view records even if at some point some form of paid-for content were to be introduced.
But it seems to me that as long as there has been no indication from staff that current funding methods are no longer working and other sources of revenue are needed, it is not only fairly pointless to speculate but also rather irresponsible to suggest that iNat will end up being manipulated by corporations. As you note, there is a tendency on social media for emotion-laden content to be amplified far out of proportion, with people reacting instead of examining the facts and what is actually happening. Paranoia is good for getting clicks but it tends to hinder any constructive action.
About common species. They are just as valuable and I believe that continuing to post provides a good measure of the health of whatever species. Plus it provides trends to said population.
As for the evolution of this website I am not really too concerned. It continually ranks at the top of the the kindness of social networks. I believe it is because of the majority of members are all about helping out and understand the value of this. Not to mention it’s been around longer than eBird… And it hasn’t changed much. I do miss the global even they did back in the late teens of current century. That was fun hope it comes back.