I agree there are still technical challenges ahead, I’m just optimistic about innovation. There are a lot of companies investing heavily in this field, so there must be many technical experts who are similarly optimistic.

I’d also like to point out that current agricultural practices are heavily subsidised. Plus there are the unpaid environmental costs. If agricultural subsidies were no longer applied, and all businesses had to start paying an emissions tax, so that consumers paid the actual cost of farming meat, any financial comparison to cultured meat would look very different.

I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next 5 years, but 15 years from now? Maybe.

I believe cultured meat is the future.

I don’t mind the plant-based substitutes and eat them occasionally, but:

1. I don’t like that they’ve named them meat-related names (I have the same issue with plant “milk”). This marketing strategy causes an expectation of flavour and texture that disappoints people and puts them off. If the product is good enough, give it its own niche, like tofu.
2. Part of the reason vegan / vegetarian diets are healthy is because the food is largely unprocessed, whereas many of these products are highly processed. I’d rather just eat actual vegetables.

Cultured meat has real potential to replace farmed meat because it can provide things no plant-based alternative can, while removing many of the disadvantages of animal farming:

• The taste and texture should eventually be identical to farmed meat.
• It’s kinder to animals than farming - not vegan, but not cruel, no-one dies, and far fewer animals are needed.
• It’s better for the environment in many ways: less emissions than animal farming, less land required than both animal and plant-based farms, can be produced close to urban centres so less transport should be required.
• It can be fed to pets that are obligate carnivores, like cats. I will never put my dog on a vegan diet but I am following the UK company Meatly, that is specialising in cultured meat for pet food, with interest.

Once cultured meat is a similar price to farmed meat, I believe the ethical and environmental advantages will give it the edge. Many people that will never go vegan or vegetarian will hopefully switch.

You feel sorry for insurance companies? Huh.

You don’t know what my scenario is. I didn’t say in this comment what I recommend, only that his advice is poor, which it is. This stuff is literally what I do for a living.

The payment period alone is not sufficient information, it also matters how old OP is and what their expected lifetime is. Plus how do you know the lumpsum was calculated correctly?

That’s such bs. You don’t know how old OP is so you don’t know her expected lifetime. You’re advising her to take on longevity risk, specifically the risk that she runs out of money when she’s old and probably unable to work.

Living off the lumpsum only works if her drawdown is 1% a year, not 1% a month.

There are a lot of questions that would influence my answer.

For example: Who did the calculation? Do you trust them to have calculated the lumpsum as a fair representation of the payments?

Who is carrying the death, disability and unemployment risk? In particular, if your ex-husband dies or becomes unable to work, who will continue to make the payments? What if he married in the meantime and his new wife fights the settlement due from his estate? (Happened to someone I know. She won eventually but had a very hard time for years until the money was released.)

How large an amount are we talking about? Can you survive on 1% of the amount per year? For example, if the lumpsum is USD 10m, then hire a wealth manager to invest it and have yourself paid 1% a year, in this case USD 100k a year, or USD 8.3k a month. The invested lumpsum will increase with inflation and so your 1% will also increase each year. This setup will allow you to live off the lumpsum indefinitely.

Based on the limited information you provided I assume the amount isn’t that big, in which case I would advise that the monthly amounts are paid via an annuity purchased in your name from a life insurance company.

This solution has a number of advantages:

1. The insurance company will calculate the lumpsum (which would be the price of the annuity)
2. You aren’t subject to any risk from your ex-husband’s life
3. If this is payable for life, the life insurance company takes on the risk that you become very old and run out of money.

You will have the risk that the insurer goes bankrupt but provided you select a reputable, well-funded company that’s been around a long time, the risk is relatively low - life insurance companies are heavily regulated. Also, you would get some money back from a bankruptcy. Many annuity products also pay back part of the annuity price if you die within the first few years, so in that case there should be something to inherit for anyone you leave behind.

Edit: I see from your comments that the payments are not meant for life but only a limited few years that will end before you reach retirement age. Is that correct?

If so, that raises new questions. Importantly, do you have any additional retirement savings or is this settlement meant to cover that? If you were married for 20 years you should be entitled to a portion of his retirement savings if you don’t have any of your own.

If this money includes your share of your retirement savings, then take the lumpsum and put the amount that represents your retirement money into a suitable (tax advantageous) retirement fund that you can not touch. At your age (nearing 40?) you should have saved up a sizeable retirement amount already, so that will easily be half the lumpsum I would assume. The actual numbers depends on all sorts of things I don’t know.

My qualifications are suited to helping you with calculations. If you are willing to give more personal information, pm me and I can give better, more tailored advice.

Spain?

India?

Some relevant comments from the developer on another forum from about a year ago, when they only had 10 apps:

Developer of Accrescent here. Yes, there are only a handful of apps available right now. The reason for this is that the recent focus hasn’t been directed on getting more apps in the store, but instead on internal changes to allow Accrescent to include more features and scale to more users. It will be able to include more apps once more of those changes are implemented.

Yes, we may take on some additional apps over time. This depends on how much the project can handle maintenance-wise and how willing those app developers are to deal with the early and changing nature of Accrescent. We’re not directly reaching out to any developers at this time, however.

So apparently it’s been a deliberate choice so far.

My understanding is that the whole point to trying to hire a full time developer is to be able to finally scale their services.

Yes, that is a weakness with many FOSS projects. Developers with great ideas lacking business acumen.

That said, I expect that they can become financially self-sustaining from selling proprietary apps if they can get enough scale. I wouldn’t mind making a small monthly donation long-term but it needs to be less than what they are currently asking.

Here is a link to F-Droid’s Open Collective page. If this is accurate, they seem to be doing OK for funding right now. I’m sure they’d appreciate another sponsor though, if you’re not already donating.

Last I heard, the intention is that users will be able to filter for open-source apps if they want.

I haven’t seen anything warning against proprietary apps specifically. As a minimum, I would hope that they implement an agreement similar to the play store where the app developers are legally bound by the privacy terms in the app description (re data, advertising, etc.). This statement could maybe include an alternative wording for OS vs Proprietary apps? Definitely something to think about.

Edit to add: I can’t comment on 3rd party repositories. Too technical for me.

Precisely, that’s what I meant. Different market segments need different approaches.

Why not both? ;)

Some FOSS apps are only available for a fee in the play store and I think that’s great. They’re able to access a bigger market for funding purposes, and we both know the vast majority of play store users won’t make the effort to figure out how to make donations otherwise.

That’s an absolutely valid choice.

It’s not however the choice that the majority of people make. Weaning them off the play store needs an alternative with proprietary apps.

You can’t download paid apps through the Aurora store.

Yes. I assume that’s partly what this is about.

To date the majority of the coding has been done by one person after work. Their infrastructure was also too slow.

They released a progress update and roadmap a few days ago. They’ve already implemented some infrastructure upgrades and are prioritising back-end updates. Presumably this will make the store more attractive for app developers.

The funding push is to make it possible to have a developer working on the project fulltime.

Edit: a word

2nd edit to add: I found this thread from about a year ago, when they only had 10 apps. Relevant quotes from the developer:

Developer of Accrescent here. Yes, there are only a handful of apps available right now. The reason for this is that the recent focus hasn’t been directed on getting more apps in the store, but instead on internal changes to allow Accrescent to include more features and scale to more users. It will be able to include more apps once more of those changes are implemented.

Yes, we may take on some additional apps over time. This depends on how much the project can handle maintenance-wise and how willing those app developers are to deal with the early and changing nature of Accrescent. We’re not directly reaching out to any developers at this time, however.

So apparently it’s a deliberate choice.

Update: They’ve released a roadmap.

They have a fixed plan for the next 3 months, mostly back-end improvements for app developers.

Longer term plans are listed in order of priority but without a time line, it depends on how much of their funding goal they reach.

Current funding on Github shown at 10% of goal.

I don’t think they’re aiming to replace F-Droid. Rather think of this as a tool to wean the masses off the play store. It’s also an alternative for those people currently using microg and Aurora Store.

Personally I have some proprietary apps that I don’t want to be without. If Accrescent could provide them, I could finally delete my google account. I literally just have an account to download apps.