Lol, I run multiple FOSS services online, two of which have thousands of MAUs. I consider myself lucky to be even covering the hardware costs at this point. I would love to even make an extra 500 Eur per month for myself given the amount of time I spend doing sysadmin, automation, PR, development and just being an active part of the communities.

We really need to change in what people consider valuable and how little actually is needed to help. Like literally, all you need to do is spare 1$ per month on your social media that is your primary home. If every user did that, all those service providers would have so much support.

[–] TonyOstrich@lemmy.world 6 points 19 hours ago

I don't know how it could possibly be implemented, but I wish there was some kind of application or token that ran on my devices that would track how much I visited or used various pieces of FOSS software and services and then at the end of every month would pay each one from a predefined amount of money I set for how much I think I can afford for all of it. Maybe before actually sending the payments it generates a report stating the breakdown and allowing me to tweak the percentages.

Likely a privacy nightmare even if entirely locally running, but would be sweet.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

If every user did that, all those service providers would have so much support.

I completely agree in principle. But the reality is that the overwhelming majority (like 98% of them) don't do that, and they just expect to keep using things for free, until whoever is backing the thing gets broke and/or burned out.

And when it happens, they just move on to the next instance. Rinse, repeat. Like locusts.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 20 hours ago

The things is, there's plenty of people who are willing to open their wallet for their services, they just prefer paying corporations, instead of donating to FOSS.

[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 6 points 20 hours ago

meta makes 156B per year, assuming 3.98B users per year (average monthly active users). that's about 39$ revenue per user per year and 3.2$ per user per month.

If you want to make that kind of money, i think they only realistic option adding ads with an option to pay to disable the ads. i never saw a open source project raises that kind of money with fundraising. even then i am not sure it will work because i think i read a report that people who block ads basically don't read them when they can't block so those ads will make no money.

[–] codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I donate about $7 a month to my masto instance (Hachyderm, funny enough) because:

Twitter wanted $10
I know about 1% of users donate
I like having an independent instance run by people I feel ideologically aligned with.

For similar reasons I will very likely donate something to db0 this quarter to support my Lemmy habit.

I still have reason to use Facebook, reddit, Instagram, and those places all suck. It's so dire scrolling there and literally 80% of the content is ads. I canceled all my streaming services this year but I'm still going to pay for independent social media because it's worth it.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 5 points 1 day ago

Great, unfortunately you are in the minority. Seems like only around 2% of the users donate to their instances, and even the ones that do are covering only the hardware costs.

[–] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago

Yeah host-ers on the fediverse are not making money that's for sure.

I self host a number of fedi systems. Mastodon used to be the most "costly" in terms of CPU and storage.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (16 children)

That seems super expensive, and/or some bad math like 4 users on a paid server.

Edit: gets accused of gaslighting by OP... Stay classy! Still Super expensive BTW.

load more comments (16 replies)

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 8 points 1 day ago

9$/month to send toots? Really?

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 4 points 1 day ago

I love how the first admin that reminds immediately says talk not working 32 hours a week lol

[–] Sonor@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Does this apply to lemmy 1/1?

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

https://lemmy.world/post/19466047

[–] Sonor@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thank you! I think in the end it all converges on the same point: support your instances if you like them online

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 1 points 23 hours ago

Indeed!

[–] rglullis@communick.news 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes, unless you want Lemmy instances without any admins.

[–] Sonor@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Good. I feel good about donating then

[–] rglullis@communick.news 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That is orthogonal to the issue. Historically, only around 2% of the users donate, and the overwhelming majority thinks that donations should be only to cover the costs of hosting+hardware. What OP is showing is that the real cost that goes unpaid is the labor of the admins and moderators.

[–] Sonor@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Yes, and it’s a fair point as well.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today -5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wish to get paid for my labor writing this comment.

[–] rglullis@communick.news -4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Do you really think your comment is as valuable of a contribution as those made by the ones running the servers and ensuring that the place is not run over by trolls and spammers?

Are you seriously that entitled to someone else's time and work?

[–] ubergeek@lemmy.today 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Yes. Communities cannot exist without community members.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 2 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

In the grand scheme of things, community members are individually easier to replace than those keeping the service running. E.g, take any community with more than a few hundred users and lose half of them, randomly. Now, take half of the instance admins. More likely than not, the instance will simply stop existing.

[–] Blaze@feddit.org 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Now, take half of the instance admins. More likely than not, the instance will simply stop existing.

And then the people will move elsewhere

feddit.de to feddit.org
vlemmy
kbin.run

Isn't that the point of federation, to be able to use another node if needed?

[–] rglullis@communick.news 1 points 1 hour ago

Isn’t that the point of federation?

No. Being able to move is an advantage compared to centralized platforms, but it is not the "point" of it. It makes the system overall more robust, but it doesn't guarantee or protect the individuals that are part of it.

Do you think that the world wide web would reach the size that it has today if websites had such a short shelf-life? Of course not. It would remain just a geeky curiosity, just like Lemmy or Mastodon. There is a reason why Bluesky is adding one million users per week while we are here counting the same dozen of active people since summer 2023. People generally do not care about how the system works, they just want to something that helps them achieve their goals or solves their problems.

[–] ubergeek@lemmy.today 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Humans are not interchangeable components... that's a disgusting take, honestly...

Every community I've been in can feel through loss in some way, of a member.

This attitude is exactly why you cannot fathom why maybe small instances, ran by volunteers for the community is a viable concept.

Its also why BBSes started their death spiral: people trying to commoditize the community.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

maybe small instances, ran by volunteers for the community is a viable concept.

We are talking about different things. Very different things.

I am not saying that small communities are not viable. I am saying that without substantial financial support, all we are going to get is small communities, and we are not going to be able to compete with the corporate mainstream.

If your ambition is just to keep some obscure corner of the internet, fine. If you want to take back the internet away from Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Reddit, then we need to get a lot more help than just a dozen people pitching in to cover server bills. It will require work. It will require coordination. It will require resilience. It will require sacrifices.

Being upset at Zuckerberg, or making campaigns to "Boycott Threads" is not going to do anything if our side is orders of magnitude smaller than theirs. They will still be exploiting their users. And even if you personally don't use it, or your "community" doesn't use it, there are still plenty of people that I care about that do.

[–] ubergeek@lemmy.today 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I dunno if I speak for everyone else, but all we need are small.communities.

We are not "competing" with anyone or anything.

That's the root of your issue, and it's based on a false premise.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

You are definitely not speaking for the billions of people that are still in the large networks. Do you think they prefer to use Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/TikTok because it's somehow better, or because of network effects?

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It was an attempt at humor. :)

Ok let me say it in a better way. People who work in IT do it because they like it. Many of the first world wide web pages or YouTube videos were made without anyone wanting any money for it. There was no profit motive or expectation whatsoever.

That's why I thought it was funny to read how instance owners are doing labor without getting paid, as if that was the purpose of the instance. To get paid for running it.

To me that's funny. It's a bit like me painting a painting and putting it out there, and asking people to pay for my labor. The hours I spent making it. Because now the painting exists in the world. Who is gonna pay for it?

I believe instance admins are more than happy running the instance without profit motive. Because it's nice to be part of giving something to a community of people.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 2 points 1 day ago

https://raphael.lullis.net/community-is-not-enough/