Reddit migrator here (shocking, I know)
Just wondering because I found out about all this yesterday and just realized the ammount of independent servers, but no sign of any ads or sponsors. So… is it all based on donations?
Also don’t just lurk, if you know you should answer because lemmy only counts users who posted or commented as active users.
It takes money to run, but it doesn’t need money to “be”.
Imagine a group of people rent a building to hang out in; of you’re a regular you chip in some bucks. Lots of people, a few bucks each, roof over your head.
Get out of that “free” mindset. It was a trap all along. Some of us old pharts have known this, some of us (not me) have been coding stuff like Lemmy and other open software all along.
Right away i knew Lemmy.world was viable; I’m gladly paying 5 bucks/mo! No ads! No corporate extraction of personal data!
Hell, pay TWO bucks a month. Seriously wtf 2 bucks you could lose and not notice.
Yup. You can be profitable without expecting to get rich. The insane corporate expectations of “20% growth every year forever” directly leads to the enshitification of everything it touches, especially social media.
It doesn’t have to be profitable. Especially for people that already have computers running 24/7 and good Internet, a Lenny server is just another process they run on their machine. Admin/mod duties would probably be the hardest part.
They’re not - Some instances have a clearer funding structure than others. I picked Lemmy.world in part because they have a clear source of donations.
https://opencollective.com/mastodonworld/donate?interval=oneTime&amount=20&name=&legalName=&email=
The open collective link goes to Mastadon world. Is it related to Lemmy.world? I look on lemmy.world website, and I don’t see a clear link to funding.
Run by the same people. Donations to that link are used for both.
Some have raised concerns about wanting to fund one but not the other (e.g. earmark their donation to Lemmy but not Mastodon) but the admins said they weren’t gonna do that yet.
Any Lemmy/fediverse instance could come up with a localized monetization scheme for people that browse through it, but it wouldn’t affect other instances (or if they were injecting ads into feeds, they’ll just get blocked by everyone else), but for the most part, it’s got more of an IRC server vibe, no monetization needed when community volunteers are plentiful and the barrier to entry is low. Eventually ‘big boys’ like Lemmy.world will want a more formal and reliable way of paying for their server and bandwidth needs beyond primarily unsolicited donations ($ and time) by volunteers.
These are not profit generating services, they are community services. For now.
I’m donating $5 to the Lemmy devs and $5 to Lemmy.world currently on patreon.
The admin of my local lemmy instance is very transparent about hosting costs and has a ko-fi for donations. Last I saw there were enough funds to last several months but I have seen additional activity on the donations since. They have a strong focus on a geographic community and it looks like there is no shortage of people happy to contribute because of the need that fills.
It depends on the instance, some don’t have much of a reason to exist and are probably going to be an out of pocket thing for a sole operator as a hobby project until they lose a job or get bored. Others are going to have some more structured organization running them with some sort of funding structure.
I think this may be the wrong question. I am the administrator of a reverse engineered PS3 video game server, so it’s illegal for me to make a profit or any kind of revenue or donations from that platform. However, I maintain it for thousands of users simply because I and others enjoy it and want it to exist. That’s not a sustainable model for a business or for running something as gigantic as reddit, but it’s what I want and enjoy, and for right now it’s affordable, and I’m happy with that.
People like you make the internet a better place :)
deleted by creator
At this point, even Reddit is not profitable.
I am a proud monthly donor. My couple of bucks I send Ruud and the admin team every month helps make this corner of the internet a reality.
So, that’s how it’s funded.
If you’re able, please consider sending in a donation. You can do so at Open Collective or Patreon.
I would like to see the host push ads, so that it’s sustainable. It doesn’t have anything negative to the community except it will sustain the instance do does the Fediverse.
Ive seen some things (totally unrelated mobile apps) make ads optional. I think its a good idea if youre iffy about having them but do need them to keep the site up, im sure people would be happy to enable ads to support these types of sites. Plus cant be any worse than the shite youtube has for ads
I’m considering a free version on the app stores with limited ads(subtle and no tracking), a paid version without them, and one with optional donations on alternative stores.
I don’t like ads and I don’t want to shove them down unwilling throats, but most people don’t care (and frankly I need the money)
Among the ones that do, there’s those that hate seeing them, and ones with privacy concerns. If I make them subtle and offer an upgrade to remove them, I hope that’ll satisfy one group, and the other one can get a build where the ad libraries were never installed in the first place
Lemmy isn’t profitable, and doesn’t plan to be. It’s not designed to be a moneymaking enterprise, it’s designed to be an decentralized community running on P2P open source software. If you work in the web development or IT industry full time, you likely have the skills to set up an Instance of your own for little or no cost, even of its just a side hobby on your personal computer.
Yes, in a way this means we are the equivalent one of those massive ‘miniature’ train sets that adult hobbiests play with in their garage.
Things can be valuable without being profitable. A hug from someone you love does not generate any profit but is still a good thing that should exist. Likewise, a community resource like a Lemmy instance does not need to justify it’s existence by being profitable. It can simply exist as something that people get value from. The fact that we often lose sight of this is a result of living in a capitalistic society that over-emphasises the value of something producing profit and underemphasises any other possible value. As for the implied question of, how does a Lemmy instance get the money to pay the costs required to run it? That’s going to vary from one instance to another and how that money is raised should be a factor in which one you sign up to and which ones you connect with. In the case of Lemmy.world, it is, afaik, presently (and likely in the future) run as a non-profit for it’s own inherent value and is funded by user donations. A big point of federated communities is to allow those communities to be able to operate for their own benefit, rather than be reliant on commercial investment that will later create a tension of different incentives.
I don’t think a hug was a good example, for the exact reason you mentioned in the second half of your comment. A hug does not cost anything to give, other than a small amount of time. Everyone gets time for free, until they don’t anymore.
Servers cost money AND time, both to get and run the equipment. Not to mention regular maintenance as hard drives especially don’t last forever. It’s easier to do something unprofitable for the sake of it being a valuable thing, such as picking up trash on the side of the road. But most people can’t just give shoes to the homeless because it’s a good thing, simply because that costs money and time, which the average person does not have an exorbitant amount of money to give away.
To me, the question is moreso how do lemmy instances get the money to exist, and OP just used the wrong word. Which as you mentioned, through donations. I also think it would be a pretty neat feature to have a setting where you can enable ads (off by default) to further support the instance without having to directly enter your credit card information.
To me, the question is moreso how do lemmy instances get the money to exist
Yes it is.
That is not the same thing as making a profit.
They’re not, and profit isn’t the reason people run Lemmy instances. In fact, avoiding the problems that arise when human communication is capitalized upon is a driving theme behind open source software and federated social media.
Profit might not be the point, but it is going to cost time and resources to run an instance. Unless the admin is just planning on paying for everyone’s ability to use Lemmy on their instance out of their own pocket, ads or subscriptions may be necessary. And depending on how much time and effort goes into keeping it up, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to want to make a profit on it so they feel like it’s worth the effort.
I’d hate for an instance to blow up in popularity only for the admin to decide it isn’t worth the time/effort/cost and shuts it down.
I think it’s more like a hobby, it doesn’t necessarily NEED to be profitable as long as you and other people enjoy it and contribute to it. So far I’m loving it and it really feels like a breath of fresh air compared to reddit, especially without the karma system
