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How are we going to pay for all this? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by psylancer to c/[email protected]

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I'm really enjoying lemmy. I think we've got some growing pains in UI/UX and we're missing some key features (like community migration and actual redundancy). But how are we going to collectively pay for this? I saw an (unverified) post that Reddit received 400M dollars from ads last year. Lemmy isn't going to be free. Can someone with actual server experience chime in with some back of the napkin math on how expensive it would be if everyone migrated from Reddit?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wikipedia is set up as a nonprofit. They have annual fundraising drives asking their users for money. They also have an endowment and receive grants.

when you donate money, you're not funding wikipedia's operating costs. wikipedia itself is self sufficient. what you're funding instead is the wikimedia foundation- which is set up to not receive grants but to give them.

the drives are misleading, to say the least

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it is not funded through user donations, how is it self sufficient? Genuinely curious.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Idk what he's referring to, but wikimedia funds the operating costs of Wikipedia as well as the salaries etc of those that work to keep the site running.

They have been criticised for bloat, but the site itself is entirely dependent upon donations.

WP has a story that sums it up nicely: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/02/wikipedia-has-a-ton-of-money-so-why-is-it-begging-you-to-donate-yours/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wish they would be more upfront about it. Wouldn't have a problem donating to fund grants. But I want to know upfront.

[–] can 1 points 1 year ago

I read on reddit that they have to do the drives in this way in order to amintsin some sort of charity or non profit status? Something along those lines. Like they have enough in the bank to be fine but they need to do this for some legal reason.

Forgive my half recollection of a reddit comment that could have been bs in the first place.