I know donations are an option, but I don’t think long term donations will be sustainable. Most users will never donate. I don't think that they are not sustainable. If everything works out to be a properly federated network that is made up out of a lot of small to medium sized instances I think that it would be sustainable. Hosting costs should actually not be too expensive. You don't end up with millions of users on a single instance causing it to have massive load. And users are generally more willing to contribute financially if they get the feeling of using a platform that reflects their values and is run with their interest in mind.
this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2023
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Lemmy
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Think the bigger instances hosts will need ads if there’s a large enough audience but that’s OK to an extent when you weigh it up against a free API
As long as it breakeven on costs, doesnt need to make profits
There are Mastodon instances with hundreds of thousands of active users, and none of them are ad supported. Donations generally are capable of paying the operating expenses, as long as the staff is halfway decent at creating a space that people appreciate.
I’m happy to donate and will do, just like buying an app really if once per year.
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There's also the option if user-owned cooperative (like social.coop) - https://blog.opencollective.com/social-coop-a-cooperative-decentralized-social-network/
There are also some masto instances that have their own lemmy instances, funded through their existing funding structures - https://merveilles.town/about
like the rest of the Fediverse: through ingeniosity, community and self-organization!
(understanding "make money" as "pay for its infrastructure and maybe for some dev and other of the essential work now ran by volunteers" not as "profit")