Asklemmy

I just signed up for the Lemmy.ml patreon. I wish they had a $5 per month option, but I can just not skip ordering doordash one extra time and help pay for this instance. I use the hell out of it so it's the least I can do.

I would like to join a cooperatively owned instance.

I have been tempted to join cosocial.ca, however I don't care for microblogging (Mastodon) as much as something forum-like such as a Lemmy instance.

I think the price is spread out across multiple generous people that generously host instances. I think it really depends on how much members there are. From what I heard my instance is 25 $ a month. Another instance I was in on Mastodon cost a few hundreds bucks to run. This is why it is good to help out your fellow admins. On the other hand, lemmy and other fediverse software are open source, so they don't really have to pay for developpers. Also the scope of what lemmy or Mastodon do is considerably smaller that Facebook, Twitter and the likes. Facebook isn't just a social media, it's a spying engine and an ad recommendation platform, Lemmy and mastodon are just social medias, so of course it costs less to do.

I'm running a barebones server for myself and a few communities (not many subs yet) which will run for less than a Starbucks coffee a month... (Assuming I don't need more storage space... Lemmy seems pretty light. The main servers are gonna carry the load unfortunately... Beehaw.org had a transparency post about financials as of about a week ago they said something that their instance was costing like 50-75ish a month of I recall.

Really, the only direct cost of lemmy is the development. That's the beauty of lemmy's decentralized nature, the cost of actually running it is spread out among tech hobbyists with spare hardware and time (edit: and only ~$30/year or less for a domain name), or may even have some money to throw at new hardware. For most people, the connectivity doesn't incur any additional cost to whatever they're already paying for internet access.

There are plenty of free and excellent open source projects that neither charge money or generate profits, they're driven by passionate developers who give their and talent for the enjoyment of it and betterment of the community.___

donations to my favorite instances, like wikipedia i hope :)

Donate to the devs!

The thing is, Lemmy is decentralized. You don't need to have an account on an instance (server) to use that instance's "subreddits" (communities) - instances communicate their activity to each other automatically, so any instance will do (provided the instances haven't banned each other). It's just like email.

So it's pretty simple to just stop accepting sign-ups once an instance starts to become impractically large. Anyone can start an instance for just the cost of a domain ($10ish/year, or free if it's a subdomain of an existing website) and a server (that random computer you already have lying around will do just fine, for free). And a small instance can do fine on just donations and the good will of the operator.

sell checkmarks like Tumbler.

for x$ a month get a checkmark next to your name on posts. in whatever colours you pay for. buy checkmarks for others.

Are ads forbidden?

We ask u/spez for the money ...

I think the instance owner would have to limit number of posts a day if funding is running low, and would ask for donations before the post limit is removed. If no one donates, then I suppose its either shutting down an instance, or begin serving ads. Hmm pls dont become another reddit. I don't want to see another community get shut down.

I'd love hosting a chunk on my anyways online Linux box (and if it was easy I could put up another junk box or two (like i3-i5 8GB 256GB-512GB/1-4TB) if it fits on a 1Gb ethernet line, but I admit I don't have the time (/energy) for all the stuff around (I'd do backups) especially if the hardware breaks or there are troll infestations etc.

Before the whole world migrates to Lemmy, maybe we could hold on by teaming up in some way.

Maybe my shard should be about doing just that, and hopefully people wanting to set up 'lemmys' could gather and share experiences and help.

Thoughts?