How are we going to pay for all this?

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?

cwagner,

deleted_by_author

    •
    RagingNerdoholic,

    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.___

    freedomenjoyer,

    Communities can get quite big, the big communities would be quite expensive to be hosted right?

    TGM_lemmy1,

    HW gets cheaper. And prolly in big group will be some ppl who can donate. And we are going to experience burst of bots. One way how to fight them is pay little for posting. Or maybe we shutdown internet BCS of CO2. Everyone need to decide if they wanna pay with money or data, there is no free lunch.

    freedomenjoyer,

    Shut down the internet because of co2?!

    fej,
    @fej@sh.itjust.works avatar

    While both HW and power gets cheaper (in the grand scheme of things), the consumption of natural resources does not. Data centers that run everything you do online consume a lot of power. That does not mean you need to stay offline or else the planet dies, but IMO, everyone should keep it in mind.

    RagingNerdoholic,

    I don't host any instances myself, but I have experience with web hosting in general. Yes, the hardware will need to scale vertically with more activity, but I don't know what lemmy's anticipated load thresholds are.

    I would guess a decent i7 with an SSD and 16GB+ RAM would handle lemmy quite comfortably for a good while. So the expense isn't entirely trivial, but it's nothing compared to a centralized service with hundreds of millions of regular users.

    can,

    Hell, I'm already practically wasting a few domains already as is. Maybe some day I'll set up a subdomain with my own instance.

    TWanderer,

    We ask u/spez for the money ...

    nxlemmy,
    @nxlemmy@lemmy.ml avatar

    https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/77acf962-0171-4bf0-bfe5-bb4ab820866b.png

    Reddit used to have something similar to health bar showing how much "gold" was bought to support the website. but later on out of greed they started using it as a paywall.

    We can have a health bar that doesnt paywall ANY features and very transparently displays funds raised\used for a server. It can be used to display how much funds its being supported, how much server costs are, salaries for open source maintainers, mods, etc.

    gylotip,

    This is a great idea.

    itsmikeyd,

    Really nice merch, with small logos on. Think how the LTT stealth stuff is.

    odib7,

    I know some people love merch but I've never really seen the appeal. If I want to support something I like I would rather purchase their media (artist) or donate directly if they have that option.

    I do agree though if there is merch, I would vote for smaller logos.

    itsmikeyd,

    Just another form of revenue. The more revenue streams, the better. Merch is good because it means people get something physical back for their money.

    Teotwawki,

    I've never really seen the appeal.

    Wearing t-shirts has helped me to meet folks with similar interests in real life. Critical Role, Onewheel, mountain bike brand merch, etc. I could see striking up a conversation with someone wearing a Lemmy logo, if one exists.

    Rogueren,

    I think Lemmy, like Mastodon, will crumble if people don't wrap their heads around federation. Mastodon stuggled because everyone just joined mastodon.social, not understanding that the server you join only affects your local timeline.

    We need to teach people that you can join a small instance and still get 99% of the stuff you want from every other instance

    if_you_can_keep_it,

    My local timeline is literally the whole reason I joined this particular instance. There isn't enough traffic in the niche subs, so I find a popular instance with posts that tend towards my interests, instead.

    kosama,
    @kosama@socel.net avatar

    @if_you_can_keep_it @Rogueren Assuming that one Federated Service is the end all be all user experience for what you’d like to share can hurt many. In Mastodon I kept seeing people (during the Twitter Exodus) who wanted multi-sever posting to each local feed under one account. Like Lemmy’s cross site posts, not sure if Lemmy lets you cross post multiple times to different communities. But some basically wanted Mastodon to work like Lemmy and FB Groups.

    e.g. Main Post -> Community 1, Community 2

    Borgzilla,
    @Borgzilla@lemmy.ca avatar

    YES. People need to understand how federation works. The more instances there are the better. It would be nice if each instance could have its own 'personality' either through custom styles or specific functionalities. It would motivate people to join multiple instances.

    gds,

    Speaking as someone who totally doesn't understand federation (but totally does get servers being overloaded) - I can completely see why they all joined what appears to be the primary instance. I did. I really struggled to work out which server to join and had to wade through a few that had their own special rules (eg "no creating communities here" - idr which one that was tho).

    I ended up joining lemm.ee simply because it seems like a nice generic server set up to do general stuff with that wasn't lemmy.ml. Is that a good choice? idk.

    I had a similar problem grasping mastodon (actually the reason I didn't really use it in the end).

    Lemmy servers need to work more like Counterstrike or TF2 or WoW servers (edit: or IRC servers - that's probably a better comparison tbh), where you might want to join a specific server with its own personality, but most people probably don't care and are more interested in whether it performs well and is likely to be around a while. I also think some simple things like making the server less prominent in the UI and not making local communities the default view would help loads with people not feeling like they're less because they're not on the primary instance.

    Edit: LMAO except I didn't. I posted using the account I'd made on lemmy.ml but decided not to use. Lemmying is hard, yo.

    can,

    I think the server needs to be prominent in the ui for now at least so people remember where to log in to

    See: your edit lol

    newformulared,

    yep this pretty much outlines my first several hours on this website. Still confused lol

    pproe,

    I know that it is not a popular topic in 2023 but a blockchain currency that allows users to 'award' posts/comments (similar to tipping in /r/dogecoin days) could provide instance owners with a source of income by taking a small portion of tips on their server.

    Such a system would likely scale alongside user activity (read server load) and would encourage higher quality content. Would love to hear peoples thoughts on this.

    Sekoia,

    Why would it have to be blockchain? Plus like the other commenter said, that provides incentive to bot comments and such. Donation based stuff works fine.

    pproe,

    Blockchain has been used previously (see dogetipbot) in a similar concept and worked well.

    Since tips would be given at the discretion of users finding certain comments particularly good, a bot would only be able to abuse the system by creating good comments.

    I have seen of many instances not being funded sufficiently through donations. If the level of user donations is able to cover only 50% of operation costs for an instance, if monthly upkeep is say $60, then it is reasonable for an owner to subsidize the rest. But, as lemmy (and consequently each community) grows in popularity, a 50% coverage of operational costs is simply not sustainable. That is, without a tactic such as Wikipedia's notorious pity-ware ad banners.

    Providing an alternative method of funding could assist instance owners to keep the community running.

    can,

    Wouldn't spammers just buy them though? Or would it be a cosmetic thing only? Not actually promoting the content more?

    pproe,

    I think sorting of posts should be handled entirely by upvotes and downvotes. I was suggesting such a system to work alongside it, similar to reddit awards.

    00111010_01000100,

    Honestly I would hate that, but if that's what keeps the lights on then I'll deal with it. I would prefer to move to an anonymous donation model like Wikipedia but I'm skeptical that will work.

    Lemon_Man,

    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.

    can,

    à la tumblr

    Debs,

    What would the checkmark mean?

    petriborg,

    Just that you support the lemmy community.

    pinwurm,
    @pinwurm@lemmy.ml avatar

    Wikipedia is the 7th most visited website in the world, more popular than Amazon, TikTok, even PornHub. It's not funded by advertisers or other bullshit - rather through reader donations.

    With that said, Wikipedia is still centralized content whereas Lemmy isn't. Meaning there's fewer expenses and pressure on any one instance or server to succeed. And if one instance or server doesn't succeed, your access to the Federation is far from over.

    Debs,

    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.

    A donation drive could be a good model but the decentralized nature of the platform would complicate things.

    pinwurm,
    @pinwurm@lemmy.ml avatar

    It doesn't have to be complicated. It can be patreon pages for servers & instances you support, which is enough to keep the lights on. Especially if it unlocks a little cosmetic token or icon.

    redditors_re_racist,

    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

    Lexam,

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

    can,

    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.

    Debs,

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

    TWeaK,

    What happens to your account on a federated server if that one fails though?

    can,

    As someone who burned reddit accts regularly this doesn't really concern me. But if it really worries you couldn't you set up your own private instance with you as the sole user? Nothing is more reliable than yourself. Even corporations with millions of dollars can close up shop at a moments notice.

    AmazingWizard,

    Then you need a new account I think. It's a limitation of the ActivityPub protocol I think (but I haven't done any reading). Your identity is tied to the instance it was created on.

    reric88,
    @reric88@beehaw.org avatar

    Donate to the devs!

    octet33,

    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.

    BillTheTailor,

    Apropos of nothing, where are you finding domains for $10/year?

    can, (edited )

    I mean inflation might have hit them a little bit but dot coms have always been around $10 in my mind. Other TLDs can vary but you can get good deals through promotions sometimes.

    Were only talking about the address here.

    owldyn,

    I was able to get a .win domain for $4.16 yearly on cloudflare. Cloudflare seems to have some pretty cheap domains.

    CaptainBasculin,

    Check tld-list.com for price comparisons of different domain providers.

    Communist,
    @Communist@lemmy.ml avatar

    Since it's distributed, the cost doesn't even compare to a centralized instance. It's really hard to say how much it would cost to host everyone across the fediverse, but because of decentralization, it'll be a hell of a lot easier to achieve.

    Heraldique,

    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.

    httpjames,
    @httpjames@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Personally I plan on donating the price of Reddit Premium to my instance owner

    Barbarian,
    @Barbarian@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Whenever he figures out donations that is :))

    I don't know what kinda person happens to have a massive server cluster sitting around waiting to go, but @TheDude is the dude, and the dude abides.

    Frz,

    Hello fellow sh.it user! Yeah, TheDude is amazing and the server hardware stats are absolutely insane (considering it’s all hosted by a guy who does it as an hobby). Kudos to him and I’m proud to be part of this home instance.

    luckystarr,

    Put up a yearly donation drive (like Wikipedia) but unlike Wikipedia do:

    1. a competition between the various instances, on which collects the most donations
    2. not shift the page content when displaying the donation banner!

    Ideally the donations will be handled through a non-profit org dedicated to this particular purpose. If the donation level is high enough, developers can be hired to further improve the source code. Currently the funds are managed through OpenCollective, but with enough growth this may not be feasible any longer.

    This will most likely lead to heated debates as this will build a somewhat centralized organization, which necessarily comes with power concentration.

    swnt,

    a competition between the various instances, on which collects the most donations

    Can you elaborate? I have the impression, that we need to think more deeply about how the donations should be distributed. E.g. a users fund are donated proportional to their subscribed Communities? I think it's difficult, as people's time spent on a community doesn't necessarily mean it's proportionally valuable. I've had a few subreddits which I used rarely but we're quite important to me.

    luckystarr,

    Each instance is free to field their own donation drives for their running cost. They even can display advertisements if they feel like it. There is no "one size fits all" here, and there shouldn't.

    Each instance is potentially in a different jurisdiction, making it hard to transfer money, etc.

    Not only that, but I think having funds centrally collected and then distributed is a particularly bad idea. It comes with too much opportunities for bad blood. Money and friendship don't mix.

    The only unifying constant of the network is the software that runs it. This though needs to be improved in various areas, for which centrally collected funds would be ideal, as every instance will benefit from it. No operator of any instance would have a disadvantage from advertising the central donation drive. They would benefit from it by having better software in the end.

    nieceandtows,

    We can setup some sort of raffles. $5 donation for entry, winner(s) gets a $100 (or higher depending on participation) giftcard of their choice.

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