Hi. I’m new to Lemmy. Here’s what I’m wondering. How Lemmy servers are paid. If the person who opens the server no longer wants to pay this fee, the server has to shut down. How is this issue resolved?
I think an important part about choosing instances (across the whole fediverse, not just Lemmy) will be to inspect an instance’s plan for paying the bills. As you say, this stuff isn’t free and even the most enthusiastic admin isn’t going to foot the bill for very long on their own.
It seems clear to me now that the traditional way of paying for services via ad revenue doesn’t work for the end user. It is open to abuse by those selling the ad space, detrimental to the users, and ultimately doomed to… well, Reddit.
The only other viable alternative is a system based on user donations, with everyone contributing within their means, plus a bit of transparency on the part of the server admins. I’ve made my peace with having a small amount of money per month being my “fediverse budget”, a couple of quid here and there to support the services that I enjoy using. I hope that enough users also come to this realisation too.
I will absolutely donate if this is what’s needed. I’m one of those people that donate generously to Wikipedia when asked until I find a reason not to. I find it to be a useful resource and want to see it remain ad-free. I do the same for other websites and will do so with the Fediverse if needed.
I already donate regularly for websites that matter to me, so wouldn’t have a problem with donating to my favorite instances. Somehow I’m OK with semi-regular donations at my pace, but not with mandatory subscriptions. I’m just weird?
It’s important to chose a instance with a reputable host.
Don’t go join your neighbors basement troll server.
Pick something that’s established, then they will typically not shut down.
Single-user basement troll servers are the way forward in the fediverse.
Use ZeroTier or Tailscale tunneling if you’re hosting from your home network (fuck Cloudflare, all my homies hate Cloudflare). You can also rent a cloud server, put a VPN on it and tunnel all of the traffic to your homeserver without exposing the homeserver itself to the internet. Or just put the instance on the cloud server itself.
(fuck Cloudflare, all my homies hate Cloudflare)
I might be out of the loop, why?
If high fees have to be paid, community donation systems should be established. It would be nice to see what percentage of the next month’s server expenses could be covered in this system. In this way, everyone supports in line with their financial power.
World has some Patreon links in the sidebar. So does Dessalines over on lemmy.ml personally I’ve signed up for both, I want to help however I can, and I certainly can’t code so I may as well buy these guys lunch/server space
I must be blind… where is this patreon link for Lemmy.world you speak of, fellow Lemming?
