Hello world,
as many of you probably already know, Lemmy is an open source project and its development is funded by donations.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, donations amounts are often going down over time if people are not aware of their necessity. When older users leave the platform they may stop donating, while new users joining will typically not be aware of this and won’t start donating to even things out or even go towards an overall increase in donations.
All of the services provided by our non-profit Fedihosting Foundation are dependent on the development of FOSS platforms, which we can host without paying any licensing or other fees, instead only being required to pay for the infrastructure cost. We are currently investing a small part (€50 each) of the donations we receive in development of Lemmy and Mastodon, but the majority of the donations we receive are used for covering infrastructure costs. We’re currently just about breaking even with the donations we receive, but it’s certainly not enough to cover a large part of Lemmy or other software development costs.
We’re looking to support sustainable software development for all the services we provide and will post similar announcements on our other platforms to promote donations towards the respective development teams in the coming days.
You can find the original announcement by @[email protected] below:
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29579005
An open source project the size of Lemmy needs constant work to manage the project, implement new features and fix bugs. Dessalines and I work full-time on these tasks and more. As there is no advertising or tracking, all of our work is funded through donations. Unfortunately the amount of donations has decreased to only 2000€ per month. This leaves only 1000€ per developer, which is not enough to pay my bills. With the current level of donations I will be forced to find another job, and drastically reduce my contributions to Lemmy. To avoid this outcome and keep Lemmy growing, I ask you to please make a recurring donation:
Liberapay | Ko-fi | Patreon | OpenCollective | Crypto
If you want more information before donating, consider the comparison with Reddit. It began as startup funded by rich investors. The site is managed by corporate executives who over time have become more and more disconnected from normal users. Their main goal is to make investors happy and to make a profit. This leads to user-hostile decisions like firing the employee responsible for AMAs, blocking third-party apps and more. As Reddit is a single website under a single authority, it means all users need to follow the same rules, including ridiculous ones like censoring the name “Luigi”.
Lemmy represents a new type of social media which is the complete opposite of Reddit. It is split across many different websites, each with its own rules, and managed by normal people who actually care about the users. There is no company and no profit motive. Much of the work is carried out by volunteer admins, mods and posters, who contribute out of enthusiasm and not for money. For users this is great as there is no advertising nor tracking, and no chance of takeover by a billionaire. Additionally there are no builtin political or ideological restrictions. You can use the software for any purpose you like, add your own restrictions or scrutinize its inner workings. Lemmy truly belongs to everyone.
Dessalines and I work fulltime on Lemmy to keep up with all the feature requests, bug reports and development work. Even so there is barely enough time in the day, and no time for a second job. Previously I sometimes had to rely on my personal savings to keep developing Lemmy for you, but that can’t go on forever. We partly rely on NLnet for funding, but they only pay for development of new features, and not for mandatory maintenance work. The only available option are user donations. To keep it viable donations need to reach a minimum of 5000€ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500€ per developer. If that goal is reached Dessalines and I can stop worrying about money, and fully focus on improving the software for the benefit of all users and instances. Please use the link below to see current donation stats and make your contribution! We especially rely on recurring donations to secure the long-term development and make Lemmy the best it can be.
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I donated! Great job, and I really appreciate your work.
Done, sponsor level on Patreon.
I donated a few bucks.
I see the controversy in the comments section, but none of us would be here if it wasn’t for the work of the devs.
I remember internet forums in the 90s and early 2000s and I’ve played MMO civilization roleplaying Minecraft servers with IRL nazis, takies, fascists, etc. Some of those communities made 4Chan look like Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. From my own experience ml has “character” and so do beehaw and dbzer0. These cultural differences are enabled by decentralized social media. There’s validity to the idea that the sign-up process should capture more of these nuances. You don’t have to look any further than your own instance to find bad takes and imperfect admins and moderators, but they’re still the best of the best because they actually did it and the people talking about them didn’t. Maybe I’m uneducated on this and I’ll change my mind, but as it stands I’m cool until they force tank emojis on .world users.
I do think it’s good that this type of talk happens, as it allows instances to develop a reputation.
No i will never donate , this format is just jerking off Linux enthusiast, and every time I say Linux in unusable I get negatively marked. Content on this is not so good.its many time repeat of Reddit. There is not a easy way or guide on how to use Lemmy and connect to all differn t forums within or even find them .
In total this format is useful but not encouraging. So no donations
Nah. If the project starves and shuts down I’ll just go without. I’ll never donate money to social media platforms
Lol no
Im okay, was gonna donate. But not if it supports lemmy.ml
I used to put up $50/mo to Hexbear, until they banned me for defending the DSA.
So far, the politics on this community have been dogshit. But the moderation has been generally fair, friendly, and functional. To you, I say, Shut Up and Take My Money. Thanks for letting me continue my shitposting habits, even if we’ve agreed to disagree.
Lotta no’s based on people who can’t stand being in a room with other people just because of different political beliefs. I don’t follow .ml’s philosophy, and I don’t care. Take em, leave em. Whatever.
They aren’t why I’m not on Reddit.
Remember why you’re here. If you can’t handle discourse with people who see the world differently then go back to Mastodon and save us your intolerance. Discourse is the lifeblood of a site like this, different opinions are part of being human. Grow up.
but t-they support such and such genocide!!
Then protest them louder. Don’t bring the rest of us down over it, not that it isn’t mostly sensationalist to begin with.
The comments are a full microcosm showcasing why Lemmy will stay underground and it will never overtake reddit
Is it possible donate to Lemmy development without contributing to Lemmy.ml?
Nah.
ml can shit itself and rot. So can the rest of Lemmy if that’s not a price that’s worth being paid.
No.
These money will go to two people who created and actively maintain and promote an instance pretending the brutal murder of Ukranians is not happening but also necessary, and deleting and banning contrary opinions.
No.
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