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.
edit, as this was frequently brought up:
Will donations to Lemmy development go towards the operation of lemmy.ml?
It depends on the donation method used and is limited to around 2% of the minimum overall donation goal. The vast majority of donations is exclusively used for developer salaries.
lemmy.ml hosting is only financed by donations via Opencollective. All other donations go exclusively to developer salaries.
[source]
For donations via Open Collective, yes, a tiny fraction of donations towards Lemmy development will go towards the operation of lemmy.ml. The reasons for this include that lemmy.ml is used for testing new releases and also that it’s not worth maintaining a separate donation account for the instance. Additionally, it should be noted that the money going towards lemmy.ml hosting is just a tiny fraction of the funds that are being asked for. Hosting lemmy.ml costs around €100/month, which is only 2% of the stated minimum donation goal.
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Just threw in a couple bucks! Loving Lemmy, it lacks the stench of capitalism that reddit fell victim to. Thank you to everyone who makes this place work!
Is it possible to donate a server instance?
i.e. Reserve one for 12 months on Digital Ocean, Hezner, etc and transfer ownership
Im okay, was gonna donate. But not if it supports lemmy.ml
thanks to those who donate and keep this place running, cuz I can’t right now :)
removed by mod
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.
Being Ukrainian it’s not possible for me to donate to supporters of russian genocidal imperialism.
I hope both of them meet the same fate as “Donbas Cowboy”, Russell Bentley:
Bentley’s wife, Lyudmila, then claimed that Russian soldiers from a tank battalion abducted him.
According to the Investigative Committee, Vansyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov tortured Bentley on April 8, and he died shortly afterward.
I am personally hoping that the core software will be forked while retaining the Lemmy name. Change it to Lemmy-TSF (tankie scum free). I would donate monthly to a development team that doesn’t include genocide supporters.
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.
If half the people circlejerking in here were serious they could pay a liberal developer to contribute instead, but somehow I doubt that’s happening.
While I understand the moral objections people have to supporting the developers, I do think its fair to highlight how they do not treat us.
We are not a product here to be exploited and advertised to. They also respect your choice to block ml and not to interact with them at all for the rest. I am sure I would be absolutely abhorred by the depth of depravity of your average silicon valley CEO’s hot takes, but they dont share it for this exact reason. Instead they just design their entire product and business around it, which is the enshittification we all know and hate.
People you dont agree with having a place of their own on the fediverse is a logical consequence of the idea behind it, and while uncomfortable, is a greater good in the end.
But to maintain that it means putting your money where your mouth. If not to them, to your own instance.
And how exactly are bunch of genocide supporters who claim to be leftists (russia is an authoritarian capitalist state) any better than some American oligarchs?
Very well said. Everything good in life, will have some aspects that you (the global ‘you’) won’t like.
Lemmy is a huge improvement over corporate social media. Maybe it has some ideologies you don’t like here, but it beats an algorithm that secretly manipulates you.
If I use a FOSS product, then I try to pay for it, even if it’s not perfect. For example, Firefox gets a lot of well deserved hate but without it I’m not sure there would be a realistic FOSS browser.
My experience anywhere on Lemmy that .ml touches has been notably worse than anything I have experienced on reddit.
Very well said. In addition, the fact that they hold the beliefs they do makes them extremely resistant to flipping and getting on the enshittification wagon.
I am sure I would be absolutely abhorred by the depth of depravity of your average silicon valley CEO’s hot takes
That’s a really good point.
Also, the Lemmy devs might have authoritarian views but work off of donations while the silicon valley CEOs are some hyper-capitalists with power. The lesser evil seems clear to me.
In a former life I worked in the financial sector. The only reason statesia hasn’t genocided itself to bones already is because all the ceos have been incompetent stumbling over each others’ plans for genocide and (fortunately for us, depending on how depressed you are) kept fucking it up for so long.
People you dont agree with having a place of their own on the fediverse is a logical consequence of the idea behind it, and while uncomfortable, is a greater good in the end.
We’re also not required to fund those people. I don’t care if they exist, but I will not be party to their bullshit
You’re not required to do anything, let alone directly funding ml. That’s not what I am arguing for. I am arguing for you to support Lemmy despite the chance some of it might go to ml.
It goes the other way too, the developers probably disagree with a large part of the beliefs of people using lemmy, yet they also put in their time to create and foster it, which we never had to pay for either. They did it for the reasons they mention (free spaces, not owned by corporations that suck their users dry), which is separate from their other political positions.
I am arguing for you to support Lemmy despite the chance some of it might go to ml.
They have been up-front about this (surprisingly) - there is no “might.” Donating to these devs is a donation to lemmy.ml, without exception.
Not true, lemmy.ml is only funded by donations via Opencollective. All other donation platforms go exclusively to developer salaries.
Yeah, it’s literally all over this thread, not exactly a secret. It’s kind of a weird nitpick of my comment, considering it’s just a way of phrasing things. If I give an alcoholic some money, I will say “they might use that to buy booze”. Because I am sure they buy booze, but they might use my money to buy some food instead. Not every single dollar you give the developers will go to ml.
I saw somewhere an estimate of 2%. Another estimate was much less.
Certainly more than 2% of Lemmy use goes to people who hate .ml!
Maybe the haters can see it that way: donating to support Lemmy to support Lemmy.world to continue hating on lemmy.ml!
You should delete the app then, if it’s so important to you.
https://sh.itjust.works/comment/18374613
I’ll donate money to individual instances, but for as long as Nutomic/Dessalines is in charge of the .ml instance I will not be donating to them.
Not judging and correct me if I got it wrong. You like Lemmy and want to support it but you personally don’t like the developers of Lemmy?
I don’t like what they’re doing, they are actively using their positions and instances position of influence to push harmful propaganda, misinformation, censor opinions critical of it and all the while turning a blind/lenient eye to what their users do if they consider them to be ideologically aligned with them.
If they actually surrendered .ml admin duties to a more balanced team that actually allowed non-Tankie mods to well mod, I would reconsider donating.
While I consider their “ideology” to be harmful, if they stopped trying to “infuse” Lemmy with it and separated their work from their personal politics it would satisfy a lot of concerns
That’s a lie you are free to run your own instance
Thank you. Seems I was correct then.
How do they exploit their position as devs to push their political agenda? Do they add something to the code that gives them some exclusive benefits?
If you mean they just host their own instance, isn’t it the whole point of Lemmy and what all the other instances are doing? Some even block other instances that do not match their political bias to not ruin their echo chamber. I mean I’m on lemmy.world which probably would be more accurately named lemmy.ultra.left.usa for some time now.
I fully understand you not wanting to support lemmy.ml financially and want to point out that only one donation method is used to help hosting it, all the others will not benefit lemmy.ml exclusively but will benefit all the other instances and lemmy as a whole.
How do they exploit their position as devs to push their political agenda? Do they add something to the code that gives them some exclusive benefits?
Look at how the .ml instance is positioned. People will hear “That instance is run by the devs and all support and other official development comms are on it” and will automatically gravitate to it and the reputation of Lemmy as a whole becomes tied to it. And other instances are hesitant to defed from it because of that.
So now the devs are in a defacto position of influence, regardless of if they want it or not. Now they have a choice, they can moderate it fairly and unbiased (i.e. not using it to further their personal politics) or separate its day to day operations to another admin team. As another commentator in this thread put it “The devs should do dev work and not mod work, and the admin team should do mod work and not dev work”
They’ve already proven that they cant do the first choice so now the only viable option is the second one, which they’re probably not gonna address.
If you mean they just host their own instance, isn’t it the whole point of Lemmy and what all the other instances are doing? Some even block other instances that do not match their political bias to not ruin their echo chamber. I mean I’m on lemmy.world which probably would be more accurately named lemmy.ultra.left.usa for some time now.
Because of my first point, they tied all sorts of official development stuff to .ml, many instances don’t want to defederate because of that and the perception (it doesn’t really hold when you look at MAUs) that they have the biggest comms on lemmy, it’s almost akin to holding them hostage in my eyes “if you or your mods want official on-lemmy lemmy support, official announcements or access to Lemmys BIGGEST comms then you HAVE to stay federated with us!”
Things would be different if they were just running a personal instance with no official Lemmy anything on it, then it would be much easier for instances to make a defederation decision, just like the rest of the triad
Donating to Lemmy development is a donation to .ml. They make it that way. If you don’t want to donate to an authoritarian instance, then you can’t donate to development. It’s not very complicated.
How so when they specifically say only one type of donations will go to the ml?
I mean we don’t need “some dude said” when we have the devs telling us themselves:
lemmy.ml hosting is only financed by donations via Opencollective. All other donations go exclusively to developer salaries.
https://lemmy.world/post/29114540/16863750
You may not believe them but I don’t see why, it’s not like it costs a lot of money.
I think a more valid point against donations is from the other answer to my comment about devs presenting lemmy.ml as a kinda official instance or as a face of lemmy which is pretty bad for lemmy regardless of your political views.
Yikes, this is big for me. I love Lemmy but I have strong aversions against funding bad politics, even if they aren’t politicians.
What kind of views and ideologies are they pushing? Also are they a couple or something?
Putn is right, ukranians are nazis so all crimes against them are in dact blessings. Baltics are next and all need to die for being under german occupation in the past. Don’t you dare critisize agent kresnov! Etc etc. vile crimes against humanity shit, homophobia and anti lgbtq propaganda.
People who want russia to dominate the world.
Are you saying the developers of Lemmy are of these opinions?! If so, that’s absolutely horrible. I want to support the development of Lemmy, but I want to do the opposite of supporting people like that! I want to take money from people like that!
Feel free to check “MeanwhileOnGrad” yourself.
Just linkifying this for mobile users: [email protected]
I’m scared. Is that a community?
This is, unfortunately, the necessary view to take. Lemmy the software is a net positive, but nobody should be giving money to support their extremism and love of censorship, particularly when it happens on what’s arguably the “official” instance.
Numotic and Dessalines actively cultivate very toxic content:
- Pro-Russia, blaming Ukraine as a Nazi aggressor;
- Pro-Chinese Communist Party, banning discussion of the mistreatment of the Uighur minority or the anti-democratic takeover of Hong Kong;
- Anti-Semitic, going way beyond the confines of criticism of the current Israeli government, on to hateful comments about all Israelis as a people, and sometimes Jews in general,
- Pro-Communism, at times advocating for the violent overthrow of Western governments by Marxist groups.
- Strongly in favor of left wing dictatorships, like Venezuela, decrying any discussion of human rights and democracy as capitalist propaganda.
If you disagree with these positions, too bad! Because your posts will be deleted, or you’ll get banned, or your instance defederated, from 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.
Comments are a hilarious minefield and a painful reminder of exactly how online leftists can never get shit done. We want FOSS federated social media platforms to escape the tech giants that would happily facilitate a fascist wave if it meant they can serve more targeted ads. But when that platform actually exists in a totally functional and apolitical way, we don’t want to support its development because the people willing to work full time on the project for poverty wages have bad political opinions. It’s so bad that we’d rather support Steve Huffman’s bot farm which is 1,000 times as politically influential as Lemmy will ever be at this rate.
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?
