Hello everyone,

First up, this site was Lodion’s baby. We are all here because of him. He decided a Lemmy instance for Australians needed to exist, mostly free of the dramas of the wider Internet. He set up the whole show and like the Field of Dreams, we all came. I was just a regular user sign-up. I didn’t know he had set any of this up, I was just a Reddit exile when they brought in their API changes that both killed third-party apps, and essentially began the whole “We’re going to sell all your comments to AI companies”. Lodion and I go way back more than 20 years, and when I spotted he was the admin, I volunteered to help out with running the site.

It’s you. All of you. You all have made this community what it is. Take you guys away and it’s all just a bunch of files on a disk and an empty database. Together, we have all built the site that I still see as an oasis that connects to the globe, but you can dip in as little or as much as you like. Even in Lemmy space, Aussie.Zone is not a huge instance. We’ve never tried to be. I still don’t especially want us to be. I’d rather grow by 10 regulars per month who are all chill and easy to help out than see an influx of 20,000 people who would cause a whole pile of new problems that we just aren’t equipped to deal with. I’ve been the more visible of the two of us on the site, but in terms of “management”, my load is maybe 15 minutes per day. Which is great! Because I don’t always have much more than that to give on any given day. 90% of the time, I’m just a regular user with that little red “A” next to my name - nothing more.

Lodion and I have been chatting about him stepping away for a while now. I’m willing to take on the stuff he’s been doing - but he’s been funding the site out of pocket to the tune of around $60ish per month (I haven’t seen the raw finances yet, but the last time Lodion mentioned it, the site was costing something in the ballpark of $100 per month to run) for about a year now - and I am not in a place where I can do that. For what this site is, $100/month is a bargain!

So, I disagree with Lodion. This is going to end up being a call for donors. We (all of us) are going to need to find that money. Frankly, I easily get $5/month value from the site - and there’s 5% all by itself. I believe we can find 20 people who would chip in that much. Frankly, I reckon we could find twice that without getting whiny. Ads are off the table. I hate them. Users hate them. Our users are all smart enough to run adblocks anyway, so I’d only annoy prospective people who aren’t members. I have a couple of ideas for incentives for donors, to hopefully make donating more attractive.

There are a couple of things I could use a hand with, and I might take a few of you up on these offers to help. Things like monitoring finances and reporting incoming/outgoing costs. The Molly project also needs help as well. Stuff I haven’t really had the chance to prioritise.

Before Lodion fades away, I would love to see this thread turn into a bit of a love fest. Shit’s real in his world right now - and a bombardment of love from us all, telling him how much of a difference this site makes to us all, and how grateful we are to him for what he built is in order.

Thank you, mate. I know very well that you don’t personally feel like you have done all that much to make this site what it is - and in some aspects, that is true. But it also wouldn’t be what it is without you. I have laughed, cried, but most importantly, I have found a community here that I love. This instance has been a daily part of my life for over three years now, and perhaps you didn’t make all that - but you made that possible. 100% you. Truly, thank you. ❤️