Lemmy needs more donations

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Sal@mander.xyz⁩ to ⁨mander@mander.xyz⁩

cross-posted from: 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.

Donate

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Comments

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Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Counterpoint

sh.itjust.works/comment/18374613

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- Sal@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That’s fair. I have a generally positive opinion of the devs even if I disagree with some of their views. Moderating is not easy, and especially not when you get into heated political territory - that’s why personally I “cheat” a bit by dissuading politics within this instance ;) A small select list of mod actions is not something that sways my opinion. It is tricky to process some reports and sometimes we can make bad calls.
  
  But it is true that this context will affect someone else’s opinion differently, so it is good for others to be aware of some of this context before deciding to donate.
  
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  - Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Don’t get me wrong I really like Lemmy.
    
    I have no love for Tankies though. It’s a difficult position.
    
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- Irelephant@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  counter-counterpoint - .ml costs ~€30/month to run, most of the money you donate doesn’t fund it.
  Funding lemmy helps every other instance much more than it helps .ml.
  
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  - hakase@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It’s not just the server costs - it also compensates the devs for all of the valuable time they spend censoring people on .ml too!
    
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  - Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I do not care to donate to .ml, that’s all. There are many reasons for that, quite a few are in the comment and post I linked to.
    
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- comfy@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Relevant context: lemmy.ml/comment/18395421
  
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  - Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That comment contradicts what I linked to. And the first reply to that comment (by someone else) links to the same comment I did.
    
    Either donations are separate, or they are not.
    
    Which is true? Nutomic was tagged in the post, last I saw they had not replied.
    
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- lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There’s PieFed and SubLinks; both fill the same niche as Lemmy in the Fediverse. Contributing with money or code for either is an option, for those who’d rather avoid doing it for Lemmy.
  
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- BB84@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This is like telling people to not donate to Wikipedia because you don’t like Wikileaks.
  
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  - Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It’s really not even remotely anything like that
    
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acockworkorange@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I can’t bring myself to donate to authoritarians or their instance. They’ve made their bed, they can lay on it. I’d rather donate more to the Internet Archive.

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- Sal@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That is perfectly understandable! The Internet Archive is a worthy project to donate to!
  
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southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Unfortunately, this runs into the whole art vs artist issue.

See, lemmy is awesome. The two devs wanting money are not. Now, they can do what they want, but I’m not going to pay them anything. They’re asking for a salary, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But why would I “hire” someone that behaves the way they do towards people?

IDGAF about their politics, so long as it isn’t part of lemmy code, I can separate any disagreement I have there so long as they keep it on their own instance.

But the way they behave towards people just isn’t something I can donate to. Mind you, I’ve never seen either be jerks away from .ml, only there. But even there, they violate their own rules often enough that it isn’t exactly attractive. My donations budget is already tiny, there’s no way it’s going to them as people, no matter how much I like lemmy

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- nutomic@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Please show me where I behaved as a jerk on lemmy.ml.
  
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  - southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m not digging through months of comments and posts to dig things up. It’s so beyond a waste of time I can spend doing something fun that it just ain’t happening.
    
    Both you and dessalines do a shit ton of work on lemmy, and that’s awesome. But you both also turn into absolute jerks when anyone doesn’t toe the tankie line. Dessalines more than you, and you’ve never been a jerk to me personally. I can’t remember which of you it was that I saw most recently calling people children, but it was one of the two of you.
    
    And that’s okay, it’s y’alls instance. If I don’t like it, I don’t have to engage with either of you.
    
    But, please, don’t pretend that it isn’t a very bad habit that exists. Hell, it isn’t all the time anyway, so it falls within the range that anyone can be a jerk and it just be bad days, or whatever, but it’s still not something I’m going to be willing to donate to when my sheets entire yearly budget for that kind of thing is in low double digits to begin with.
    
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- Gloomy@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  But why would I “hire” someone that behaves the way they do towards people?
  
  You are not hireing them, tough. You are using their service, a service they a putting a lot of work in and that might be one of the only real alternatives to corporate sites right now.
  
  By donating you are not hireing anybody, you are deciding that you are able and willing to support the service they provide to you.
  
  In regards to the second point: I am close to 100% sure that there are areas, where you spend money on people or companies that behave in a way that doesn’t aline with 100 % of your values. If you are this critical with all of them then thsta fair. It the Lemmy Devs are held to higher standard than other people you are happy giving money, then i think your point is not valid at all.
  
  Personally, I don’t expect everybody to aline completly with my values. Humans have very different ways of viewing the world and their lived experiences leads them to different ways of engaging with the world and different ideas of what is good and what is bad.
  
  So, I will donate money for a cause I think is important. Even if it means giving money whos worldview isn’t completly the same as mine. In the end we are standing on the same side here. And I refuse to see somebody on my side as. My enemy.
  
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  - southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That’s why the word hire was in quotes.
    
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Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ll try to help… But that might imply cutting my monthly donation to Wikipedia, which seems like a bad timing since they are under attack by the the tech oligarchs.

Keep up the good work. Thanks!

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- Sal@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That would be awesome! But, of course, always be mindful of your own needs first and it is OK to pick. The fact that you are supporting something through donations is already cool of you. Wikipedia is also a great project to donate to.
  
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Fourth@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Fuck tankies.

I do donate monthly.

It is not reasonable to think that contradictory behavior cannot exist in our lives. Humans are only partially rational and we just have to do the best we can with what we are given.

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- brachiosaurus@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Edit: Just read that Nutomic response on db0, no more donations.
  
  Link?
  
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  - Fourth@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    tesseract.lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/…/23484515
    
    This is what was being defended or at least brushed off. I left Reddit for a better alternative, which this is but I am overwhelmed with the amount of shit in this world I’d rather give monthly to someone else. Might as well just subscribe to some substacks or something at this point. 🤦
    
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brachiosaurus@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m gonna use this thread to highlight the hypocrisy of some people calling out the devs.

When you buy food or goods do you first inform yourself on the political views of the executives of the company you are buying from? When buying hardware to connect to lemmy and call out tankies do you make sure to avoid chinese parts and manufacturers?

If lemmy devs were to be affiliated with the german or american government would you have the same complaints against them?

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lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I would be donating if I got any money. (I don’t.) But might as well say a word or two about this subject, to encourage people to donate.

Yes, .ml has a problematic administration and all of that. I am fully aware of that, myself criticised it plenty, plenty, plenty times in the past.

However, at those times we need to distinguish between what Dessalines does as a .ml admin versus as a Lemmy developer. As Lemmy developers, he and Nutomic are contributing a lot with every user of this platform, even the ones who criticise the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China; and it’s only morally right that we (Lemmy users) support them as developers.

There’s also a pragmatic matter, that Nutomic highlighted well in the text: if he and Dessalines can’t live off donations, they’ll need to take jobs. If they take jobs they can’t contribute as much towards Lemmy as they do now. So it’s in our (Lemmy users) best interest that they get some funds.

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