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YSK: Lemmy has 53k monthly active users but only 1172 have ever donated
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Who do you think “the business” is? Lemmy is a free open source software created by volunteers. The one paid developer works for donations alone. Every instance is independently run, free of charge, and donation supported.
Have you looked around and noticed the lack of ads, algorithms, and promoted posts? All of that is due to Lemmy not being a business.
If you don’t want to contribute even a positive word toward other people donating what they can, then I’m really not sure what you’re doing in a brand new community driven FOSS project.
Alternative to reddit and to keep track of other technologies.
But yes, I get that the whole thing is free and donation driven. At the same time, if it's free then it's free. Why would you pay for something that's free, sort of defies the point. If it can't sustain itself being free then it can't be free.
Maybe it's an autistic thing but it's just logically irrational.
Its not free in the traditional sense, its just someone else pays for you. These projects work by being "free" with their biggest/most charitable users supporting it. Every major software project that runs the web, be it curl or python, works that way. You do not pay to use the service, you are instead paying to help delay the abandonment of the project and bring updates to improve your experience.
If you don't particually want this project to succeed, then that's fine, though you should probably pay your instance a dollar to cover the bills incurred by your own use of there resources.
That does explain some of my bewilderment at your stances in this conversation.
Nobody says you have to donate, but you are discouraging others to do so as well with your definitive statement of “no reason to donate”.
In effect, if nobody donates, we are putting 100% of the pressure on about a dozen individuals who run large instances and/or who develop the software. Overbearing financial pressure like that burns out good administrators.
Lastly, helping in any way you can is just plain neighborly. If you can’t help by donating, you can at least not discourage others from doing so. Even a “I appreciate the hard work that goes into this place” is a contribution.
Instead, you’ve chosen to basically say “I don’t care, not my problem, I don’t care if it burns”, which is a pretty rude thing to say in a thread directed as a thank you to the people who have put in all the hard work and time to make this place.
So, in summary, you don’t have to donate, you don’t have to care, but if you are discouraging others from caring and getting involved, you are no longer neutral, you are part of the problem.