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Can we have some clarification on what "Usage Data" the app collects and shares with advertisers?
(lemmy.world)
What constitutes Usage Data. Is it sharing the posts I view, communities I subscribe to etc?
Does paying for a premium version stop this data being collected?
Doesn't this ad/subscription model, go against the grain a bit? With Lemmy & the fediverse in general, being an opensource environment, which has no ads, & funded by donations, rather than a subscription model...
Funding your project with donations is just not a realistic long-term goal. This is why so many instances fold up shop in just a couple of weeks as their servers are overloaded and no one donates money to keep it up.
Capitalism is a problem but it doesn't mean everything has to be socialism. There can be an in-between.
It's not even that to be honest. Socialism is characterized by worker ownership and operation of companies primarily. LJ is a sole proprietor exploiting nobody, not earning a wage via labor and not having to work because he under pays others to work for him. He's just a worker like the rest of us.
I definitely agree that donations is not a viable long term path. Maybe in a different economic model. People need to be realistic. The general arguments they are making against Sync in favor of FOSS apps can also be made against them using FOSS apps by the FLOSS folks. People should pay if they can. And use a free third party app if they can't, or don't like how sync works.
I really don't get the hate people are putting out there over this. This is why third party apps build strong ecosystems. You can find what you want.
I believe its possible, at least coming from the minecraft world. if the instance doesnt grow as big as lemmy.world or something then you can ask for patrons and other ways to get donations. a lot of the plugins I use for my minecraft servers are run this way and its the way i run my server, I just ask for a dollar donation if possible from my players and that covers a little bit more than what the server costs me to run. when I check some of the plugin's patreon page they pull in about 1k-8k a month
https://www.patreon.com/coreprotect
https://www.patreon.com/sonicether
The reddit gold model didn't work. Reddit was a VC funded start up though, so if was expected to make a lot more than just enough to keep the servers going.
I'd bet lemmy instances can get by on donations and reddit style awards. Like you say, it can be incentivized further with cosmetic rewards.
Let's not follow reddit through the enshittification manifesto. There has to be another solution, and we won't find any if we allow ourselves to settle on the first half baked idea an already failing website had at some point.
The alternative solution is paid subscription for more features, and even that's hit-or-miss.
You are mixing socialism and communism.
You're right
Even if it was socialism, that doesn't mean money doesn't exist lol, there would have to be some kind of tax added on for everyone to support the product/project/whatever.
We have socialized fire departments in America, does that mean they don't get paid and work for free? Nah, but you don't get a bill before they put the fire out on your house either
Socialism doesn't mean free.