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 (โฌ50 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 2000โฌ per month. This leaves only 1000โฌ 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 5000โฌ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500โฌ 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
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 โฌ100/month, which is only 2% of the stated minimum donation goal.
If you donate me 50โฌ I'll donate 100โฌ to them. Would you do that? I doubt it because you couldn't verify if I actually held up my end and you're not going to just trust someone.
But somehow you're going to make an exception in this case and trust that they're going to keep the finances separate? You really think they would let lemmy.ml die if the donation stream covering the costs of lemmy.ml would run dry? If you do you might as well send me that 50โฌ because they're hellbent on keeping their control over lemmy.ml and instance as the propaganda outlet that it is. They will 100% use that money on lemmy.ml if they can no longer keep up appearances of having separate finances.
People are free to use their salaries as they wish. The cost of the test instance that lemmy.ml is is negligible in comparison. You just moving the goalposts. But go back to reddit then? Spez is no horrible communist. Must be great for you? Why are you here freeloading?
And people don't want to use their salary to support a tankie instance. Funny how that works, right?
Except it's not a test instance because it's primarily being used as a propaganda outlet. If the purpose of that instance was to support the development of Lemmy the devs should have no problem cleaning up the instance because the political agenda of that instance clearly works against the development of Lemmy. But Nutomic has publicly said he would much rather keep the instance as is rather than make lemmy.ml into an instance that actually supports the development of Lemmy.
Can't even notice that you're talking to someone else? Also my point was quite literally explaining how it's not moving the goal post because what the devs have said doesn't actually change anything. If you think it does I'm still waiting for that 50โฌ.
Fuck reddit and Fuck Spez. And by the way I'm not freeloading, I'm on Mbin specifically because I'm fed up with the main Lemmy devs. I have no issue donating to Lemmy, as long as someone normal takes over the project.
But you are freeloading , main Lemmy development is necessary for all instances and you are not contributing to it. That you don't like the politics of the devs are one thing. But to remain here is freeloading. And sure you can do that but it is stil freeloading. Why would the founding devs step down because you say so? A bit entitled don't you think? But spez and reddit would be exactly what you want, the opposite of what Lemmy is and it's devs stand for. You can fork the project if you wish to do something else .
You literally have no idea what you're talking about, do you. Lemmy is not necessary for all instances and I'm on one of those instances that has nothing to do with Lemmy. I could've also signed up with Piefed if I wanted to but I feel more comfortable on Mbin. So I am in fact not freeloading. And the idea that anyone not willing to support the development is "freeloading" is completely preposterous. I guess the vast majority of FOSS users are freeloaders then.
And I have no idea why you keep bringing up Reddit, it's like you have no clue about the world outside of Reddit and Lemmy.
Fine you are on mbin then. Ok. Reddit is an apt comparison , since most of the .worlderrs found their place after leaving a dystopian capitalistic shit hole like reddit and now are here in a Foss project built by marxists. With the nerve to complaining that they are not the ones who get to decide what devs spend their money on.
So yeah I don't understand why those people are here at all then.
And freeloading yeah many do in many projects and that's fine. But they usually aren't big babies making demands and throwing tantrums on those projects. Entitlement deluxe.