this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
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Hey folks!

I'm writing this because funding for the Lemmy project has dropped to critical levels, which could seriously impact its future development.

Thanks to the generous support of our lemm.ee community, our server infrastructure costs are covered, and we even have a few months of runway. I'm deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed - lemm.ee wouldn't exist without your help.

However, infrastructure alone isn’t enough. Our servers run Lemmy software, and without ongoing development, the platform cannot grow or even be maintained.

Lemmy is an open-source project with many contributors, but the vast majority of development work has been carried out by a small group of core maintainers. A few maintainers work full-time on the project, relying solely on donations and occasional grants to support themselves.

I've seen Lemmy development up close, and the maintainers have consistently gone above and beyond what I consider the standard for small open-source teams - they are constantly writing code, mentoring contributors, and keeping everything running. Their work is essential, and without continued support, it cannot be sustained.

If you value Lemmy, please consider supporting its maintainers directly. Every bit helps.

Please check out this post for more details about how to support the maintainers: https://lemm.ee/post/63034576

Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great weekend!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago

Made a small donation. Every bit counts, I hope.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

It's so sad that liberals will literally cozy up to fascists and monetarily support them however they can... But a FOSS project run by commies gets them clutching their pearls super hard

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Just had a whole argument about this on that lemmyworld post that's at the top about boycotting ml cuz someone brought up how they can't donate if the developers are gonna use some of that money on ml server cost. They can't see the bigger picture. Instead they wanna cry over how their $5 or whatever donation is gonna be used. Pathetic.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

What's better is that's also the user who either watches new on ml like a hawk or has a bot that just scrapes content to pull off ml comms to put on world comms.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago

Imo, it's people just rationalizing not wanting to give $5 away. I mean, there's nothing wrong with deciding you don't want to donate, that's your choice, but be honest with yourself. If they weren't commies, people would be finding some other excuse to not donate.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Dessalines and Nutomic are criminally underpaid. Lemmy development still has a long way to go and we could get there much faster if people donated more. But in typical Lemmy fashion, people would rather sit on their high horses and throw stones from their glass houses.

I started donating to the developers 2 days after I joined Lemmy and have given over $1k since then. I find the developers to be competent, mature, and reasonable. Similarly to many other contentious topics on this platform, the conversation regarding their perceived or imagined political beliefs is completely lacking in objectivity, logic, and nuance. Y'all actually be gossiping like teenagers about these developers even while taking advantage of the fruits of their unpaid labor. I've seen the evidence of their extremism and it's quite underwhelming when you lay it all out.

And even if I did have major qualms about the devs, I would still argue that it's much harder to justify using any products or services from large corporations like Amazon or Reddit than it is to monetarily support a FOSS project such as Lemmy. Out of everything I've spent money on in my lifetime, Lemmy is easily among the most morally justifiable expenses.

I eventually had to reduce my monthly contribution once sh.itjust.works started accepting donations, because I also feel strongly about supporting my own instance. It's unfortunate that so many lemmings seemingly understand the fact that reddit has become an evil cancer and an alternative is sorely needed, but don't seem to understand that creating such an alternative is a project that requires a massive amount of time and effort. Donating to your instance is great, but without continued development of the underlying software, it's a futile effort. Even if you want to die on the hill of not donating to the big bad Lemmy devs, at least donate to PieFed or something! 2 patrons?!? As an early adopter userbase, we can and should be doing a lot more to support the fediverse monetarily, imo.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

If they weren't tankies then I would

If the devs shit views destroy the project that's their fault

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

As an Eastern European drone developer, I'm OK with donating even to people who might be called tankies ...if what they do is building Lemmy. :)

(As a side note, "riseup.net" needs donations too. Anarchist-run e-mail service doesn't come for free.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Do you have an extra invite code for riseup.net? I've been wanting an account but I don't know anyone with a code available.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Sadly, my only invite code was recently used up for inviting someone who I encountered in real life... and I've only ever invited people who I've met in real life - because RiseUp has a policy of exacting vengeance from the inviter, if the invited person does meet local standards.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

I signed up for a medium donation.

While I don't agree with some things happening on .ml We should not discard imperfect allies. Thank you devs for the great work you're doing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

ml arent allies at all, they're the problem, and they wont see a stinking cent from me. It would be like donating to elon musk because I like a twitter Account that posts there.

It's like supporting Ukraine but donating to putins propaganda outlets.

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