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 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.
You realize that .ml is also the development instance used by the devs? Where they test features, fix issues, and so forth before rolling it out to lemmy as a whole?
The costs of running .ml are also miniscule compared to the cost of living two full time working people require, I read in another comment it is only like 30 bucks a month for the instance.
I also find it a little silly that people love lemmy but hate on .ml. Lemmy is the brainchild of two far leftists, made with leftist concepts and goals in mind. You can’t separate those two things…
“Love your work, but fuck you and your beliefs I won’t support that. Also please continue work on the free product I like”.
*disclaimer: I’m just as russo- and sinophobe as the next guy. Fuck them, their dystopian countries and values. I just don’t really care the people making lemmy might not entirely (lol) agree with that.
I did it with Lostprophets I can do it with Lemmy
Eh. I also don’t like the countries and values. But I’ve always taken “Russophobe” and “Sinophobe” to mean “no matter your personal beliefs, if you have Russian or Chinese heritage you are a bad person and worth less than other human beings” and “nothing these cultures produced has any value or is worth respecting” and I have big problems with that. Is that what you mean, or do you just mean you do not like what the governments are doing and disagree with that strongly? I’m very on board with being anti-Putin, anti-CCP; I am those things too. I also feel very uncomfortable and wrong dismissing Swan Lake because it came out of Russia, or the Chinese legend of Mulan because it came from China (to be later adapted into the films we know), and writing off all people with Russian or Chinese heritage. I think most people interpret “Russophobe” and “Sinophobe” to mean doing that, not just to mean disagreement with their governments. Please let me know if I am wrong.
Lemmy is just software. There is no politics in code or math. Anything extra is just tacked on because it is convenient.
The whole concept of federation is political in itself.
If I’m being honest that seems pretty silly to me. That’s like saying water is political. It can be political if you want it to be political. You remind me of a guy I say in some Linux forums talking about how Linux is going to to bring the techno-anarchist revolution we all want. He was shocked that no one seemed to agree with his views. I’m not saying your views are wrong but to think a protocol/concept exists purely to support your views is a bit of a stretch. I think you have a right to hold whatever political view you want but please don’t go around calling federation inherently political.
I’m not saying AP/federation exists “purely” to fit my views, that’s absurd.
I’m saying that the concept of a decentralized protocol with the objective of letting various individual domains interact instead of a single corporate or government controlled entity is, objectively, a political goal. Power to the people. Censorship protection. Astroturfing safeguards.
How is this in your opinion not inherently a political system? Besides, almost everything is a political act nowadays. Even the belief that nothing is political is also political.