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.
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That’s the logic I take issue with. It isn’t all or nothing even though that’s how this is being presented. I’m not about to fund lemmyml or the tankie developers. If that causes problems so be it but the good news is that there is plenty of people in the community help with development. I see no reason why we need to fund two peoples salaries. If I have to work to make a living they can as well.
First of all, build software is work. So work on Lemmy is work (paid or not).
I can see 2 possible meanings for what you said: 1- they should work in a regular job to make their living and abandon Lemmy, because it does not provide the means for their living.
2- they should work in a regular job to make their living and work more, for free, on Lemmy.
Please clarify, what do you mean? First or second?
Or, maybe, you mean that they should accept more code contributions from the community… Well, in that case, it would be work anyway, because managing a codebase with multiple contributors is hard and takes time as well.
Did you mean something else?
The project depends on the devs, without devs, there will be no fixes or improvements on Lemmy. And many improvements will be necessary if Lemmy user base keep on growing.
And again, maintaining .ml is so cheap that the .ml users themselves can handle the cost, we are talking about the time and work that the devs are putting in the project that both of us care about.
Do you like Lemmy? If so, donate should not be an issue.
If it is an issue, maybe you should consider migrating to other platform. The good news about it is that ActivityPub will let you access the content anyway… If Lemmy survives… And if the devs implement the compatibility.
There is no problem using Lemmy without donating. If the devs wanted donations they probably shouldn’t of pissed everyone off. They are offering up there own labor for free and there is no obligation for me to donate. I don’t like the pressure put on my the community to donate just for the sake of donating. I don’t mind giving money but it has to be earned. I don’t give free lunch. I can not in good conscious support the Lemmy devs. That doesn’t mean I have to stop using Lemmy.
No that just mean you’re a moralist poser, software doesn’t develop themselves if you are using Lemmy this is thanks to the developers.
It seems you are just a privileged brat that doesn’t understand how the world works.