Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well. For some time, lemmy’s been struggling with donations. For all these years, the lemmy devs, like them or hate them; have been building the software that powers the entirety of the forumverse (that’s what i’m calling it, fuck you) so if you have even a dollar/euro/peso/whatever to give, it would be greatly appreciated (by the lemmy devs, and all instance admins!)
Good day to y’all :D
crossposted 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.
Is the crazy tankie still the one who’s get the money?
Then lol, never
Oh, and apparently donating does to the .ml server costs, too? Idk how true that is, but hell no if true and gross how much this is getting spammed around
Would you donate for Lemmy development if lemmy.ml had a separate donation account?
If I may ask, was the interaction with that user a misunderstanding, or how did that happen?
I also don’t want to donate to lemmy.ml, but would like to support general Lemmy development. I’m just a bit confused how those got thrown together.
I would
Actually lemmy.ml hosting is only funded via Opencollective, so if you donate through any other platform the money goes entirely to developer salaries.
I’ve already donated a few times but this would genuinely be a good idea imo, Lemmy.ml’s userbase can likely keep it running by itself & it removes the ick factor from having any of my money go toward it and seemingly one of the more significant roadblocks to people donating.
I do genuinely love what you’ve created!
Actually lemmy.ml hosting is only funded via Opencollective, so if you donate through any other platform the money goes entirely to developer salaries.
Ahhh, I didn’t entirely realise that! no hesitation in me donating in the future then. & once again many thanks for creating this platform!
Youre welcome!
As long as you and saline are involved: not a chance of my money going to the project
This is the opinion of a vast portion of the userbase given the comments I’ve seen on this spam today
What a convenient excuse to never make any donation for the software you use every single day. You almost make me regret creating this platform.
I have seen this excuse sky rocket after you made the distinction of open collective. I find it fastenating how when you answered there criticism they suddenly decide that if you or Des are involved in any way, they cannot suport it.
not OP but for me its ur authoritarian beliefs that make me feel icky about donating to u, not the fact that yall created lemmy.
not that i wouldnt look past that, but it does make me a bit more hesitant.
Authoritan beliefs such as creating Lemmy and giving it away for free?
Play dumb all you want, that’s part of why you won’t get anything
Either you’re willingly stupid or you know exactly what we mean and are playing dumb, neither deserves respect nor money
He’s being super cagey here very carefully talking about “developer salaries” trying to hide the fact that he’s soliciting direct donations to himself and Dessalines, who are the people who have chosen to run .ml the way they have, and who are now dealing with the consequences of being petty asshole despots to the broader fediverse.
Personally I don’t have a grudge against .ml because of their politics, I have a grudge against them because of the way I have been treated directly by these two. You want me to give you money so you can ban me for increasingly idiotic and petty reasons? Fuck off. Or apologize, and then fuck off.
I’ll make a big donation to piefed instead.
It’s obvious to me that Nutomic and Dessalines both have gigantic hearts.
Anybody who promotes human rights and concepts like socialism are incredibly courageous.
Thank you for creating this platform. It’s a critically needed service for discourse. I hope others reconsider their strong stances against you and Dessalines.
Lemmy is of incredible value to humanity and not a moment passes where I am not grateful for this platform and the hard work put into it. I’m sure many, many others feel similarly.
There’s piefed too; i’m very interested in it (even contributed to it, not through code though; through ideas to rimu and even a whole theme) it’s still too early to be used by us, but if you’re interested: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/38328295/16837857
I’m using the theme, so thank you.
Glad to hear somebody’s using it :D
Agreed.
Never, unless funds can be 100% directed AWAY from .ml and its sycophants.
Can you donate directly to other devs? That really is very concerning, and I really don’t want to help .ml…
As it says there, you can to nutomic, but they’re famously a massive transphobe who claims that trans people are western propaganda (Id forgotten that until I read the comments on the post I linked)
I’ve said it off platform for a whole - Lemmy’s a waste of time because the devs are garbage people the community actively hates. Unless someone forks it or the current devs hand it over I don’t see Lemmy making it much further than this tbh. I kinda expected them to give up on the project from all the mass hate they got a while ago, but part of what makes them annoying is how stubborn they are lol
“Massive transphobe” is a huge exaggeration, I wrote a single private message which wasnt well thought out and simply a mistake. Does that invalidate all the work I did over the last five years to make Lemmy what it is today?
Yes that absolutely invalidates your work
Does that mean you will stop using Lemmy? Just curious.
Why? I donated my instance for the server costs and FOSS is FOSS for a reason.
When it goes away, then I’ll just start using a different part of the fediverse.
Just to be clear here, you retract that statement about transgender people? Do you actually believe that trans rights are human rights and not “a wedge issue for the left” or somesuch? Like it or not, that single statement of yours turned away a lot of people who could look past your Marxism-Leninism, including other Marxists like Hexbears, so making the your opinion clear on the record could go a long way.
Sure I retract everything I said in that private message, it was posted without much thinking and certainly not meant for publication. Not sure what “trans rights” are exactly, but obviously human rights apply to everyone including transgender people.
…my guy… It still sounds you’re just sorry you got caught.
So let’s cut the bullshit. Do you still think “the transphobic topic is clearly promoted by the bourgeoisie”? Do you think trans women should be allowed to compete as the women they are in olympic sports? Do you still call them “biological men”?
Even more to the point: Should trans people be treated by everyone else and the society at large (yes, including a potentially socialist one) as the gender they identify themselves?
Do you also perform this kind of background check for every product you buy in the supermarket? Or is this level of scrutiny reserved for open source developers that give software away for free? Fact is that none of this is related to Lemmy development in the slightest. Would you be happier if I left Lemmy to stagnate so users go back to Reddit?
People would be happier with you if you just admitted fault and committed to being better in the future. Take the L and move on with life.
This is a horrid look for ya.
“Sure I might be transphobic. But other people are bad too! Checkmate!”
I see. Well, I think your answer really speaks for itself. Honestly mate, it would have been better not to say anything, instead of trying to weasel out of it by this “I’m sorry you saw me write that stuff”. Best of luck to you.
So just mildly transphobic? Alright, sold, donating now.
most devs are garbage, ppl just have their views hiddes as facelss corporate cogs typicallycmost ppl in general tbh, just talking to drunk strangers will make you hate most ppl, they do more for me than you, they gave me this platform, they let me bitch and see your bitching lol
Relevant context: https://lemmy.ml/comment/18395421