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.
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.