I started this lemmy instance to ensure that pirates, anarchists and neurodivergents would find a friendly port in the storm of enshittification engulfing the internet right now.
Reddit (and Digg before it) has always been my favorite way to interact on the web, secondary only to Google Reader (RIP). Likewise, I moved away from Digg when it started shooting its foot with gusto and now it’s time to do the same for Reddit. This instance ensures I won’t have to move again!
I however didn’t expect the amount of people who would follow me, so in the past 2 weeks since I’ve opened this instance, I’ve had to upgrade twice to keep up with the demand, and hopefully this latest one should last us a while.
This means that my cost planning is way off. I had to buy into a professional SMTP service, get a dedicated box, etc. All this is starting to become a significant personal cost I need to cover. I said before that I’m not in this to make money, I just have a particular set of skills and ideologies which allow me to both run a lemmy instance and also make it friendly to the particular people who need it as their base jump into the fediverse.
So I plan to follow the same playbook as I mentioned before. I just want to cover the infrastructure costs of running and maintaining this instance and the rest is going to go to Lemmy development itself, to help make the software even better and prevent any accusations of profiteering.
The link of this post goes to the Ko-fi goal I’ve set up. Once this goal is bypassed, any overflow will be sent to the lemmy development once a new goal is opened for the next period. Or if you prefer, just send to them directly when you see the goal being full.
I am very happy for everyone who decided to follow me on this journey and very excited at the quality of people joining and interacting with this community. Your application answers are a delight, so keep on amusing us admins with your creativity and keep posting the awesome stuff you do!
One last thing, Lemmy is not my main project (but significantly eating into it). If you’re into Generative AI and want to share your idle GPU compute, do check out the AI Horde; the only crowdsourced cluster for Generative AI!
Always remember: Sharing is Caring!
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This is not at all a request to do so if you’re uncomfortable, but do you think that you might disclose running-costs and donation income publicly? I believe you, but it might be nice to see the red-line and where we’re heading growth-wise. What projected hardware costs may become as you expand. Obviously much of that is private and it’s entirely up to you.
You can always visit the donations page to see funding progress. It’s currently sitting on 47% of the fundraising goal to see us through until the end of the year. Thanks everyone for your support.
That’s the fundraising goal, not the actual cost of running the infrastructure.
He’s entirely within his rights to not share those details. Even if his goal has a profit/expansion overhead, he’s more than earned it imo.
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I would also appreciate this in the name of transparency. Though, like you said, this is their instance and they owe me nothing. It’d be nice though.
Big thanks for all the work you’ve been doing! I just upgraded my membership, hope it helps!
definitelly. Thanks a lot!
I wanted to extend my heartfelt thanks for your dedication in maintaining this community. Your efforts in creating a space for open discussion and collaboration are truly appreciated.
Thanks for your effort. I just signed up for a membership. I’ve got one question though regarding Ko-fi/credit card fees. Do you get more money if we support you with a bigger sum upfront instead of a lower, monthly donation? I.e. is there a difference between a $60 one-time donation and 12 monthly $5 donations?
I know that Liberapay suggests doing larger payments to keep (relative) credit card fees lower.
Hey mate, it’s all good. I’ve set up to pay for Ko-Fi gold, so at the moment there’s 0 fees, so pay however you prefer.
Cool. Thanks for clarifying
Thank you for hosting all these great communities. I hope many people (in better financial situations than me) will donate to this project.
you are doing great work!
You also may want to consider partnering with like-minded instances and creating a federation within the federation. Due to how this software scales there is a strong incentive for more nodes not less.
Also do have hopes for some PRs to help large instances scale, its not an intractable problem at all, just one that requires investment of time and energy.
Hey there, this is the plan for the Fediseer that I’m developing. Have you checked that out?
sure have, remember you posting it to matrix! its on “the list”. Being a small topical instance (which gives a large amount of ban latitude) we haven’t had issues yet, though im sitting on my All tab all day to deal with things.
ty for your efforts!
Thanks for the good job. I, myself, am also same with you. I left Digg, and now Reddit.
Thank you for all the work you are doing! Already upgraded my membership yesterday😊
I have pledged £1pcm at the moment but hopefully this will help you along and hopefully I may be able to increase my funding towards your project in the future (A)
So how do we know we’re not inadvertently funding lemmygrad.ml when we donate to the lemmy developement project. There have been rumors that Dessalines uses an alt to administer lemmygrad.ml. Not making accusations, just worried.
Holy shit that is a cesspool …
You can choose to not donate after the current goal is reached, and instead donate to another $thing you love.
But the reality is that any contributions to Lemmy will benefit instances like lemmygrad, explodingheads and many others like them. There’s nothing you can do about it and it’s a good thing.
Funding Lemmy will always have the side effect of helping shitty instances. It’s basically a matter of do you want to help your own instance with a side effect? Or do you want to give money to some VC through using a centralized app?
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Paid. I’m in the process of moving, once I’m settled, I’ll throw some GPU at your other project.
Um… your post duplicated 4 times lol 😆
It really is reddit :D
I’ve been using Jerboa and Liftoff Android clients for Lemmy, and Liftoff has been giving me server errors despite the post or comment going through correctly. My last few posts duplicated several times as well, because I kept hitting submit.
is there any way I can donate using PayPal? I don’t have a credit card 😔
Not for this site but you can support my other project, the AI Horde via patreon which I think support paypal
Hi, good work with the instance. Can I somehow contribute with my bandwidth (300Mpbs) and my small debian 12 server, like torproject with tor relays and bridges?
no I can’t use other people’s servers due to privileged creds. But thanks for the offer.
You could host your own instance and limit it up till a certain number of users.
Easiest $5.46 I’ve spent today!
that’s an odd number
It’s 5 Euros in $
From the rules “Nothing positive or promoting cryptocurrency, blockchain or NFTs” but you accept crypto donations? Either support the tech or don’t use it brother
Where did you see me accept cryptocurrency donations? I absolutely do not. Don’t confuse donating to this instance to donating to the lemmy developers
I could have sworn I saw A bitcoin and monero donation wallet on the piracy instance. I must have been mistaken. My apologies
I think its a general rule to stop crypto scammers, the goal of these donations is to fund the servers, so I guess that is exempt from the rules.
