this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
35 points (97.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

37764 readers
1210 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

like lemmy, diaspora, mastodon that stuff and with instances please.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] WiseFirefighter7299@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (6 children)

FUCKING PAID?! sorry but isn’t the fediverse supposed to be free?! it’s decentralized so anyone can just host their own instance for free. youre a bot. i know Steve, dont lie to me, tell me, are you a person that works at communick?

[–] tensorpudding@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

If you're not paying for domain and hosting someone else is. If you are so sure that's free, why don't you self-host your own instance?

I don't know anything at all about communick, just saying. Supporting a fediverse provider run by individuals who otherwise volunteer their time monetarily is a virtue not a sin, and plenty of open projects do this.

[–] Steve@communick.news 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It's not free. Servers and bandwidth cost money.
If you're not paying, someone is being generous and paying for you.

No I don't work there. But I have been paying for 2 years. And it's the only way for the Fediverse to scale. Donations won't get us to 100M users and beyond.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

With respect to Communick, I doubt you'd get close to 100m subscribers either.

[–] Steve@communick.news 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Not even 100 subscribers.
But I was referring to the Fediverse in general. It won't ever scale to a real global default social network, on the donations and the kindness of strangers.

If we don't pay for it, then it'll be paid for by adds.
Then we're back to what we're trying to get away from.
Communick or whatever, just pay. Even if it's a donation.

[–] limpatzk@bookwyr.me 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

It won’t ever scale to a real global default social network, on the donations and the kindness of strangers

The issue is: I don't think people are bothered enough with commercial social media to the point of paying for an alternative. Think about it, even with the majority of Fedi instances being free to use, not many people stopped using Twitter/Reddit/Instagram. So I think Fedi instances need to be free to use while it's small to attract new users.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sure, but if you make it mandatory to pay for anyone to use - it doesn't grow. And if you're right about the Fediverse, donations aren't enough and it also dies.

[–] Steve@communick.news 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People make lots of online buisness that grow just fine.

It's just when people get used to a kind of thing being free, they feel like its impossible or stupid to pay for it. Even when those same people complain about how enshittification ruins everything, they refuse to directly pay instead.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People make lots of online buisness that grow just fine.

I didn't say it couldn't grow, just that model becoming huge is very unlikely.

[–] Steve@communick.news 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sure, but if you make it mandatory to pay for anyone to use - it doesn't grow.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago

Fair enough. I guess it could grow, but I don't really have any reason to believe it'll grow at a rate beyond the Fediverse now.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 6 points 2 days ago

...where have you gotten the impression that it's "supposed to" be free?

[–] mrmaplebar@fedia.io 2 points 2 days ago

Nothing is free. Someone is paying for hardware, electricity, internet, and man hours.

On legacy social media, the advertisers and the consumers of your data are paying.

On the fediverse, someone in the community is paying.

[–] callyral@pawb.social 2 points 2 days ago

Hosting your own instance will always cost money? Either as an electricity bill, or in the form of paying someone else's electricity bill and server maintenance for conveniencd. Even self-hosted server admins pay with their time in away also, there's even moderation to consider as well.

I mean... Some people will host free servers, some will be paid. Omg.lol has a fedi server, and a bunch of other stuff, and it costs $20 per year for it. It's fine to expect users to pay you back for your time, effort, and cost???