rglullis

Mastodon because it is the largest number of instances and users, but the principle is the same. It hasn't happened with Lemmy yet because this subset of the Fediverse is ridiculously small compared to Mastodon/Pixelfed

expectation that donations should cover admins labor costs

Not quite that. The argument is that admins shouldn't be treated as a disposable entity who don't need any money just because they are not directly asking for it.

It's a "I want you to want to do the dishes" kind of thing.

Shut the instance down, find someone to help you maintain the instance, or pass the instance off to someone else.

Easier said than done. We already have a long list of instances that disappear suddenly because the admins burned out, and I have had long discussions with admins from other instances who keep begging for more donations every month instead of just saying "you know what? You don't want to help me, so I don't owe your lot anything".

Once again you are using points on the extreme end of the distribution curve and trying to pass it as the median case.

Also: pirating is an act of moral rebellion, not of lack of means to afford the shitty product offered by the movie industry

Or their games. Or their booze/drugs/cigarettes. Or their whatever they spend their money on without questioning the one providing the goods why they want to charge for it.

Btw, just gave 10$ to my instance today

Good on you! Now, let's get that to become the norm for everyone else.

I think that the crux of the matter is about whether or not we see this as "just a hobby" or if we really see an investment in the Fediverse as the best alternative that we have for an open (I am not going to say "free" to avoid confusion) web that can take power away from Big Tech and back to the people.

We need the instances run by volunteers.

Why? Are you going to tell me that the 98% of non-paying users are struggling so much with their finances that they can not afford to pay a couple of bucks per month to an admin?

If the numbers were reversed and we had 2% of the people saying "sorry, I really can not afford this. Can I have access still?" I would be a lot more understanding. Hell, the number could go up to even 20% and I wouldn't mind opening a few free accounts...

But 98%? I can bet that the most if not all find a way to pay for Netflix, or Spotify, or their games but $2.50 a month is suddenly too much for ninety-and-eight percent of the people?

Ah, are you saying you don't want to do this for free?

Well, it's very easy to be the armchair expert and say how much better you'd do it. It's another thing entirely to actually do it. You are free to prove how smart and competent you are by showing him how to do better.

In any case, it's irrelevant to the discussion. Like I said, if people are only giving him the money to cover the hardware costs, even if it was brought down the cost to zero he would still be working for free to all the 16k users of the instance.

Read again, he is not asking to pay the server bills. It's 1400€ (so, less than $0,10/active user/month) and he got it fully covered.

You can cut that 5x. You can cut that 10x. You can cut that 100x. It doesn't matter. You can bet that if he brought down the prices to zero there would still be people saying "why are you asking for money then, it doesn't cost you anything to run it!" and at the end of the month, he will still be short to make rent.

I understand it pretty well. What I don't understand is why some people only want to participate here if it means they can get to free ride on "volunteers".

In a sibling comment, you say "if providing the service is too much, the solution is to stop doing it". Fine, I fully agree with it. But do you realize that this implies that sooner or later we are going to run out of people with the capacity (or willingness) to do this work?

We are not talking about any small-time instance. It's the third largest instance by active user count. Above it, only mastodon.social and mstdn.jp. If the third largest instance has an admin that might have to stop providing the service in order to find another job so that they can make fucking rent, isn't that a sign that this is not sustainable?

• the fact that you think that "creating a business" is bad says more about you than me. And I don't want a business "just for me". I am looking for a sustainable way where many people can work in tech and create technology that does not exploit the users, but this will never happen if the people working are expected to do it from free and still figure out how to make rent.
• not quite, see above. I don't particularly care about the individuals and I certainly wish to change the prevailing culture. I am not here to have any significant impact on people individually and I am not concerned about "being nice". I do care about finding one platform that can be sustainable and universally accessible, though.
• no, but I think that the LW users do have the resources to allow Ruud to work full-time on Fediverse stuff, but for some reason there are 18k users there who think it is okay to exploit his free labor.
• pick a lane: do you think that "community building" is a job, or not? Are you participating here as a service to others or do you out of personal enjoyment? If you want to be paid for it, then state your value and tell me how much you think your work is worth.

And each one of them should be commended for having a better understanding of ethics than you and all others who are only interested in participating if they can exploit free labor.