Well that's the nice thing about a decentralized platform. If someone tries to "take over" Lemmy, they would have to take over all 1,100 Instances on separate servers in different countries to ruin it.
As long as we don't allow capitalist corporate greed to ruin the Fediverse like it has ruined (and will continue to ruin) practically everything.
I mean, it is possible that instance admins will be able to show advertising on ones instance, but you will be able to find dotation based, ad-free instance instead. Lemmy as a whole won't be monetized, only a particular instance. But it's only my guess
I may be a minority. But I would gladly join a server that is paid and I get stability, but also a better stronger fight against the inevitable onslaught of shit - in return.
Fediverse is, well, federated. This means that it's spread across multiple servers that are independently run by their admins, but have agreed to work together and share communities between each other.
For example, lemmy.world is a site operating several communities, as are beehaw.org and lemmy.ml. One of them could choose to monetize, and that wouldn't affect the other sites. If new site pops up that is full of ads and spam, then other sites could decide to block communities from them on their site.
The problem is that a community could be screwed over because their specific instance either runs out of money and goes offline, or gets blacklisted for doing iffy things to make enough money to stay afloat.
Sure their existing content will be backed up on other instances, but the users will then have to create accounts elsewhere and work out which instance will host their new community.
I am more of a business person than a developer, so I approach it from that perspective.
I suspect that we will see different instances using different ways of paying for the service. It wouldn't surprise me in the least bit if there might be an ad supported instance, donation supported instance, subscription instance, etc. I think this is great because it puts power in the hands of the user to choose the experience they want. It should strongly encourage the design of a platform that prioritizes the user.
Right now things feel hacked together, but its inevitable that at some point performance issues, onboarding friction, and UX issues will be addressed. I really think its only a matter of time before decentralized platforms talking to each other take over.
It's definitely possible to see scammy for-profit strategies pop up.
A more likely outcome is Big Tech coming in and fragmenting and dissolving ActivityPub servers like all the Lemmy servers. It will most likely be Big Tech incorporating the big tech websites/servers (Meta, Twitter, etc) into ActivityPub and then creating a closed Big Tech ActivityPub-like system where the artifically popular servers/instances (Meta, Twitter, etc.) migrate from FOSS ActivityPub to a closed for-profit system and essentially close off FOSS Lemmy. And most people wont understand FOSS ActivityPub vs Big Tech ActivityPub-like system thereby rendering OG Lemmy useless.
I prefer the idea of have separation; one whole server(s) for bots, one for for‐profit big tech, etc. Big Tech can play but won't interfere with the heart of the AcivityPub.
But who tf am I?
That's up to the instance owners, really. I don't think the Lemmy software currently has ad support or anything like that but we could see that in the future.
Currently, most instances operate on the generosity of others. For instance, the one I'm on is mostly paid for by its owner/operator with some help with donations.
At some level they start taking so much resources that they'll need a way to be sustainable anyway. Personally, I'm hoping we see a horizontal spread out, where small groups and individuals start running their own instances. Seems more sustainable than only having like 3 large ones everybody uses.
Does anyone know much Lemmy.world costs to run? I imagine as Lemmy gets more popular the owners may be more inclined to provide paid subscriptions or post some advertising to defray the cost.
This is a great question. To add to this, what happens if/when/eventually there's enough users to warrant big players (celebs/fortune 500) wanting to dip their toes into Lemmyverse? I don't see this happening soon, but with enough growth, SOMEONE is going to want to reach this audience right? It'll start slow but if the trend continues, it's inevitable. Which is ok I think. The way I imagine it, celebs might have their own preferred curated/verified Lemmy instance. Maybe they'll use affiliate links for merch and promos?
IMO whatever comes next needs to be decentralized from the get go, like a torrent system where the network sort of automatically scales with the user count. The fediverse is pretty cool right now but it's bound to get shitty real soon as people get tired of fronting the costs purely out of goodwill. Either the cost need to be spread around such that the individuals paying it really don't mind, or there needs to be an incentive to pay / way to monetize that is aligned with the common goal of a decentralized social network. Otherwise we'll end up with either a network of insignificant size (arguably what this is now) or a monetized shit hole like what Reddit has become
I keep thinking about how a system like that could work but I'm sure someone smarter than me has already figured out that it can't
Facebook is makikg their own Twitter aoternative apparently based on Mastodon, so at least that instance will be monetized probably.
I am fully open to people running everything collecting donations. Or even sponsorships are cool. Straight up monetization through making users pay for shit that doesn't give anything in return is not cool. Let alone the fact that users make all the content to begin with
No insult intended but as you say, new here, rtfm a while before complaining.
Yeah, it is a good idea for you to pay. How's two bucks s month sound? No ads, no tracking, no personal data theft, the ability to change instances if the one you're on goes fascist/corporate/whatever you dislike. Code you could actually modify.
No CEO whims, no need for "growth" I'm that ever increasing destruction mode.
It's different than corporate media. Those of us old enough remember the early internet and beyond, bbsing. This fedi shit is the good shit. Adapt! It's pretty fkn great.
Lol it's sucks now! Lol from the hyuuge influx of new people, new code, changes and a taste of chaos. I love this.
CHANGE IS GOOD!
I think if a instance owner decides to try to profit, it can happen. They could let advertisers have an account that promotes products and allow such posts to bypass community rules and disregard vote counts. You could theoretically profit from running a lemmy instance. But now your instance risks defederation and user might start leaving.
Edit: I think the smarter thing could be just asking for more donations than is needed to run the server, and pocket the excess funds. That could go on undetected as long as you falsify your operating costs to make it seem as if more funding is required. I mean I don't know if someone could actually make a living of asking for absurd amounts of donations.
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