Lemmy - Donate
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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.

Donate

  • Nutomic@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Update: For those of you who want to support Lemmy development without financing the hosting of lemmy.ml, know that the hosting is paid exclusively through OpenCollective. You can see the payment details at this link. This means donations through all other platforms (Liberapay, Ko-fi, Patreon, Crypto) are exclusively for Lemmy development, and not a single cent goes to lemmy.ml hosting.

      • Nutomic@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        The real devs are locked into a server room with appropriate supplies of food and caffeine. So dont worry about them.

        Yearly or weekly doesnt make a big difference so whatever works for you. Depending on the platform small donations may have higher fees though.

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I advise you to consider the weekly pledge over the one time donation. It would be a better course of action as it might help them plan ahead.

        Also, I’m a caveman, so I would advise against following my advice

      • Nutomic@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Then you can donate via Opencollective. But honestly it doesnt matter, because lemmy.ml hosting is already covered, and is very cheap compared to developer salaries.

    • vxx@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Who are the developers and what instance are they affiliated with?

  • grapemix@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I love lemmy the project. But there has too much political arguments in some communities and they will hate you if you aren’t 100% agree with them. Even the post and the group/community are not political, comments will turn it to political. I am kind of tired(although I know some ppl are thrilled with political arguments). There is not much the devs can do, but the content does affect the user experience quite a lot.

    Nevertheless, thanks for all the hard work, nutomic and dessalines. I will donate.

    • Nutomic@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Fully agree that theres too much politics. Like you say too often about attacking some kind of enemy rather trying to understand other perspectives. For better or for worse, those seem to be the types of people more likely to use a new platform like Lemmy. Hopefully in the future they will also get tired of this stuff.

      • ToolMenace@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Unfortunately Reddit and their mods/admins behaviour over the years show that the opposite will happen. When the Lemmy mods are already so militantly anti-open discussion and authoritarian, they’re not going to soften up - they’ll go even further towards the dictatorship they clearly desire.

        I’d love to donate or even start contributing towards the code myself, but the current environment that is being fostered on the big “default” communities and instances is like Reddit on steroids, just speedrunning to the end game of mass bans and mod abuse - and I don’t envision myself wanting to be a part of that for too long. I wiped and deleted by 15+ year old reddit account because of what it had turned into.

        I don’t know the solution, but something needs to be done at a system level to give users a way to remove mods and change how communities are managed.

        • wiki_me@piefed.socialEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          I don’t know the solution, but something needs to be done at a system level to give users a way to remove mods and change how communities are managed.

          Maybe just start an instance where politics are banned?

        • grapemix@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          I feel sorry for your situation. But at least in lemmy the dev are willing to try to resolve this problem. Low chance is still better than zero chance.

          Here is an wild idea. Since a few communities are so divided and clearly they only have a good time when they talk to ppl exactly like them. Flame war happens when two groups of hardcore opposed users argue. Since normal users won’t have all days to argue with either side, if one side leaves, the wars is ended.

          So instead of banning users by admin or blocking one users each time by users. Can we have allow users to create their own public group (or a gang)? Users can join any groups. Instead of blocking one user, users can simply block the whole group. Posts and comments will be hided if blocking.

          Advantages:

          1. No banning is needed means admin’s time and gang members’ time can be saved.
          2. finally no one disagree with those gangs members anymore, so I guess they’re happy
          3. instead of using time from admin and uninvolved users, users who frequently involved controversial topics everywhere should spend their own time to create a group for staying in their comfort zone.
          4. uninvolved users don’t have to read all those flame war

          Disadvantages:

          1. those gangs become more extreme cuz they miss the opportunity to understand each other
          2. dev have to do more work
          3. server may have more load
          4. some users might say those gangs should host their own instances

          Ps: I don’t use the term community because our board is also called community. I don’t want to mix them up. May be i should call it users group, but I am too lazy. I do agree better word should be used.

  • Tieas@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Just did the $5 donation on patreon. It’s on a lot but I hope it helps, I might not agree with everything the founders believe in but I really appreciate this open sourced community and the ideas and conversations I’ve had on it. It’s definitely worth supporting

    • Nutomic@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I actually got in contact with them yesterday, will probably have a meeting soon to discuss how we can work together with them.

  • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I don’t really mind which way I donate but I want to ensure I donate by giving the most money to lemmy and not to whatever platform is hosting it.

    While I am not particularly interested in setting up crypto, aside from that which platform would you prefer I donated from?

    • Nutomic@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Liberapay is the best option, because it doesnt take any fees beyond payment processing, and its also open source. Thanks for donating!

  • vtctechadmin@vegantheoryclub.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’ve kicked over a few hundred dollars over the past 2 years but cancelled my recurring. I’ll reenable it. Thanks for doing this.

  • Kualdir@feddit.nlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Ok so personally I really wouldn’t mind having some non-tracking ads in a banner somewhere to at least support a bit (perhaps on an opt-in system). This’d allow me to support lemmy just a little bit every time I use it.

    • Aceivan [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I can see how that would feel good, but unless they were selling ads directly to friendly companies (and even disregarding the fact that it seems unlikely there would be many/any given their anticapitalist bent), this would make the project almost no money, while annoying users and opening them up to a lot of criticisms and a lot of overhead work building it and keeping that system running. Plus the vast majority of instances would probably not willingly run ads to benefit the devs, either due to not wanting ads or political disagreements with the devs, so it’d be only lemmy.ml and some micro instances. A nominal donation of $1/month from users like you, who may not want to spend much but does want to support in some way, would make them more money than a years worth of browsing

  • walden@sub.wetshaving.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    For someone like me who wants to see Lemmy be a place that’s owned by users, run by users, and moderated sensibly, what should I do? I have a problem with supporting the lemmy.ml instance.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      The lemmy.ml instance costs like 30$/month to run. Your donation isn’t going to that; your donation is going to develop Lemmy itself

      • walden@sub.wetshaving.socialEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Some fraction of my donation would go towards the $30. Any amount of money going from me to .ml, be it $10 or $.00001, is too much.

        I know $30 is “not much”, but the amount doesn’t change my principles.

      • Microw@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        If they do not treat lemmy.ml server donations separately from lemmy development donations, that is a problem.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          Lemmy.ml is how they test new features, it’s a tool necessary for development. You can block Lemmy.ml or use an instance defederated from it if you wish, but it’s necessary as far as development is concerned.

          • Microw@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            I don’t want to block lemmy.ml, it’s not like I hate that instance or anything. But I don’t see why I should finance this server - it’s definitely not just a development server. I would like to finance development of lemmy without that money going into that server.

            • Nutomic@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
              0·
              2 months ago

              By donating you are not financing the lemmy.ml server, because that is already long covered with a much lower donation level. Everything above that is exclusively for developer salaries.

              • walden@sub.wetshaving.socialEnglish
                0·
                2 months ago

                That’s not quite how a pool of money works.

                Once you fill the gas tank in a motorcycle, you can’t pick which molecules of gas go towards acceleration and which ones go towards idling at a red light.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
              0·
              2 months ago

              They need users to test, and let people in to do so. The fact that the people here use the server is a necessary function for getting feedback and results from testing. Plus, the server costs are cheap, it’s the life costs that you would really be supporting.

              • SupraMario@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                2 months ago

                They can pick a different instance, this is bullshit speak.

                Wanna be a dev? Fine. Keep your authoritarian bullshit out of it. The devs for lemmy being known as authoritarians causes new people to avoid lemmy.

                • thoro@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  0·
                  2 months ago

                  They literally created the platform. They can moderate their instance however they like. That’s the point of the platform.

                  And being “authoritarian” is when you moderate your own server how you see fit, like banning the equivalent of bad faith spamming of My Lai, Tulsa Riot, or the 1985 MOVE Bombing Wikipedia articles and pictures in obvious attempts at anti communism and stirring shit.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  0·
                  2 months ago

                  What “different instance?” Lemmy.ml has always been the test instance, you can block it if you don’t like dealing with Communists. You’re complaining about an anti-Capitalist, federated platform being developed by Communists, if you want a platform with everyone conforming to your views there are other platforms for you.

    • AnonomousWolf@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Don’t discard imperfect allies.

      If the development of Lemmy stops, all of this goes away and people end up back on Reddit or conventional social media.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Lemmy instances are already owned and run by their different instance admins and moderators. Regardless of how you feel about Lemmy.ml, development for Lemmy supports all who use different instances.

      The alternatives are doing the dev work yourself, or finding a different platform to use.

      • walden@sub.wetshaving.socialEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        There are other options… Lemmy development could stop and plenty of people would keep using it in its current atate. Maybe it’d even continue to grow.

        Or maybe the developers quit and another team steps in? Open source projects are never fully tied to a single developer team.

        The low server cost doesn’t change anything for me. I’m just a person who won’t donate if any amount goes towards keeping that place running under the current admins.

      • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        “You have to donate to tankie transphobes to support the Reddit alternative” isn’t a great look though. And nutomic has stated that donations for Lemmy development also go towards supporting the .ml servers. That’s a massive issue with the way funding is handled, no matter how you look at it.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          I’ve vocally criticized Nutomic’s transphobia, but I have no issue with them being Communists. Further, I already answered the bit about funding Lemmy.ml, let me copy and paste the relevant section:

          Further, as @[email protected] said, the Lemmy.ml costs are very low, it’s the actual life costs that allow development of much-asked for features and maintenance to continue.

          The donations pay the devs salaries. Donations pay for their video games, food, etc. What the devs do with their salaries allows them to continue developing Lemmy full time, how they choose to spend their salaries is on them.