Are there any paid services for either Lemmy or Mastodon? Something where, given it is a subscription service, you would expect them to stick around long-term?

  • 1984@lemmy.today
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    1 year ago

    You don’t need a subscription for instances to stay around long term - you need to use them. Instances without users shut down, naturally.

    Instance owners don’t do this to get rich or have someone else pay the bills I believe. They just want users.

    And I think many of us hate subscriptions. :)

    • vamp07@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      I understand, and for the most part, I agree, but I would still like to find a paid instance.

        • vamp07@lemm.eeOP
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          1 year ago

          I prefer paying for a service rather than donating. When you pay for something, there is an expectation of a service in return. I think the fediverse could benefit from creating an economy for this sort of thing.

          • density@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I use free, donation and paid services happily. Not against any model.

            I do not think paid services are as stable as you are imagining. Lots of paid services go dark all the time. Even major ones.

            I think the most stable would be to either run your own or pay someone to run one for you on a VPS. And for community stability, donate to various servers.

            For long term, government/nonprofit funding would be good to have I think.

          • OpticalMoose@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 year ago

            I kind of feel the same way. When someone is offering service in exchange for pay, it signals that they’re serious about this and see it as a part time job at least, as opposed to someone just doing it as a hobby or just for a learning experience.

            In my search I found 3 that offer multiple services for a single donation/subscription:

            • Neat.Computer - Their terms of service weren’t strong enough for me
            • Tromsite.com - I didn’t like their Peertube upload policy
            • Tchncs.de - The one I ended up joining.

            I really wanted a smaller instance, but I just couldn’t find one that I was happy with.

            • vamp07@lemm.eeOP
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              1 year ago

              I think the ideal provider would give you a package deal with an identity on a Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, and whatever else comes along servers.

          • Loulou@lemmy.mindoki.com
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            1 year ago

            There is also just using one of a thousand free instances.

            If you think a meager subscription from your part could pay for about anything (dev wise), I think you are wrong.

            • daq@lemmy.daqfx.com
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              1 year ago

              He’s talking about just hosting fees though and those could easily be covered for a few $/mo per user unless the instance becomes massive which isn’t likely since most people hate subscriptions and most people even aware of Lemmy are technical enough to host their own if they are willing to invest actual money into it.

              • Loulou@lemmy.mindoki.com
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                1 year ago

                Well, my point was that even is he pays hosting fees (for example) the big job is managing it all, which we (mostly? all?) do for free. If a company wants to ear money hosting Lemmy, it’s gonna be either some big thing (host your own Lemmy for 5€/m) or one big instance like world, but it would cost a lot having paid people running it.

                Guess my point was that he can pay a bit per month, but it won’t guarantee anything at all. He’s probably better off joining a medium-big free instance in the short medium and long run.

                Now, this is just what I think :-) !

          • Loulou@lemmy.mindoki.com
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            1 year ago

            That would be tough lol 😆

            I mean one day maybe but it’ll be like paying for Linux, which exists, but you have to work for it and propose an important benefit.

      • Skankhunt42@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        For what purpose? Why not a free one? I mean, if the price is right I’ll host you one.

        I’ve been considering hosting one myself, this would give me a push in that direction.

    • Phegan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Absolutely, I think people are still thinking in the mindset of web 2.0. The fediverse is the internet before capitalism ruined it.

  • infamousbelgian@waste-of.space
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    1 year ago

    Not sure how tech savvy you are, but hosting your own server costs a few euros per month, you decide how long it stays up and you are chief in command.

    • Devjavu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Second this. And other instances would still be accessible. Even more so since lemmy.world (along with probably some others) is starting censorship, which wouldn’t affect you, since you decide what you can see.

      • Skankhunt42@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I’d love to self host one for everyone but not allow communities. The idea would be that I federate with everyone no matter what and leave a what the user wants to sub to up to them. No censorship at all.

        Not having communities would mean I don’t have to worry about what I host and have other instances defederate with me. Plus, I have no interest in being mod, dealing with DCMA,user reports, etc.

        • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
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          1 year ago

          You can disable communities on your instance as an admin, but you would need to disable uploading.

          • Skankhunt42@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Would that allow someone to still post/upload on other communities? Honestly haven’t looked into this at all. Was going to in a couple weeks when I have time to actually sit down and test

            • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
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              1 year ago

              If a user from your instance posts to a community and wants to upload a file, that file will be saved to your instance. Not the instance in which the community is. Keep that in mind.

            • skadden@ctrlaltelite.xyz
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              1 year ago

              Yep. My instance just has me on it and posting elsewhere works without issue. Anything I upload goes to my instance and federates out. It’s really quite great not having to worry about the instance drama when big ones defederate from each other. I also turned off NSFW so I don’t have to worry about any of that content (legal or otherwise) even hitting my server.

              Here’s an image of me making this comment via Sync for Lemmy

              Edit: I have community creation locked down to admins, which everything disables them on my instance.

              • daq@lemmy.daqfx.com
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                1 year ago

                I did the same thing for the same reason. Admin approval for everything and I’m the only admin. Basically a personal instance for me and my friends if they’re too lazy to host but want to try Lemmy.

                • skadden@ctrlaltelite.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  Exactly. I went one step further and decided not to use my admin account as my main. I don’t run around as root on servers so I try not to do that with apps. It’s easier with Lemmy because once it’s set up all the admin tasks hit my email.

                  I also wanted to avoid that vulnerability that hit Lemmy World a few weeks ago that was only possible because the server admin got their jwt stolen, which wouldn’t have been so impactful if they weren’t on the admin account.

              • Skankhunt42@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                I assume lemmy doesn’t clean up images after X days/years? it would be pointless if it does… I’m a datahoarder but paying storage costs to host this stuff doesn’t fit in the budget. I guess I have a lot of things to consider. Thanks!

                • skadden@ctrlaltelite.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah I haven’t found anything for cleanup maintenance. Right now with just me my disk usage is increasing ~300MB per day. I’m debating purging stuff older than 30 days or something. The only stuff where my server is the source of truth is my profile and communities on my instance.

                  We’ll see though, this is just a fun little side thing I’m not taking too seriously.

              • Skankhunt42@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                When I finally look into it I’ll make sure to let you know. Are you going to selfhist yourself or just want to use it if I actually set it up? Maybe you can help me host it. Lol

                • quicksand@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  If you let me know how to help you, then I’m in. I have a raspberry pi 4 and some external hard drives. That’s it. But I also have some money and would rather help you than host a lonely instance, Mr skankhunt

        • Kayn@dormi.zone
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          1 year ago

          Your instance will be mirroring (essentially storing a copy of) content from instances it federates with. Depending on your local laws you might be held liable for this.

          • Skankhunt42@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, Thank you for this.

            It sounds like I’ll also have to store any images my users upload. I’m all for free speech and being anonymous online so I’ll avoid logs and the like but I guess I’ll have to read Canadian law to see if I want to risk running an instance or not. I cant afford a lawyer, nor do I want to deal with anything that goes along with that.

            • Kayn@dormi.zone
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              1 year ago

              The GDPR is also a whole other beast that could suckerpunch any instance at any point.

        • kopper [they/them]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          Have you heard of what happened to Rammy? The admin went MIA, a bunch of trolls set up shop, and they (as expected) got defederated from the majority of the network for being an unmoderated trashfire. Or earlier incidents regarding a bunch of open registration instances getting bot sign ups even if those accounts never did anything (to the best of my knowledge anyway).

          If you are going to host an instance open to public registrations you need moderation. Even if it’s just to keep the spammers and trolls at bay.

          • Skankhunt42@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            If you are going to host an instance open to public registrations you need moderation. Even if it’s just to keep the spammers and trolls at bay.

            Yeah, good point. Lots of things to consider. Thanks for this!

    • vamp07@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, I may go with this option, but I really like the idea of helping create an economy. I suspect one of the Achilles heels of the Fediverse will be instances disappearing after users based their identity on a free server that the host eventually lost interest. Time will tell. I may be wrong. But also may be right.

    • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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      1 year ago

      I run my own Mastodon server and getting it filled with meaningful content is a pain. You can do it with relays and fedifetcher and other tools like that, it it’s a lot easier to rely on someone else’s server and the content that gets pooled there.

      No need to let servers grow to mastodon.social size, but single user servers are a suboptimal way of participating in Mastodon unless you have a very strict set of accounts you wish to follow.

      • infamousbelgian@waste-of.space
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        1 year ago

        I don’t know about Mastodon. I run my own Lemmy server, single user. I sometimes run a discovery script honger my “all” populated and I’m good to go.

    • vamp07@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      I wish they also had a Lemmy server. I’ve always liked Medium and have subscribed to them in the past. If they offered a lemmy servers as part of the whole package, that would be a big win for me. 

    • vamp07@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      I’ll check it out. All the ones I have looked at so far feel not well thought out yet. I guess that is to be expected at the beginning.