Fediverse @lemmy.world rglullis @communick.news 1mo ago

The admin of the third largest Mastodon instance (16k monthly active users) is asking for help to pay rent

I'm really sorry to ask but at this moment my gf and me are personally still 274 euros short for rent this month 😟 :sad_cat: It been a rough month.. Luckily all server bills are paid for so thats the biggest part ❤️ If you can miss something, any bit would help out a lot https://paypal.me/stu...

Please, tell me how "paying for hardware costs is enough"...

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Rent comes before server. An outage is a wonderful motivator, turn that shit off.
So? Do, or don't. Either their service provides people with enough value to donate to keep it running, or it doesn't and goes under.

Altruism doesn't pay the bills; but it doesn't hurt to ask. Can't blame them for that.
I have always thought of hosting a fediverse instance for myself.

I already have a server for personal usage, the technical knowledge and it would stop being a burden on other people's servers.

Does anyone have experience with this. The federation system works fine with one person instance? Storage goes out to the roof?
We need more peer to peer hosting
The core argument here is should there be an expectation that donations should cover admins labor costs.

Personally, if an instance is run off of donations, then it's a nice to have. As an admin, you shouldn't have that expectation. If you no longer want to volunteer your time, then don't. Shut the instance down, find someone to help you maintain the instance, or pass the instance off to someone else.

I'm also okay with paid instances and admins trying to make a reasonable salary or even making additional profit as long as it's transparent to the users. It's their choice to charge, it's our choice to pay.

Overall, instances should be run by a group of volunteers, not a single individual. Otherwise, the long term viability of the instance is questionable.
@rglullis@communick.news my honest recommendation is to switch to the plain text only mode and disable file / media upload if it's possible. Hosting plain text data is cheap. Let them share links only to their cdns, servers or ipfs for media
@stux@mstdn.social

I can send you the full 274 on the 1st but I cannot use PayPal. If we can figure out a different way for me to get you the money hmu
Doesn't the Netherlands help you pay for your home if you're too poor to be able to yourself?

I'm not saying don't give anything, just wondering.
stux blocked at least one of my fediverse identities and I recognize I'm not objective but if he can't keep the instance online then like ok.

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