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.
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Lemmy NSFW is a platform that has existed thanks to the efforts of Lemmy developers. Therefore, their funding is more important than ours. Every donation is appreciated 🙏
I should note that Lemmy (software) and Lemmy NSFW (instance) are not related with each other.
Thank you for Lemmy. I pitched in some and I’ll try to continue as I use it.
Thank you!
I won’t comment on any of that aside from saying that I don’t fully agree with all of their actions, but lemmy is free and open source, meaning lemmy being funded benefits everyone who uses it, and anyone who will ever use it.
lemmy.ml is part of Lemmy development as it is used to test new versions before release, take performance measurements and have first-hand experience with the mod tools. And in any case the server is already paid for, so all donations now go to developer salaries.
Removed by mod
I don’t care if they’re leftist, rightist, communist or capitalist. They do work for the benefit of community. That’s all I care.
SCAM!
Edit: I apologize this isn’t a scam. The blocks of text and asking for money triggered my “internet instincts”.
Nope, not scam. He’s a real Lemmy maintainer.
If that’s the case then sorry, you have laid this out to raise several red flags.
Which red flags do you mean? Is there a better way to ask for donations?
So when I see several paragraphs, a “call to action”, and then links to donate money; what I see is information overload, emotional appeal, and then payout.
There are so many scammers and bots out these days I believe I’ve become paranoid.
EDIT: Honestly I can’t think of a good way to ask for money over the internet.
You are right. I was about to stick a comment about it but you were faster than me :)
Sorry I’m on edge. If I still had a job I’d donate.
