Just out of curiosity, how much does it cost per month to run a Lemmy instance? Not that I’d want to do that myself, I’m just grateful for our admins that keep Lemmy up and running.
You can rent an instance for like 10 dollars per month and grow from there. Then expand if you get users and things get slow. Lemmy runs ok on 4 GB of memory but it’s better with 8 GB. Postgres use the most.
I’d certainly be interested to know for the sake of donations. I would gladly donate to keep the fediverse alive.
It varies greatly depending on your setup.
Lemmy.world’s monthly expenses are around €1,200. Though that includes hosting more services that just Lemmy.
https://blog.mastodon.world/For comparison, it looks like £30 per month for lemmy.zip:
https://lemmy.zip/post/7766703And lemmy.ca is around CAD$30 per month:
https://sh.itjust.works/post/39134At one point Reddthat.com was considering moving to a bigger server that would cost A$150-200 per month:
https://reddthat.com/post/8840079Ayy Lemmy.zip :)
I’m curious as well. I want to selfhost a personal instance, but CGNAT is getting on the way. I can always pay for VPS, but then the recent shenanigans involving CSAM images potentially being synced from rogue instances scared me.
It depends. I run an instance with a whole two users and it costs me about $25 a month.
But if I let 200 users join, I would need beefier hardware and a higher bandwidth limit.
However running an instance like Beehaw is probably on the order of hundreds, not thousands of dollars a month.
feddit.uk clocks in at under £40/month. That’s hosting, and backups. lemmy.zip is similar.
Plus our time, but we’re obviously doing it as a labour of love.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Doin’ muh best to shitpost.
You’re all welcome, citizens!
Heroic Trumpet Music
Farting sounds
I’m doing my part too!
I’m doing my
partfart too!laugh tracks
I’m proud of you all.
Edit: Doesn’t exist. Someone needs to start this.
You are now our king.
Well, I am on the throne daily.
I have many, many sovereign citizens to keep us alive.
Okay, now I am imagining that you are imprisoning sovcits in your basement and farming them for insanepeoplewhatever content.
Nah I’d post videos of them if that was the case.
That’s just what someone keeping sovcits in their basement would say.
Bet those sovcits would be cits real quick in that situation ;)
And I’m doing my best to keep it spam-free and ad-free.
Not yet.
Using the same client and everything works flawlessly, do your updates buddy
Be the change
The janky network penetrates the enshittification
I still haven’t been able to give up reddit but I have always been a lurker there. Here I’m trying to make a conscious effort to participate in conversations. I’m trying to be positive, kind, and thoughtful because that’s what I want lemmy to be.
I started to think of Reddit as just an occasional Google search result necessary evil and have successfully ignored it ever since. Log off DKC, there’s a better world out there.
In all seriousness I think eventually conventional social media will start to feel very siloed like AOL did as more people join the fediverse. I can’t imagine using a site that I couldn’t look at everything from anymore, save for stupid ass Facebook which I do solely for sovcit material. Why would I want to look at crap ads and AI when I can be here?
I started to think of Reddit as just an occasional Google search result necessary evil and have successfully ignored it ever since.
This is my experience. I try to search elsewhere, but consistently still find good info there. Only when I exhaust other options I go crawling back.
Oh it’s no biggie if you use it to deshittify Google. It is there, after all. Just treat it like ghetto Wikipedia and don’t hang around. Haha.
Thank you!
Similar here. Reddit has become, for better or worse, just another Facebook. I include in my search queries when I need. I get in for specific communities and get out immediately afterwards.
Thank You, BotM! I migrated here from the corporate social medias as soon as I was aware. I’m still transferring my OC over from IG (not an easy task) to Pixelfed. And I use similar talking points to inform people, often about the very existence of a non-comercial social media. Very few people, maybe 2, since July '23 have even heard of the Fediverse. We shall persist!
I’m just learning about Pixelfed from your comment. Any suggestions on where to start or instances to subscribe to?
I signed on to https://social.photo/. And I’m sure I had darned good reasons for doing so at the time. LoL With federation, I’m not really sure it matters which instance one signs onto, as long as it’s not some tankie/nazi crap, of course. And of course one could self host one’s own instance.
It appears to me that, because of the absence of advertising, it is incumbent upon individuals to ‘evangelize’ and spread the fedi-gospel. :-D
I truly believe the fediverse is the future. People will tire of the AI and all that nonsense and fade away from all the big sites.
Public opinion seems to be souring on all the big corporate social media sites, and I truly think if we’re able to get the word out about federated social media platforms, people will jump ship.
Also, it’s hard to dislike a platform that isn’t showing ads, selling user data, or generally making decisions for the enrichment of shareholders.
I honestly don’t think we’re there yet.
Remember, something like more than half of all people still don’t use an ad-blocker - some people want ads, or at least want that they provide money to keep the service going, and similarly with selling user data (to the extent that people bother to think about it at all).
Never underestimate the level of entitlement thinking on behalf of new users - like, “Which instance do I join? Wait, I have to choose!? Nvm, I’m out already.” (and for Mastodon, this has much greater implications than for Lemmy)
Also, one single reply to a comment in chapotraphouse on hexbear.net, followed by a second reply somewhere on Lemmy.ml, almost made me turn away from social media entirely, thinking that this place was fast becoming not really all that different than Reddit after all - I mean, these are leftists, aka liberals, these are/must be my people, right, R-R-RIGHT!?
The Fediverse is not for the uninitiated, and requires significant setup work to even be pleasant much less enjoyable, depending on where you go and the users’ innate level of insensitivity.
Though you and many others are working tirelessly to make it better by offering great content - thanks!:-)
”Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. " - Karl Popper
The only reason u see them constantly dunking on everyone is because all the truthfull factual backed up with evidence replies they get get censored if it has a single thing to do the hexbear or .ml. Idk how they do it but a replete to .ml on a .world community can be censored by .ml but replete to that censored comment still work fine. .ml selectively federates the modlog as well to hide admin abuse. They will ban u from every .ml community for 1 comment disagreeing politically especially if u have evidance proving them wrong.
We have tried countering them by rational argument and public opinion but that is failing. We canot tolerate the intolerance of tankies ob lemmy.
As someone who is much more centrist/liberal, I had to block a whole bunch of leftist communities recently just so that I could keep enjoying the Fediverse. I would have greatly prefered not to, but so much of leftist content on here is far too cynical to any other position.
Even if they were correct, the maner of their interactions makes them wrong, especially the hostility.
Also, being a liberal in America is somewhat similar to being a conservative in Europe, I am told - i.e., “leftist” is a term relative to one’s local surrounding environment. Maybe one day I will become more leftist, although ironically all the leftist comments here are making me start to lean the opposite direction (it would be different if someone explained the positions, rather than simply dunked on everyone who does not share them - groupthink is not a valid way to arrive at Truth, especially when applied in the format of bullying behaviors to outsiders rather than merely acceptance of the in-crowd).
It’s so weird, I don’t even notice the lack of ads most of the time (pihole, never leave home, so it’s roughly the same experience I’m used to)
But when I go out? Oh man fediverse is the only site I’ll use because I know it’s safe from ads. The other privacy/user-focus stuff is just a bonus.
(I don’t have any friends around here, so just sort of go out to be out, and usually for food)
Inevitably there will be a fediverse instance with ads, but whether or not people want to use it will be up to the individual.
I use Boost and it has ads. But they’re ignorable as a banner here and there, not constantly. I can live with that.
Is Boost really that much better than Eternity or Voyager that you put up with ads?
I like it.
Fair enough :)
As long as the ads don’t federate in an un-blockable way, they can do as they like. I wouldn’t make an account there, I’d rather donate actual money than have a degraded experience (which for sure works out better for everyone), but I get the drive to monetize.
And they should absolutely -not- be allowed to federate ads, for any reason, since it goes against the vibe. But inevitably there will be “sponsored posts” (probably already are), and I think those instances/users will see themselves fade to oblivion, as long as new users are brought to understand that they could just chip in $2 and never see an ad.
What you can do is install wireguard server at home and then set your phone to use that wireguard connection always. That’s what I do and then my pihole at home filters all my mobile traffic as well.
I usually have a private vpn. It’s just isn’t always up. And I can’t be bothered to have it maintained most times because I’m not in control.
I’m considering setting it up through my router which has a built in option, so I don’t have to rely on my third party, but honestly I almost never leave pihole protected networks. So not a priority.
You don’t need an entire VPN just to block ads. I use RethinkDNS on Android and it blocks ads in most apps.
You might inspire some of us to create a Facebook, Instagram, X account just to spread the word of the Fediverse.
For the lowest common denominator social media user, the bar is even lower. As long as everyone else they follow and care about is on the platform, they will happily move. They won’t even care that they will be free from ads and tracking because they never cared in the first place.
Fediverse is the future of the internet
I didn’t know. Sounds like communism 🙃
No you smell like communism.
<3
*Random mods on some instances, however…
Oh boy…
For Lemmy.world a donation would help keep it alive without all the crap. Servers are cheaper then they were, but still not cheap.
OMG! Thank you so much ❤️❤️❤️
It’s not easy keeping things up sometimes, but we’re always looking for ways to deliver more for less, while still keeping things snappy.
It’s hard, but without the community, we would just be some nerds with too much time on our hands 😅
Much love for y’all!!!
Yeah but on the other hand Lemmy world sucks and it would be good for the overall health of the Fediverse if they ran out of money and had to shut down. Give that donation to a smaller instance who actually needs it. World is already the biggest and they don’t need to get bigger.
I don’t think we should be wishing for the demise of the largest Lemmy instance. However, I definitely agree that focusing resources towards growing small and medium sized instances is good for the fediverse.
considering that this is a bsd user, yeah makes sense.
Coming from a self hoster, shits up when it’s up. Otherwise it’s down.
I charge nothing and you expect no guarantees of service :)
And yet it skews (awkwardly?) further from Reddit. Nobody understands that all the important movements of history reached across political lines and focused on a mission. Still missing a both sides vibe from here where everything is equally discussed to succeed.
“the future of social media” reminds me of “the year of the Linux desktop”. Like, what does that mean to you?
The most obvious explanation is that you think it will overtake corporate social media entirely. Or even exist anywhere on the same level. But that seems unrealistic.
Yeah, but we’ve been on this stressful ride before, and we know where it ends.
There were lots of attempts at a closed source proprietary Internet protocol. They have all resoundly failed, after looking unbeatable. Some folks still fondly remember the closed Internet protocols like OLE COM, ActiveX, Flash, Cold Fusion, and SilverLight, but few of us miss them. Okay, I do miss Flash games.
Good touchscreen phone operating systems were a “will this ever be matched?” trade secret at Blackberry and Apple. Now the vast majority of phones run open source Android.
Much earlier, most good-enough C compilers were expensive proprietary closed source products. Now I see very little being compiled on anything other than the free and open source GCC. Even most other programming languages and tools are now FOSS, as well. I can’t think of much for development that cracks the top 20 that isn’t FOSS. JetBrains IDEs stand out as a lone closed source hold-out.
Open standards always win, in the end.
The desktop computing default is honestly way overdue to switch to FOSS. That’s why it’s the year of the Linux desktop.
The Fediverse is here to stay, and is all that’ll be left in a couple decades. But in the meantime, it’s cozy!
They have all resoundly failed, after looking unbeatable
“Failed” how? Failed in that they sucked to use, yeah. Failed as in people stopped using them? No. Failed as in their profits plummeted? No. Their users are gluttons for abuse and exploitation. And their users are nearly everyone I know. They don’t care.
Now the vast majority of phones run open source Android.
No they don’t. It’s only ~50% of the US market and ~60% of the global market. Also at the time it was a very competitive market and OEMs like Nokia and Motorola all had their day. That hasn’t been true since the original iPhone some 15 years ago.
Open standards always win, in the end.
LOL no they don’t? In fact they almost always don’t.
The desktop computing default is honestly way overdue to switch to FOSS.
It will never be, for the same reason it has a whopping 4% today. It’s complicated and difficult to use, and no one is spending money on marketing to convince people to even try it.
The Fediverse…is all that’ll be left in a couple decades.
That’s nothing but a wild utopian delusion…
Honestly, I wish it were true. I wish you were right. I wish people respected themselves to take the time and learn about all the corporations that are fucking up their lives, and to take the time and learn how to take the according action, but at best they don’t care, and more often then not they will actually go out of their way to defend the corporations that are fucking them. If they cared, the corporations wouldn’t be able to fuck them, and we would live in a completely different world.
Failed" how? Failed as in people stopped using them? No. Failed as in their profits plummeted? No.
What the actual fuck?
I gave several concrete examples whose usage was originally seen as unassailable, and is now easily measured as essentially zero.
Of the examples I listed, only Shockwave still has any publicly recorded examples of actual continued use, because there’s a virtual museum dedicated to preserving it’s memory.
That’s a fine definition of a failed technology.
You’re out of your element, Donny.
My guy, you are completely overreacting.
OLE COM, ActiveX, Flash, Cold Fusion, and SilverLight
I don’t know what any of these things are but I’m pretty sure they’re not popular social media platforms. If you don’t understand why that matters then you have a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation as it stands.
You’re out of your element, Donny.
…who? are you talking to?
who? are you talking to?
Sorry. Movie quote. The Big Labowski. Check it out. It’s fun. For context, the guy that says that line is a blowhard, not to be taken too seriously. (Like me!)
I don’t know what any of these things are but I’m pretty sure they’re not popular social media platforms. If you don’t understand why that matters then you have a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation as it stands.
I understand network effects. All of my examples had large network effects supporting them, in their time.
Seriously. Open standards win. It takes flipping forever sometimes. But they do. Check into the screwdriver thing. It’s a cool read. Or for something more recent, the histories of open and closed web browsers. I think you’ll find it encouraging.
Open standards win. It takes flipping forever sometimes. But they do.
Did XMPP win? Did RSS win? Did Linux win? These open standards have been around for decades and are still not widely adopted. At what point are they considered a failure?
Is ActivityPub winning? At best it has stalled after gaining a few defectors like myself from those who are unwilling to tolerate bullshit. But at this point I think it’s abundantly clear that there is no amount of abuse that the majority of users won’t tolerate on proprietary platforms.
When open standards win, it’s usually because the platform was built on them, like email or podcasts.
Did XMPP win?
That remains to be seen. I’ll gladly accept XMPP as a point in the “against” column, as it has a long way to go, if it succeeds.
Google succeeded handily at their last round of embrace, extend, extinguish, against XMPP, by dropping support from Google Chat.
It’s worth noting that the question isn’t really whether XMPP replaces WhatsApp, it’s whether it can unseat SMS.
SMS is seriously entrenched. I don’t know it’s state of openess. My understanding is it’s mostly run/owned by a few large proprietary players.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS
Again, I’m happy to concede that XMPP looks doomed today, like RSS did a couple decades ago.
Did RSS win?
RSS certainly hasn’t won, yet. But RSS is doing fine, behind the scenes. Most of the RSS the average person interacts with doesn’t look, to them, like RSS. There’s a lot of RSS still in wide use, today. Competing solutions are currently enshitifying (Google Search, Reddit, Facebook, Xitter), while RSS is still free and still just works.
That’s not an automatic win for RSS, until you consider that RSS has already outlived WebCrawler, Digg, MySpace and GeoCities, among others.
I’m calling it early in favor of RSS.
We’ve agreed that I am prone to do so, though.
Did Linux win?
Yes. Linux won. The vast majority of computation today runs on Linux.
Windows used to hold a serious percentage of web hosting. My best guess is it was around half. The current percentage is unknown, but generous estimates put it at 3%, at most. For some context, the Azure cloud (Microsoft’s web hosting that Office 365 runs on) is known to mostly run on Linux.
But to address the other part of your question:
Is Windows desktop going away?
Something mostly proprietary that costs money and is called Windows with be with us for a long time.
But the Windows kernel is counting it’s final days now, while most people haven’t noticed.
The Windows kernel is cool, but it’s a pure cost center and no longer offers anything that Linux doesn’t.
Game developers noticed, this year. I personally, held onto Windows desktop for decades, solely for gaming. I suspect the shift this year will turn out to be a key moment in the spin down of the Windows kernel.
A desktop OS has a ton of moving pieces. We’re currently seeing the natural trend for those pieces to take advantage of existing open solutions.
I predict that we will see more and more of that, until the switching cost reaches the current low cost of switching web browsers.
Now the vast majority of phones run open source Android.
to be fair, this was almost certainly a reaction to the iphone. Still open, so there’s that.
Seems like the cycle is either:
- someone has a good idea, it’s open source.
- someone has a good idea, it’s closed source, someone else makes something similar, but open source.
Yep. It often takes quite awhile. And I honestly don’t mind supporting innovators who want to sell something closed but really good.
But as I get older, and watch the pattern over and over, I’m starting to appreciate skipping the cycle by directly adopting the open thing as early as I can.
yeah, the general rule of thumb seems to be that if it’s universal, it needs to be open. The farther niche it goes, the less open it has to be, on principle of utility. Open standards are only good people it’s so easy for them to get accepted. That’s why closed standards often just don’t go very far.
The farther niche it goes, the less open it has to be, on principle of utility.
That’s a great point! I kind of skipped over, that. Good add, thanks.
it’s a rather weird concept, but it makes sense. If you want to standardize, let’s say, threaded hardware across the continental US that you would inherently need to do away with any closed standards, assuming you want it to actually work, and along with that, whatever you settle on, needs to be open.
You could theoretically do this with closed source, but the problem here is that there will be someone that comes along and does it with open source, and if it’s better, you’re fucked. And if it’s equal, and cheaper, you’re fucked. And if it’s marginally worse, but trivial to adopt, you’re fucked.
From experience, Lemmy/Mastadon is a lot easier to pitch to potential users than Linux lol
Hard to tell imo. Big tech has a lot of big advantages and disadvantages over us.
Being centralized and heavily funded, it’s a lot easier for them to rapidly create/change new things, for better or for worse. It also means they do a lot of the testing for us. Mastodon/Lemmy formats are figured out from what we liked from proprietary platforms, then we kept the core that made it good. We also don’t need to make a worse user experience by worrying about monetization.
We also have a lot less development, and I won’t even pretend that Mastodon or Lemmy are anywhere near well developed as Reddit/Twitter backends and other software. We simply don’t have the attention and funding to be anywhere near that level.
I don’t think we’ll ever replace big tech, but I just hope we stay on a healthy trajectory where we are alongside them in popularity.
Thank you, u/cum, for your thoughtful insight.
