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

endofline@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• rglullis@communick.news ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Again: hosting costs is the least of the concerns. The problem is that users are not willing to pay for the labor of admins.

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  • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    I don’t think you understand what volunteer means

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    • rglullis@communick.news ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      I understand it pretty well. What I don’t understand is why some people only want to participate here if it means they can get to free ride on “volunteers”.

      In a sibling comment, you say “if providing the service is too much, the solution is to stop doing it”. Fine, I fully agree with it. But do you realize that this implies that sooner or later we are going to run out of people with the capacity (or willingness) to do this work?

      We are not talking about any small-time instance. It’s the third largest instance by active user count. Above it, only mastodon.social and mstdn.jp. If the third largest instance has an admin that might have to stop providing the service in order to find another job so that they can make fucking rent, isn’t that a sign that this is not sustainable?

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      • aceshigh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Using the site, interacting with it and participating is providing service. Without those people there would be no content. Showing up is providing service.

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      • dzsimbo@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        What I don’t understand is why some people only want to participate here if it means they can get to free ride on “volunteers”.

        On reddit, the picture was pretty clear: admins are being paid, so your average commenter is volunteering the content, not to talk about the free (or power trip sponsored) work the mods are doing. And of course with the way reddit treated it’s contributors, there was huge animosity towards certain admins. I don’t see the participants here riding any more ‘free’ in terms of making this place work. The difference is that the admin is contributing money, instead of getting paid.

        I can get behind a campaign for temporarily funding hosting costs, but that probably would not include rent or pay for the admin. It feels the main problem is rooted in our economy somewhere, but this is also something of a ‘put your own oxygen mask on first’ scenarios.

        It is frustrating that someone who does such an amazing thing for the common good is struggling to get a fraction of a Zach Braff indiegogo project. You are also doing a good thing by spreading the message, but the pressure on this donation almost alienates me. Without knowing much about server instances, I imagine there are less fortunate alternatives, like moving the hosts to someone close by, outsourcing certain roles to trusted folk while the admin finds the time and money to fund their hobby again.

        I hope I’m not coming over as too cold, it just feels like you are trying to solve a way bigger problem than we have. We need the instances run by volunteers. Would the admin be happier if their project died, or temporarily be handed over (if this is possible at all)? What’s better for the thousands of users? Is it fair to the admin? Shit no. Can they get the funding to pay for their hobby? Maybe. Is it fair if they are using the instance as leverage?

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  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    People are very willing to donate other’s time

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  • Randomgal@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Yep. This is it. “Leftists” on Lemmy really love the. exploitation of free labor. As long as it’s DeCeNtrALiZeD exploitation.

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    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      If providing a completely voluntary service is too much of a personal burden, the solution is to stop doing it. No one is being exploited, all relationships on Lemmy are completely voluntary by design.

      Personally I don’t mind the idea of Lemmy embracing a syndicalist financial model or something of that nature but you’re simply spouting a bunch of entitled nonsense.

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    • Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      “Oh c’mon man, it’s your hobby, right You’d do it anyway?”

      Also, it wasn’t exactly just leftists, but also my leftist friends who were always asking for “friend prices” when I drove them around when I drove a taxi. Like… you guys are getting special service, and I’m your friend, you get to skip the hour of waiting and fighting other drunks in the taxi queue.

      It also would’ve been different if there was the chances of favours in return.

      So like people who could actually help with the labour or in something other way put in work, maybe they’d be okay with just covering the hosting costs, but modding a community isn’t exactly the same work as maintaining the soft- and hardware. Alone, I presume.

      And also is the “hosting costs” just like the costs of the services for the hosting, or does it incorporate all the cost for electricity to run the equipment as well?

      Is it lack of empathy or greed? I never really could figure that out. Feels like a bit of both.

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      • Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Also, it wasn’t exactly just leftists, but also my leftist friends who were always asking for “friend prices” when I drove them around when I drove a taxi. Like… you guys are getting special service, and I’m your friend, you get to skip the hour of waiting and fighting other drunks in the taxi queue.

        Seems like bad friends, whatever the political preferences are

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    • Emmie@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      It perfectly fits into some commies dream idea of everyone doing their work for them, for free. Especially the revolution one

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