Even worse, the free .ml domain is not actually yours when you get it for free, but actually owned by the company that previously managed the .ml domain. I suspect Mali government has reclaimed all those free domain registrations now that the contract with the company has been expired. The .ml domains that still up was probably paid domain and Mali government are probably still honoring the contract.
lmfao, frickin seriously? you’re gonna build up an instance where the domain is part of all of your users’ identities and you’re not even gonna spend the $10/yr to keep that solid? with how much time goes into running a lemmy instance and not getting overrun by bots, that’s an absolutely ridiculous assignment of resources
redcalcium@c.calciumlabs.com 1 year ago
mitchacho74@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You have to remember that until recently, there was sub 100 daily users, this wasn’t a big platform, and it wasn’t just lemmy.ml, but a bunch of <10 user instances.
It wasn’t worth paying for a small side project until it wasn’t and at that point it was too late, plus who would have predicted that the gov of Mali would forcefully take back all of their domains?
IlCaviale@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Bruh it’s 10 dollars PER YEAR.
I’ve owned a .com domain for over a decade, ever since BEFORE I actually had a job and was living on allowances, and it still doesn’t register as an expense to me.
The content I host on that domain has been used by 3 different people tops, which is me and a couple of my friends. It’s still worth it.
If I were to build a public-facing service you’d bet your goddamned ass I’d fork over the bare minimum to guarantee that it fucking stays up.
humanreader@infosec.pub 1 year ago
You underestimate how different some people’s situations and priorities can be. For us, it’s forking 10-20 USD (not a big sum of money) once a year by credit card (which isn’t hard to obtain).
There are parts of the world with dire financial situations or simply outdated systrms that don’t offer easy access to electric or international payments. There will be devs wanting to experiment with web services, but for them it isn’t simply “forking over the bare minimum”.
I won’t reveal my location just for the sake of an internet discussion, but I lived in a country where until around five to ten years ago or so getting a bank account with ‘credit card’ meant you ‘made it’.
Wht? If you weren’t lucky and wanted to pay for something international, you needed a friend with the aforementioned credit card to do the transaction on our behalf. Buying on Amazon? Better make it worth it before bothering our friend there. What if I wanted games on steam? The friend with credit card, or use an intermediary that charges an extra so they ‘gift’ the purchased game. And so on.
Now it has gotten much better, as fintech apps filled the gap offering virtual visa or mastercard payments, and the banks themselves started offering credit cards with lower quotas, but you have to remember that it wasn’t available until a couple of years ago, or even still out of reach for some.
So what if you’re a developer with no access to international tx (or do have, but it’s shitty and have expensive fees or similar oddities) and want to experiment regardless? You find the ones that doesn’t require payment.
emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I get a little over 10 dollars a day. Also, while my country has an excellent, free system for internal financial transactions, any international transaction will be (a) complicated and (b) expensive.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t pay USD1USD0 for a website, but I sure wouldn’t do it for a hobby one.
b3nsn0w@pricefield.org 1 year ago
i mean, good point on the project size, but buying a domain is honestly such a basic thing that it still feels like a weird result on that equation to me. for fmhy.ml, specifically, i understand their choice, since pirate sites do tend to be quite nomadic with their domains, and the fediverse being so domain-specific is a new thing.
still, domains are hella cheap. the $10/yr figure i quoted is for a “serious” one on one of the major tlds, you can get away with much less if you’re willing to go for a somewhat more niche but still reputable one. especially one that’s longer than two characters.