Fediverse

I'm on mastodon.art and donate $1/m, same story. It's only a handful of people that donate (hundreds, but still - much smaller than the thousands of users) and we cover the bill.

Though, this is also why i'm experimenting with custom Fediverse instance software that prioritizes low cost operation. I think Fedi would be better off if it wasn't a huge lift to figure out hosting. There's enough challenges in hosting instances, it would be nice to reduce as many as possible.

if every local user would donate 1 cent each month we would get more in donations than our total costs are

This is a really solid selling point. Every admin should do this math and ask for donations like this. I know I often fall into the trap of feeling like I need to donate more. Because it's a bigger bite of my budget, I end up procrastinating and not donating. But reading this, I would more readily donate an amount that's more comfortable to me but also accounts for other users' portions