Well, we are on the ground floor here. Let's find something that keeps the lights on and gives everyone the incentives they need to make a great community!

Perhaps a good start would be a page that gives statistics about the time and money required to run an instance. I really appreciate those who have dedicated their time money and reputation to start things up. Lets find a way to build a better social media experience together.

I think many of us would be OK with a number of different models, donations, non-intrusive ads, reasonable subscription fees, etc. Perhaps there could even be incentives for people who put time into building communities by moderating or other tasks. The important thing in my opinion is that everyone feels they contributed to the structure in a way that they want to keep participating.

Edit: I found a budget page from the donation link on the side bar of the main page of lemmy.world.

[–] TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Perhaps a good start would be a page that gives statistics about the time and money required to run an instance.

Yeah, that's not not a bad idea.

I'm ok with some non-intrusive ads, also. I'd also be ok with chipping in $5 a month, or so, if it's something I end up using a lot.

[–] FearTheCron@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From a personal perspective, I would like to see a model where basic access is free. A 5$ a month fee is fine for you and me, but I think there are a lot of people who may not have that in their budget or who don't want the paper trail of payments (e.g. if they live in a country that is restrictive of free speech). I am really hoping that voluntary donations are sufficient, but I guess we will see.

[–] TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I am really hoping that voluntary donations are sufficient

I hope so too.

[–] BlankSix@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really love that idea.

Regarding ads, I almost always turn on an ad blocker because the ads I see are over the top and either obstructive or somehow offensive, so figuring out a way to monetize that isn't also horrible is kind of a delicate balance. Like, no autoplaying video/audio, for one.

Tip jars, things like possible user customizations allowable for those that donate above a certain threshold (so like, specific color callouts for donators of $x in the last month, or the ability to add highlights inline in comments, or something) and other incentives other than, y'know, getting your average user to understand that servers and time are things that need money to keep going. That said, that stat page would be super helpful on the main instance page, like maybe over on the side.

[–] FearTheCron@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, reasonable ads are key. Moving/flashing things are a show stopper for me. Also, ads shouldn't track private information, I think its fine to base them on the contents of the current public info on a page, but tracking data across sites gets creepy. I don't like using ad blockers if I can avoid it, but many websites are completely unusable without it.