this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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Wikipedia is the 7th most visited website in the world, more popular than Amazon, TikTok, even PornHub. It's not funded by advertisers or other bullshit - rather through reader donations.
With that said, Wikipedia is still centralized content whereas Lemmy isn't. Meaning there's fewer expenses and pressure on any one instance or server to succeed. And if one instance or server doesn't succeed, your access to the Federation is far from over.
Wikipedia is set up as a nonprofit. They have annual fundraising drives asking their users for money. They also have an endowment and receive grants.
A donation drive could be a good model but the decentralized nature of the platform would complicate things.
It doesn't have to be that complicated. Your server's admin ask for money, setup a method to receive donations (ex: Liberapay, Paypal, etc) and there you go.
If you raise more than you need, the community can vote to donate it to other communities in need, to the Lemmy or Kbin devs or to some charity.
It doesn't have to be complicated. It can be patreon pages for servers & instances you support, which is enough to keep the lights on. Especially if it unlocks a little cosmetic token or icon.
If it is not funded through user donations, how is it self sufficient? Genuinely curious.
Idk what he's referring to, but wikimedia funds the operating costs of Wikipedia as well as the salaries etc of those that work to keep the site running.
They have been criticised for bloat, but the site itself is entirely dependent upon donations.
WP has a story that sums it up nicely: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/02/wikipedia-has-a-ton-of-money-so-why-is-it-begging-you-to-donate-yours/
What happens to your account on a federated server if that one fails though?
Then you need a new account I think. It's a limitation of the ActivityPub protocol I think (but I haven't done any reading). Your identity is tied to the instance it was created on.
As someone who burned reddit accts regularly this doesn't really concern me. But if it really worries you couldn't you set up your own private instance with you as the sole user? Nothing is more reliable than yourself. Even corporations with millions of dollars can close up shop at a moments notice.