this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Why do instances not run ads? (self.lemmyworld)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by arisoda to c/lemmyworld
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It probably goes against the philosophy or whatever of FOSS or Lemmy itself, but why not be a little evil so that you can actually sustain yourself? Donations can bring us far, but small non-intrusive ads can be a bliss in the skies for the people actually hosting the instance. Especially if there are millions of users uploading thousands of images and videos. This is extremely expensive.

Is running ads really that taboo?

EDIT: some people seem not to get the point of "millions of users", which presumably includes non-techies that do not use adblockers. I mean that without ads (or mining?), no instance would be able to scale to the point where it can compete with Reddit for example. If you were to want that. And not for profit, but solely for sustainability.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm probably just being idealist of whatever but personally I really hope it doesn't. I don't really like the idea of one instance getting so big that it has the ability to disrupt all the other ones, I'd much prefer in was all just little niche servers run by people who are passionate about the subject, even if it's not making them any money.

But probably it'll all just eventually conglomerate into one big thing and then turn rotten and we'll all have to find something else, because that always seems to be the way it goes. But these are the wild west days for this platform, enjoy it while it lasts!

[–] saucyloggins 4 points 1 year ago

But that’s the beauty of ActivityPub. You can always just fork the code yourself and start a new project that could federate with Kbin and Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ad paragraph 2: The beauty is that you do not have to only enjoy it while it lasts. FLOSS cannot end in this way. As already explained by @[email protected], if this all just conglomerates to a centralized and rotten state, you simply create another instance and federate exclusively with those instances that are not rotten. Maybe only with the smaller instances that, for example, focus on a topic you find interesting.

You do not even have to fork and maintain anything. You simply use the SW as is, but without having to deal with the aspects that you find problematic (centralization on a few large instances and rotten admins, etc.).