I worry about the sustainability, though. The current model of donations, volunteer mods, and so on is working as intended, and the experience is flourishing. I see this model standing up for at least a couple of years as-is, barring any major changes of any kind.

My question becomes: How do we plan for the future entry of corporate influence into all of this? Because it will happen. I've watched most social media platforms and systems come into being in my lifetime, and also watched most of their demises. Money, marketing, and ads always come for them in some form.

What's being done now to help prevent toxic corporate influence in the future? Can anything be done? The best part about defederated instances is a corporate influence could get ahold of one instance, but not all of them. Great in concept, but how do we plan for a future when corporate interest reaches these platforms and they throw enough money around to shake things up for the worse, as it always seems to?

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[–] jerrimu 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I worry about the sustainability, though. The current model of donations, volunteer mods, and so on is working as intended, and the experience is flourishing. I see this model standing up for at least a couple of years as-is, barring any major changes of any kind.

Reddit was profitless and largely ran by volunteers for free for over a decade. I believe we can do it again.

[–] JonCecil 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I do agree, but it's also had ads for a very long time.

[–] Dark_Blade 1 points 2 years ago

Wouldn’t be surprised if major Lemmy instances started showing ads to sustain their own servers. It sucks, but hosting costs money and donations aren’t all that reliable.