Plain and simple, instances should require some form of contribution from all members. Let's stop pretending that the people here can not pay a dollar or two per month.

[–] Bezier@suppo.fi 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think a dollar or two per year would suffice if all users paid it.

[–] patrick@lemmy.bestiver.se 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

FYI, if you really think that's enough then you should check out https://feddit.org/post/2600584

The most efficient large instances cost ~$1.40 per user per year for hosting costs, and that's if you value the admin/mod costs at $0

[–] Bezier@suppo.fi 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The thought was that it'd be closer to that, than the 12 times larger suggestion.

And yeah, I was definitely only taking hosting costs into account, because every instance is maintained by volunteers. I was also only thinking about large instances that benefit from economies scale and smarter management.

I took a quick glance at that thread, will have a more thorough pass later.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If you value the admin/mod costs at $0

Yeah, and developers. Apparently, they all think development of Lemmy, alternative frontends, supporting tools, client libraries and everything that enables the ecosystem falls out of the sky.

That thread is ridiculous. It's downright offensive to everyone working in free software and shows how little they are valued.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A dollar per year won't even cover the storage bills, much less the labor of admins and moderators.

[–] Bezier@suppo.fi 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Per user? There are instances running on like $10/mo virtual servers with maybe the same amount spent on storage.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 1 points 2 months ago

How many users are on these instances?

(And you are still ignoring the cost of labor.)