I've heard about the Lemmy devs struggling financially to be able to support Lemmy in the past. A lot of users say they'd support the devs if they shut down lemmy.ml, but it can be hard to quantify the value of such statements.

Thus, a proposal: Some trusted team of admins from another instance, say .world or blahaj.zone for example, should set up an account for people who want to support Lemmy but not lemmy.ml to donate into. This account would immediately donate all the money sent to it, if and when lemmy.ml is shut down. The Lemmy devs could think of it as an emergency fund for a rainy day, and if the financial situation ever gets desperate enough for them, they could shut down lemmy.ml and draw on this fund.

A side effect of the fund's existence may be that people, now given the choice to support Lemmy without supporting lemmy.ml, stop donating to the devs directly and just put their money in the no-ml fund instead. if that happened, the devs would have no choice but to shut down .ml, but hey, that's the free gift economy for you.

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[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 1 month ago

Wouldn't most of those who wish not to fund .ml just want to put their money into piefed or other lemmy compatible alternatives?

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 month ago

I think it's kinda a dick move to hold a fund ransom until something is fulfilled, politician does this and it's already bad enough. What if the fund being held by said account being misused? What if lemmy dev insist that they will not back down? Would the fund be held until it does, which will likely take forever?

If i want to donate and 100% make sure some of the fund actually reach my goal, i would've just donate to them. If i don't agree with their political view point i will just don't donate, or donate to piefed which equally need the fund to progress. Having someone else holding the fund for me is very icky, financial-wise.

[–] transebding_the_binary@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 month ago

You do realize that most or at least the main Lemmy devs are from .ml

[–] Pamasich@kbin.earth 6 points 1 month ago

Just donate to them if you want to, why make it this complicated. If you don't want your money to go towards running the instance, then donate directly to those devs not involved with running the instance.

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

Lemmy.ml is literally the developers' home instance. You're confusing instance admins (basically randos) with the developers. Anyway I like it here on .ml. I moved here from .world because of too much censorship there. You're literally not allowed to discuss disapproved brands of cat food on .world. I still chuckle over that one.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I haven’t heard anyone demand .ml shut down. I think people want A: allow for separate funding of Lemmy development and the server so people can avoid contributing to the server if they wish. And B: stop running the server as your personal fiefdom where any dissenting opinion or inconvenience facts result in an immediate ban.

[–] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

This is how i feel about it too

[–] rglullis 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

FYI: communick pledges to take 20% of the profits from its hosting services and give to the open source developers of the underlying projects. So, the more people signing up to the $29/year package, the more we can support the developers from Mastodon, Lemmy, Funkwhale and Matrix.

[–] m33@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Communick ? What is this ?

[–] rglullis 3 points 1 month ago

Communick is a commercial provider for messaging (Matrix) and ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, PixelFed, GoToSocial, PixelFed) services. To get an account at any of its instances, you need to be a paying customer.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Peak lib irony. Enjoying the products of leftism while attacking leftists.

[–] Genius@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

The Lemmy devs aren't leftists. I wish they were

[–] napkin2020@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

tbh that's what tankies excels at.

[–] birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone -1 points 1 month ago

I think what would help, is a way to directly donate using eg. Monero or cash.