It's all personal. A datamining company like Google holds value in it by presenting you ads that are relevant to your interest. Considering that Google holds little power in the fediverse, the value does not come from there.

The value of spreading information or entertainment is subjective, though sometimes quantifiable in that people might buy a product because of a post. I know I bought a few games thanks to lemmy.

I short: not usually financially. Maybe mental value.

[–] thepiggz@programming.dev 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Interesting take. I like the light philosophical bend there with the mental value. I think you’re right about that. I have been more considering whether the cumulative data of a platform like Lemmy as a whole is something that we as the users/server should be asserting our ownership of. Or, whether it is effectively worthless.

[–] DosDude@retrolemmy.com 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Federation is a double edged sword imo. The data might be valuable to some in the future, like reddit is if you have a problem, there often is a thread about it. But being that most servers are self-hosted, the data can dissappear more easily than a big corporation hosting it. But I rather take it. For the support Foss and for cutting ties to big corporations.

I'm not sure if, for instance, I stop hosting my server, if the community data is archived on other servers. I'm not a programmer.

[–] thepiggz@programming.dev 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I’m a programmer. If someone had an interest they could preserve all of your self-hosted data without your permission. I think it is worth considering tho, if all of this is valuable then it would be ideal if we could get that value into the accounts of people in need rather than the alternative.

[–] DosDude@retrolemmy.com 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Sounds like it wouldn't be a bad thing archiving it somehow. A lemmy archive of sorts. For preservation. Not saying my instance has a lot of value, but linux questions, fixes for games etc on the lemmyverse as a whole. It could be text only, so it doesn't have to take up an exorbitant amount of storage.

[–] johannes@lemmy.jhjacobs.nl 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well, i like to read lemmy posts in my "down time" so to me its certainly valuable on a mental level :)

[–] DosDude@retrolemmy.com 2 points 11 months ago

Life's all downtime when you look at it.

I swear I'm not refreshing lemmy every chance i get...

[–] kbal@fedia.io 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I don't know about your posts, but mine are extremely valuable. Almost as valuable as actual physical graffiti written on the outhouse walls.

[–] numberfour002@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I get paid for my posts. In fact, because of Kellog's Morningstar Farms faux vegan corndog nuggets and my willingness to mention their superior taste and nutritonal profile compared to inferior faux vegan cordog nuggets, I am left with far more time to post stuff on social media. I'm not saying Kellog's Morningstar Farms faux vegan corndog nuggets will solve all your financial problems the way they have solved all of mine, but they're a pretty tasty distraction. Move over non-vegan corndog nuggets, there's a new nugget in town! At least that's the thing I am contractually obligated to work into everything I post online, including this comment!

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 points 11 months ago

"FOR A GOOD TIME CALL KBAL at 555..."