Hey folks!
I’m writing this because funding for the Lemmy project has dropped to critical levels, which could seriously impact its future development.
Thanks to the generous support of our lemm.ee community, our server infrastructure costs are covered, and we even have a few months of runway. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed - lemm.ee wouldn’t exist without your help.
However, infrastructure alone isn’t enough. Our servers run Lemmy software, and without ongoing development, the platform cannot grow or even be maintained.
Lemmy is an open-source project with many contributors, but the vast majority of development work has been carried out by a small group of core maintainers. A few maintainers work full-time on the project, relying solely on donations and occasional grants to support themselves.
I’ve seen Lemmy development up close, and the maintainers have consistently gone above and beyond what I consider the standard for small open-source teams - they are constantly writing code, mentoring contributors, and keeping everything running. Their work is essential, and without continued support, it cannot be sustained.
If you value Lemmy, please consider supporting its maintainers directly. Every bit helps.
Please check out this post for more details about how to support the maintainers: https://lemm.ee/post/63034576
Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great weekend!
I’ve been around for long enough, time for me to donate.
Sure the two top admins have some shitty opinions, but they still are the main people who have put this software out. The two have been tirelessly working on it for years and years, and have made code that helps everyone, whether you share their opinions or not.
FWIW, I freaked out once over something relatively minor across the Lemmy-modality, and the dev (one of the two, can’t remember which) was just a calm, gem of a person upon my temporary paranoia.
Man, I was… blown away.
(thought I was going to be banned to hell, yadda-yadda)
I came here because reddit is turning into a corporate shithole. Users getting banned because of Luigi apologia and so on and so on. Was really relieved that we did in fact have a great, open source alternative to reddit.
My problem is the lead developers of this platform. They do not see the issues with their political bias being woven into their platform (and their transphobia), it will face the exact same shit thats happening to reddit today.
I can’t pay money to people who deny the pain of trans people. I just can’t. And if the lead developers of Lemmy run out of funds, well then I guess they’ll have to just take a good look in the mirror if they don’t see the reason why Lemmy failed. For now I’m gonna use lemmy if I can, but you can’t expect people from reddit to come here and support you guys when their is really hateful shit being spewed by those people (tankies).
They do not see the issues with their political bias being woven into their platform
What the fuck are you talking about? Their ideology is not part of the project in the slightest. Which is why every other instance works perfectly even if they don’t agree politically with the dev team
For now I’m gonna use lemmy if I can, but you can’t expect people from reddit to come here and support you guys
That’s because you want to have your cake and eat it too.
Go back to Reddit with such shitty takes where you move away from massive corporations only to leech off small projects supported by small donors and real people.
You’re literally just another one of those people complaining about the lack of alternatives in tech while also being unwilling to support the products you’re currently using and talking shit about…
Cool off.
Why? So more users like you can come to this platform and use it while shitting all over it by contributing nothing to it?
As I already said, go back to Reddit
The devs also say that they would gladly accept any development help as well, if you’re either unwilling or unable to financially contribute.
This needs to be more highlighted than just donations.
Not trying to call out politics. But I rather find a way to contribute open source than watch my money keep the lights on very specific servers.
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ml arent allies at all, they’re the problem, and they wont see a stinking cent from me. It would be like donating to elon musk because I like a twitter Account that posts there.
It’s like supporting Ukraine but donating to putins propaganda outlets.
It’s so sad that liberals will literally cozy up to fascists and monetarily support them however they can… But a FOSS project run by commies gets them clutching their pearls super hard
Just had a whole argument about this on that lemmyworld post that’s at the top about boycotting ml cuz someone brought up how they can’t donate if the developers are gonna use some of that money on ml server cost. They can’t see the bigger picture. Instead they wanna cry over how their $5 or whatever donation is gonna be used. Pathetic.
What’s better is that’s also the user who either watches new on ml like a hawk or has a bot that just scrapes content to pull off ml comms to put on world comms.
i reported a fundraising website for the ukrainian neonazi and murderer sternenko and thats still up, but talking politics online is just inexcusable
Imo, it’s people just rationalizing not wanting to give $5 away. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with deciding you don’t want to donate, that’s your choice, but be honest with yourself. If they weren’t commies, people would be finding some other excuse to not donate.
thanks for the post sir, happy to throw a few money units in
Dessalines and Nutomic are criminally underpaid. Lemmy development still has a long way to go and we could get there much faster if people donated more. But in typical Lemmy fashion, people would rather sit on their high horses and throw stones from their glass houses.
I started donating to the developers 2 days after I joined Lemmy and have given over $1k since then. I find the developers to be competent, mature, and reasonable. Similarly to many other contentious topics on this platform, the conversation regarding their perceived or imagined political beliefs is completely lacking in objectivity, logic, and nuance. Y’all actually be gossiping like teenagers about these developers even while taking advantage of the fruits of their unpaid labor. I’ve seen the evidence of their extremism and it’s quite underwhelming when you lay it all out.
And even if I did have major qualms about the devs, I would still argue that it’s much harder to justify using any products or services from large corporations like Amazon or Reddit than it is to monetarily support a FOSS project such as Lemmy. Out of everything I’ve spent money on in my lifetime, Lemmy is easily among the most morally justifiable expenses.
I eventually had to reduce my monthly contribution once sh.itjust.works started accepting donations, because I also feel strongly about supporting my own instance. It’s unfortunate that so many lemmings seemingly understand the fact that reddit has become an evil cancer and an alternative is sorely needed, but don’t seem to understand that creating such an alternative is a project that requires a massive amount of time and effort. Donating to your instance is great, but without continued development of the underlying software, it’s a futile effort. Even if you want to die on the hill of not donating to the big bad Lemmy devs, at least donate to PieFed or something! 2 patrons?!? As an early adopter userbase, we can and should be doing a lot more to support the fediverse monetarily, imo.
Support sent.
I started using Lemmy like 2 years ago, stopped for a long time, and came back a few months ago. I’m sure something has changed in that time, but I don’t know what.
It could be because Lemmy is written in Rust, which is kind of notorious for how difficult it is to be productive in it. Or maybe it’s that there aren’t enough developers, or there isn’t enough funding.
In any case, my motivation to help fund this project is not helped by the insufferable cuntery of the tankies in the .ml communities. Knowing that the core devs are also tankies makes me want to see it fail. Fuck those people.
I’ll do my part, I just wish my country’s currency wasn’t worth 1/6 of an euro :/
Just donate 6 times the amount smh my head
omg I’m so dumb, thank you very much.
So right now I’m not in a financial situation that I can even possibly think about donating.
My general issue with FOSS is the guilt trip I go on when devs plead for donations – that’s MY issue, not any of the dev teams – but it plays a part in not using FOSS as much as I would like. I don’t want to sell my soul, but that’s about all I have to give right now so free ad-supported services and software are where I tend to lean to these days.
However, I am trying to put as much focus on supporting less shitty humans and buy locally whenever I can now. I didn’t realize the views of the devs of Lemmy until a few days ago and I’m a little concerned to be even using Lemmy as a whole as it shows some level of tacit support for the devs and their beliefs. If they weren’t open about it, obviously this wouldn’t be an issue but since it’s out in public it’s an issue.
I swear I have a point to all this…
Is Lemmy funded just by direct contributions from users or do instances take extra money from their donations and funnel it down to the main project?
If anyone is familiar with the various 12 Step programs, this is pretty much how those main programs get funded. The local meetings take donations that pay for the rent and any other expenses and then donate left over funds to the main service organization while keeping a reserve for emergencies.
If I were in the position to donate, I would feel much better donating to Lemmy.ee rather than the main project considering their views on certain political issues. I would not be directly donating, but if the instance donated extra funds I might be ok with that. It just feels different for some reason.
You realize it’s the owner of .ee that made the post right. Since the instance is still running, still federated with the main one, and the post is still up, maybe that says something about how acceptable those politics are
Just doubled my monthly contribution! Thanks for the reminder.
Made a small donation. Every bit counts, I hope.
I’m a (small) monthly supporter already! I wish lemmy had a way to give people a little checkbox in their profile for supporters.
or they could work to project completion and not add new features.
It’s kind of clarifying to check the original post and the attitudes around there. I actually recommend it.
