this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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Just because software is Free as in libre doesn't mean it's free as in beer. Running those services costs huge amount of money. Running enough instances of lemmy to replace reddit would cost collectively much more than the one optimized centralized service. So I guess that would translate to governments making billions of dollars in tax revenue.
If that is the case then how is Lemmy/the Fediverse going to be financially sustainable in the long run?
Donations, people always give Wikipedia as an example. You need to chip in every now and then. Wouldn't that be better than "free" but your every click, scroll and interaction being tracked and you having an advertising profile being built in the background?
That makes sense, but Wikipedia is one "instance" instead of hundreds. If many instances start depending on donations and you are subscribed to even just a couple of them, donating to every single one could seem a little much, right? Not trying to be negative, just starting to wrap my head around this.