@darius That reminded of a 2015 blog post by Henry Mintzberg:

Networks are not Communities https://mintzberg.org/blog/networks-communities

“Networks connect; communities care.”

@darius I thought small was my 50-user local/regional instance! Guess we need a new size category.

I’ve been very fortunate that people approached me about donations and encouraged me to set up funding options (I was ready to pay the first year, or at least the equivalent of 12 months at our current size, out of pocket).

There’s a huge difference in having a group of people, and having a community.

@darius Hi, out of interest: What amount would you suggest to individual users to support their servers? How high are the costs for the maintenance of a +- 1000 server per month?

@darius
I am not sure random users are aware of the idea that someone pays the bills on fedrated services because since the 90s, internet services haven't really cost them beyond 'pay your internet bill'. So I think any instance should have a campaign to educate users once or so a year. (Jimmy Wales not required).

@darius we've got a little over 200 active users, and even that feels like a lot! like @tswan, folks encouraged me to set up donations, so #triangleTootParty is sustained by the folks who use it. :)

@darius I wonder if there’s a good write up on how to accept and manage donations, etc? I don’t know if this idea of taking over and “saving” users sits well with me vs teaching the admins how to optimize and maybe work together to fund their instances.

Tho tbh, I personally don’t accept donations because I don’t need the money and frankly can’t handle the overhead of tracking billing stuff in a timely and organized manner 🫠.

@darius Public radio does fundraisers on an annual schedule. Free commercial services sell consumer data to advertisers. Philanthropists and foundations may give grants, with or without strings and interests.

The bills will be paid, or instances will shut down.

I’m putting in the eight dollars a month that I will never give to #ElonMusk, because I like #Mastodon and the #FediVerse better than #Twitter.

If enough step up with funds and volunteering, then it won’t get dominated

@darius Never underestimate the average Internet user’s appetite for a free lunch

@darius I run an actually small server and figure I will take the L for quite some time. I also do my own stream hosting and take an L on that, but that's got a line item in my excel budget. For me at least it's a matter of taking pride in facilitating community, art, and conversation. At some point I will have to Patreon or ask for donations, I don't really like that, but realistically it's inevitable.