I prefer good faith discussions please. I love the Fediverse and love what it can be long term. The problem is that parts of the culture want nothing to do with financial aspect. Many are opposed to ads, memberships, sponsorships etc The “small instances” response does nothing to positively contribute to the conversation. There are already massive instances and not everyone wants to self host. People are concerned with larger companies coming to the Fedi but these beliefs will drive everyday users to those instances. People don’t like feeling disposable and when you hamstring admins who then ultimately shut down their instances that’s exactly how people end up feeling. There has to be an ethical way of going about this. So many people were too hard just to be told “too bad” “small instances” I don’t want to end up with a Fediverse ran by corporations because they can provide stability.
Why not? It’s a hobby project.
I thought we didn’t want big companies to control the fediverse? But if we want people to main-job it, then naturally you’re turning it into a business, and sooner or later the larger it gets, the largest will be, well, a big company. Naturally. A Lemmy-company, basically. Lemmy.world Ltd.
Do we want big business to run the place, or not? In the latter case, it cannot be a viable full time job, or it will naturally turn into the former if successful.
Why?! Why be self-limiting about it?
Do you think that when NLNet gave the Lemmy devs a grant, they were just funding a hobby or do you think they were hoping to make it a viable alternative?
It does not follow. As long as it is open source, it can not be controlled by any single entity. History is full of cases of companies that tried to exert control over open platforms and it did not end up well for them.