Why do instances not run ads? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by arisoda@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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It probably goes against the philosophy or whatever of FOSS or Lemmy itself, but why not be a little evil so that you can actually sustain yourself? Donations can bring us far, but small non-intrusive ads can be a bliss in the skies for the people actually hosting the instance. Especially if there are millions of users uploading thousands of images and videos. This is extremely expensive.

Is running ads really that taboo?

EDIT: some people seem not to get the point of "millions of users", which presumably includes non-techies that do not use adblockers. I mean that without ads (or mining?), no instance would be able to scale to the point where it can compete with Reddit for example. If you were to want that.

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[+] maajmaaj@lemmy.world 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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[-] KarsicKarl@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago

Most Mastodon, Friendica, Calckey instances accept donations.

It is likely that kbin/Lemmy instances will likely follow the same model.

Advertising would not work on the Fediverse as the adverts would be blocked by other instances so the spread would be very limited so not attractive commercially.

That is one of the beauties of the federated model.
Also, as there is no algorithm or data about user interests there's no scope for advert targeting which advertisers would want.

The whole ethos of the #Fediverse is anti commercial.

[-] arisoda@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

the same can be said about instances with millions of users uploading and downloading millions of images and videos. I'd love to follow along and see that journey would go. I mean, I hope I'm wrong but I just don't see it being sustainable if you want to compete with reddit for example.

[-] simple@lemmy.mywire.xyz 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The solution is to lean into what Lemmy (and the Fediverse) was designed to do - be decentralized.

If we have more instances running, it would lighten the load on the larger instances (smaller instances can still subscribe to the larger one's communities and such).

I think ads isnt a great idea. Firstly, generic ads don't pay much, for actual good income you need to target ads, which now digs into users privacy and from there we have a slippery slope.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

Firstly, generic ads don't pay much, for actual good income you need to target ads

True, but the Fediverse doesn't need to make a profit. If generic ads are enough to (mostly) cover server costs then I don't think there'd be a huge issue

[-] swnt@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago

This! Ads aren't really good and have become malicious, manipulate and just bad in all kinds of things.

I'd rather have the instances communicate that they X amount of money for the moderation + servers costs. Since the communities on an insurance are closely connected, they'll rather be happy to do that.

Add regular donations via patreon and it's solved. To make transfers even more neutral, you could also accept cryptos for payments.