I’ve been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey – I’m just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here, purists can bite me) for over a year now, a…

I’ve been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey – I’m just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here, purists can bite me) for over a year now, a…

  • steel-runner@kbin.social
    1·
    2 years ago

    So how is Kbin going to cover its operating costs? If a fediverse server must survive on donations, it seems like donating should be built into the user experience. For example, there could be a Kbin Gold similar to Reddit Gold.

    I remember years ago when Reddit Gold first became a thing there was a progress bar on the site indicating how much of their daily server costs had been covered by Reddit Gold. Something like that might be useful.

    • SFaulken@kbin.social
      1·
      2 years ago

      You misunderstand what kbin is, if you think there’s A server that has to cover operating costs. kbin isn’t a site, it’s just server software, it’s meant to be run in many many places, and those individual servers talk to each other.

      • czech@kbin.social
        1·
        2 years ago

        I thought that kbin was a website in Poland that implements the ActivityPub protocol and so it’s able to talk to and share posts with other websites in the “fediverse” such as: Lemmy, kilioa.org, fedia.io, ect… because they implement the same protocol. But I’m very new here so I’m not really sure!

      • steel-runner@kbin.social
        0·
        2 years ago

        Who’s going to be paid for the ongoing maintenance of the software? Who’s going to pay for the servers the software’s run on? A decentralized architecture doesn’t remove the operating costs of a large scale social media site. As the article alludes to, it might even increase operating costs.

        To be honest, I’m not interested in small, niche communities. I want the fediverse to grow into something that can rival social media giants like Reddit, and Twitter. How a site is monetized is as key of a feature as anything else, because without monetization, a site is doomed.

        • 0xtero@kbin.social
          1·
          2 years ago

          Who’s going to be paid for the ongoing maintenance of the software?

          I’d imagine no one in particular. It’s donations and open-source model. Eventually (if it gets popular) it might get some other business model or grants from FOSS funds. Remains to be seen.

          Who’s going to pay for the servers the software’s run on?

          Same here. Donations and/or whoever hosts the servers. Instances should grow to whatever their maintainer can afford/has planned. Then they should close signups. Other instances might pop up. There are currently a lot of Lemmy instances and some people are starting to spin up new kbin instances.

          How a site is monetized

          Eventually someone is probably going to try ads for their site.
          But fediverse is not just “a site”. It’s many. They all have their own rules, plans and ambitions.

          • vyvanse@kbin.social
            1·
            1 year ago

            I never thought of how capping sign ups doesn’t affect you in the fediverse… you can just sign up on a different instance! Very cool to think that server hosts can stay within their own limitations.