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Why do instances not run ads? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by 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. And not for profit, but solely for sustainability.

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[–] 11 points 3 years ago (1 child)

I run my own instance and I don’t run ads because I frankly hate seeing them myself. They clutter up the web view, cause lag on the webpage, and frankly are annoying and ugly to look at.

I’d rather pay out of my own pocket to keep my instance going rather than run ads. Donations would be ideal to help keep it running for longer. As sad as it is, if I couldn’t keep paying the server costs and there weren’t any donations.. I’d just shut the server down. I personally will never run ads on an instance I run. I don’t want to perpetuate or support the lifeless corporate greed cycle.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    How much money does it even cost running an instance?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    I use https://1984.hosting (for privacy) to run my instance on a VPS. I'm using 1 core 2GB RAM VPS and that costs 10 dollars a month. So far everything looks to be running pretty well.

    There probably are cheaper VPS providers as well, so you likely will be able to go cheaper.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    If it is just a single person private instance, relatively cheap (like a few USD). As you scale it up though it does quickly get pricey. I think mine is around 20-25ish/mo plus 4/mo for backups. I know some of the bigger instances are closer to 50-100/mo and it’s only going up as their users go up.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    If donations work, it maybe a good way to finance it. Does it require loads of work and moderation? Or is it easy

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Donations seem to be plan for instances in the fediverse, I’ve heard of some other efforts to monetize instances either through advertising or subscriptions but apparently those instance were quickly defederated with.

    There was a bit of technical work to stand up my own instance but developers are working on making setting up an instance easier. I haven’t had to moderate anything on my instance yet as it is <10 users at the moment but it is definitely something you have to keep in mind as your instance grows.

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