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Created this account so I could create the community. Decided on lemm.ee because my main account is on aussie.zone, which does not allow community creation (and limits its communities to things about Australia). Figured lemm.ee is better than lemmy.world due to the latter's performance/federation issues.
You have a lengthy comment indeed, but it does not mean that you are answering the question I made: do you think that the Fediverse can be "successful" only via "pure" communal efforts, or do you think that it needs professionals to work on it and who should be properly appraised - ii.e, be paid according to market rate?
Taking 30$ per year as a reference point as this is your pricing on Communick (I know it also involves Mastodon and Matrix, but there is no Lemmy only package anymore, so that's the only option), this is too high and goes against the philosophy of free software.
Does your Linux distribution ask you for a yearly fee for development and maintenance costs?
Does F-droid ask you for a yearly fee?
Grayjay?
On the other hand, some people paid for Sync, so there is still an part of the Lemmy population who is ready to pay for software, but Sync is a polished product they knew they could trust quality wise.
You are still not answering the question!
Forget about Communick or my offer specifically: I am asking if you think that there is any value in paying for a service based on open standards.
I am not asking what you think of my pricing (though if your excuse is that $29 for the bundle is too much, you could say say what price point would interest you)
I am not asking you to compare the business of charging for a service (hosting) vs a product (client apps).
I am not asking you to pay for everything that is free (Linux developers are mostly employed by profit-driven companies who use Linux as a way to commoditize their complements). I am asking you whether you see the value of supporting the work of developers yourself instead of couching under the "community effort" excuse.
I am asking you to reveal your preferences and so far all I am seeing is you making an extraordinary effort to avoid saying "I refuse to pay for something that is not mandatory, even if my support could be beneficial to everyone"
Of course there is, but that's not the only parameter to take into account here.
First, as we have discussed already, and based on the other thread about instance costs, the vast majority of admins seem okay with the "donations cover the hosting costs" approach. There was only one other person who shared your view that "sysadmin time should also be paid rather than be volunteering". Users seem to be okay with it too, otherwise they would migrate to your service.
The other main parameter is how much money people are ready to dedicate to funding Fediverse projects.
In the EU, 21% of people are at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
House prices up by 47% in the EU between 2010 and 2022
People have other priorities than funding Fediverse projects.
It comes back to your comment about Lemmy users "holding a shiny new iPhone". We do not have data on that, but based on the hate the Apple users gets every time they post iPhone users are probably in the minority.
I don't even know why you are trying to make me feel guilty about not paying "enough" (according to you) for the Fediverse.
I'm very sorry, but there are a lot of other issues I would rather dedicate my money with a higher priority than the Fediverse (besides hosting costs, as we discussed already, I want to keep the instances alive). From the money I dedicate to donations, I usually support some local communities initiatives in my area, as well as some global programs (e.g. Doctors Without Borders, Action Against Hunger).
Again, if you can find people who want to get into your prepaid subscription service to access Lemmy, and you can use that to pay for your sysadmin time and some development for the software, that's great.
But I personally have other priorities. And I don't even know why are you asking for how I dedicate my money.
And for the record, I contributed to Pixelfed and Mastodon development (hundreds of euros per year) out of my own pocket regardless of Communick. I do it not because I have to, but because I believe that developers of free projects should be valued by their efforts and that the only way we can get rid of ad-based, predatory social media platforms is by putting our money where our mouths are.