Lol, I run multiple FOSS services online, two of which have thousands of MAUs. I consider myself lucky to be even covering the hardware costs at this point. I would love to even make an extra 500 Eur per month for myself given the amount of time I spend doing sysadmin, automation, PR, development and just being an active part of the communities.

We really need to change in what people consider valuable and how little actually is needed to help. Like literally, all you need to do is spare 1$ per month on your social media that is your primary home. If every user did that, all those service providers would have so much support.

[–] TonyOstrich@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

I don't know how it could possibly be implemented, but I wish there was some kind of application or token that ran on my devices that would track how much I visited or used various pieces of FOSS software and services and then at the end of every month would pay each one from a predefined amount of money I set for how much I think I can afford for all of it. Maybe before actually sending the payments it generates a report stating the breakdown and allowing me to tweak the percentages.

Likely a privacy nightmare even if entirely locally running, but would be sweet.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

If every user did that, all those service providers would have so much support.

I completely agree in principle. But the reality is that the overwhelming majority (like 98% of them) don't do that, and they just expect to keep using things for free, until whoever is backing the thing gets broke and/or burned out.

And when it happens, they just move on to the next instance. Rinse, repeat. Like locusts.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 hours ago

The things is, there's plenty of people who are willing to open their wallet for their services, they just prefer paying corporations, instead of donating to FOSS.