Mastodon does have other funding sources -- they've gotten a couple of six-figure donations, and their new US 501c3 opens up the possibilities for corporate matching. A couple of the 501c3's board members are great -- Esra’a Al Shafei if founder of Majal.org, co-founder of the Numun Fund, and board member at Tor Foundation -- although Biz Stone and a lawyer whose day job is defending AI companies against copyright lawsuits are also there, so we shall see.

In general I think Mastodon's going to have a hard time crowdfunding from the existing community under Eugen's leadership -- too many years of him ignoring community priorities. On the the other hand corporations who are betting on the Fediverse would find it embarassing if the best-known open-source Fediverse implementation goes away so that could be a more promising path for Mastodon -- for example I saw a post from Evan saying that SWF is looking for ways to get Mastodon money. Even if they were interested in VC funding, I'm pretty sure they missed the window (and that's almost certainly for the best).

@ricmac@mastodon.social @tante@tldr.nettime.org