Gregory's ServerTwitter was free because we were the product of a marketing service.
Mastodon is free software but someone will have to pay the bill for the servers. When the server admins come asking for help, don't be offended and be ready to chip in
 22 comments
@seeteegee that might certainly be the case for a minority of people (and they probably know who they are). Anyway I would be delighted to be proven wrong (in time, no need to argue this today) @jfparis Exactly On twitter we were not the customer we were the product. Here we have to pay our own way. I don't mind one little bit despite what Lippmann said ;) @jfparis For that reason, I donβt mind if mastodon transitions into a for-profit entity (at last one that is either publically traded or owned by someone who isnβt, wellβ¦you know). I just want a news/discussion/public square that isnβt the personal plaything of, wellβ¦you know. @shawrd773 each will be different but patreon seems to be the model for yours @derek cost of running a server could be higher than that but I guess there is a lot of savings via sharing a server @jfparis so there is no advertising? Could a server run advertising if they wanted? New here. @BrianBaxter it's open source so I don't see why not. Wonder what would happen though in practice  @Matthew I am not sure what the question is. You should try to check for your server. Read the about page and see what they have there @jfparis @Sallyterra I have seen that somewhere before. The name eludes me for some reason I would buy space on FB and we could really drill down on the targeted demos, but still the advertiser would choose the audience. In my suggestion the audience would choose the advertisers. Streaming tv is trying a version of this where you choose the version of the ad to reduce non-targeted ads. I donβt know what it is called though. @jfparis Not an expert on funding models, but I do know that AO3 (a far more niche service!) is very successful during their fundraising drives, and I imagine Mastodon could be too. |
@jfparis Iβm hoping that the community can come up with new funding/business models. Perhaps, even some government funded instances.