I believe that the Fediverse can and should be more than a niche thing for those that reject Big Tech.

I also believe that to get there we will need businesses, service providers and professional developers who work on it because they are motivated by more than just “community values” and goodwill. For example, I have quite a bit experience with distributed systems and I know I could work to make Lemmy federation more efficient, but I can only do that if I can secure a stable income.

Please follow the linked Mastodon thread and vote on the polls. The idea is to find out if there are enough people willing to pay for services that can ease their pains with Mastodon/Lemmy/Matrix.

  • You do know you can’t make money out of any fediverse software, don’t you? You can make money on the fediverse, like artists and professionals do, but you can’t make money out of it.

    From mastodon main page:

    We respect your agency. Your feed is curated and created by you. We will never serve ads or push profiles for you to see.

    This goes in contradiction with an option on one of your polls:

    Better recommendations on who to follow

    Other than accounts that suggest you people to follow on the fediverse, there’s no algorithm that recommends you accounts to follow or content to see. In fact, this very thing would go against the TOS of Mastodon, Peertube, and other fediverse software

    You could make your own software that offers those things and give users the posibility/ability to federate, but you cannot legally add premium features or recommendation algorithms to already existing fediverse software or any fork of it.

    • You do know you can’t make money out of any fediverse software

      this very thing would go against the TOS of Mastodon, Peertube, and other fediverse software

      you cannot legally add premium features or recommendation algorithms to already existing fediverse software or any fork of it.

      You are making things up or you don’t understand how the AGPL works. There is no “TOS” for the fediverse software.

      Don’t believe me? Go ask the Mastodon devs themselves if there is anything irregular/illegal about any of the things I am working on or proposing.

      push profiles for you to see (…) contradiction with an option on one of your polls

      Recommending profiles to follow is already part of the onboarding process, and is not in any way equivalent to “pushing profiles for you to see”.


      Look, I really tried to keep an open mind about this conversation, but now you are distorting the truth and I can’t tell if it’s for ignorance or dishonesty. I think it’s time to end it. Have a nice one.

      • Recommending profiles to follow is already part of the onboarding process, and is not in any way equivalent to “pushing profiles for you to see”.

        So, if its already possible. What would your freemium features add?

        There is no “TOS” for the fediverse software.

        Each software has, in fact, its rules/terms. Peertube, for example, is explicitly non-profit.

        Look, I really tried to keep an open mind about this conversation, but now you are distorting the truth and I can’t tell if it’s for ignorance or dishonesty. I think it’s time to end it. Have a nice one.

        To me what you are doing trying to monetise something that is completely free of charge, while pretending you are doing it to promote the fediverse, “making it mainstream” (the last thing the hardcore fedizens want), IS dishonest. So I guess we are even.