It's probably obvious to most of you, but a big difference between the commercial social media platforms and the fediverse is that as those commercial platform grow, they get additional revenue from ads, from selling personal information, and otherwise monetizing their users. While that is turning out to not actually pay the bills for them, in the fediverse, just about every instance is run by volunteers and funded by donations or out of the volunteers' pockets. It's a labor of love and a hope for a better future. When traffic grows, we need to expand our capacity.

That is why I am asking, if you are able, please consider donating to the instance you on to help keep the fediverse ecosystem going. Typically the /about web page will have details on how to donate.

Note: I am well aware that many of you are not in a financial position to donate - and that is OK. We are here to serve you as well. Donations are completely optional.

@jerry I first joined Twitter back in 2008, and finally canned it for good in January, when they blocked Tweetbot.

In those 15 years I never once knowingly gave them a single penny of my money.

Meanwhile, I've been on this instance since a week after I joined Mastodon, and have been paying €3 a month to help with the running costs ever since.

Funny how it goes, isn't it?