We’re taking another step in building a sustainable financial base as a non-profit. Today, we’re announcing new hosting and support offerings, tailored for larger organisations and public institutions. These enable organisations to own their social identities, on their own infrastructure.
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/09/service-offerings-from-mastodon/
(1/?)
@chris
> You are now competing with other providers of these services
One of the 4 core pillars of enshittification prevention. Interoperating with competing software. That's 2. Full source code available under libre license, enabling self-help. That's 3. HQ in Germany, in a jurisdiction actively regulating tech services, that's all 4. Sounds like an ideal tech market to me.
(2/?)
@chris
> while you are the developer of the software too
Like WordPress, GitLab, Element, Loomio, Snikket, and innumerable others, who have served as good stewards of a libre codebase, while selling services based on it, to keep core dev sustainable.
Contrast this with Oracle and LibLime, who tried to ...
> use software and/or documentation to achieve that
... to ...
> keep [the] competition down
... with OpenOffice and Koha respectively, and got ruthlessly forked and routed around.
(3/?)
I'm less worried about Mastodon Inc. hosting services for other people, than I've been about them running overpowered directly. Which has lead to Mastodon being optimised for "enterprise" scale, rather than a scale which is practical to moderate with nuance.
(4/?)
@chris
> when the first lawsuits about lacking moderation drop
Mast. Inc. will be screwed. Their moderation is famously inadequate, due the aforementioned supersizing of the services they run.
> buying “proper” moderation will be considered the only responsible way to operate a server
The idea that anyone would buy that from Mast. Inc. under any circumstances is deeply laughable (see above).
(5/5)
You're not wrong that bullshit accusations of "inadequate moderation" is an attack surface enemies of the fediverse could potentially use. But I can't see how it logically follows from Mastodon offering a managed hosting service.
Again, Mastodon are in the EU, where the courts still enforce basic civil rights. I'd be much more worried if their HQ was in the US, where much more serious governments crackdowns on media freedom have been going on since Dubya, if not longer.
Mastodon
Strypey