When GreatAlbatross and I agreed to become Admins our guiding principle was that this couldn’t be a project run and funded by an individual and subjects to their waxing and waning interest. Instead, this had to be a social network run by and for the users. That meant that we needed as much as possible to be open and transparent with no single point of failure. This should ensure that feddit.uk would be around as long as people needed it, possibly even outlasting the both of us.
To this end, now the server move has been competed, we move on to the next step in securing the instance’s future - ensuring there are enough funds coming in to cover the cost of running the site.
Fortunately, the outgoings are pretty modest (£40/month) and so it will only take a few dozen people contributing a small amount each month to pay for everything.
With the ideas of openness and transparency in mind, and after listening to suggests from you, we have signed up with Open Collective. As we are using a fiscal host it doesn’t require any donated money to be held in a personal bank account, all banking and accounts are done by them (in return for a set-up fee and 5%) and the state of the finances can be viewed on the Open Collective website.
As well as a custom option (where you can pay what you like when you like), we have set a few contribution tiers:
- Regular subscription of £1 or £5 a month
- One-off donations of £5 or £10
This should meet the regular costs and, hopefully, build up enough of a surplus to increase storage as needed or upgrade the hosting if there is a sudden influx of Reddit refugees again. GA and I have also been funding things from our own pocket up to this point and, when there is enough of a war chest built up, we will repay those costs.
There will be regular updates (probably around this time every month as the invoice for the server goes out on the 4th and regular contributions are collected on the 1st) where we’ll explain the costs and summarise the fundraising efforts so far.
If anyone has any questions feel free to ask below.
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Emperor for their efforts here.
They researched all the options available, then once we’d discussed and decided on a path/provider, took on all of the work arranging and attending the necessary rather official meetings to make it happen.
Amazing work to get us over the line on this.
(For anyone wondering why I put a large donation in: Emperor has been shouldering a lot more of the financials so far, and I’m keen to get them balanced. It’s not a suggested amount, don’t worry!)
You should’ve made it possible to donate forty quid, then we can all take turns at paying for the server
WHOSE FACKIN ROUND IS IT?
Edit - ha ha you can, I just paid this month’s server. Somecunt else’s round next 😂
That’s very generous and we hadn’t thought of that. I don’t think it is possible to have one donation slot a month for the full round but I’ll look into it. It wouldn’t take many folks like yourself to get out war chest looking healthy.
“Cunt of the month” has a nice ring to it.
Something for the future, but a framed photo in the sidebar for a month might be fun when someone does it.
And just to clarify, there is custom option where people can pay what they want when they want. I’ve updated the post to make this clearer.
We set some fixed options to make it easier for folk in a rush and as a demonstration that we don’t need much to keep the plates spinning.
I’ll set up a regular payment later. I already contribute to my Mastodon instance, it’s the right thing to do. 😊
It’s clear this is the only way to keep the Fediverse going - if you like a service, drop a bit of cash in. After all:
If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.
Luckily, with the load shared across instances, the cost of running the sites means not everyone has to pay.
Regular subscription set up, thanks!
Thank you and I’m glad this is available now - I’ve set up a recurring payment to help cover costs.