I see your point but there have been community-run message boards funded by donations in the past. I doubt Lemmy will replicate Reddit’s scale.

I mean… this sort of attitude you have is kind of self-defeating, no? Like let the /r/Android mods have their own community. These public spats make it confusing for end users. The fediverse doesn’t have to be one big happy family - people have freedom to associate with some communities and not others. Duplication is bound to happen in the early days of this fediverse thing.

Eh, I can see that, but the whole point of the fediverse is to get away from centralization, right? I think it’s a good thing they are promoting their own instance on Lemmy. Only issue is that for right now at least - all of the instances look the same…

They still get to moderate /r/android. In the old times of discrete message board communities, there were various Android message board communities before everything started coalescing around Reddit. It’s impossible to have an opportunity to moderate every single community. If they want to create their own duplicate community, they are free to do so.

Can you explain what the controversy is about? So the /r/Android mods tried to start an Android community on the fediverse but other people got to them first? How are they astroturfing?

Time will tell. Lemmy needs more users and more content. Feels like Reddit from the late 2000s right now. The demographic is mostly male/tech-literate and the only threads that get responses are tech and gaming subjects.

Some of the local subs I read have presences on Lemmy but no content. Most normies are still using Reddit.

I still use Reddit. Lemmy still doesn’t have a lot of the communities I know and love on Reddit.

Never used Twitter.

Here’s the thing: the rest of life (rent, food, retirement etc.) cost so much already that anything I can get for free or don’t have to pay for in some way I will make that choice to pirate or not pay. If capitalism wasn’t breathing down my neck with all this crazy inflation in food costs, rent increases, student loan repayments, etc., perhaps I would be more amenable to paying for newspapers and online services and all that nice to have stuff. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Rent and food come first for me. Online services are fungible. Like if it’s free to use or free to take, I’ll take advantage. We all have to eat first and some of us don’t earn enough money to donate to a free project. Donations are a luxury to me.

Don’t judge, 99% of the people using Lemmy and its various instances will never donate. We contribute happily through our posts.