Jetzt ist der Talk auch online. https://media.ccc.de/v/froscon2022-2763-fediverse_und_selbstorganisation

Mail was decentralized. Then came Gmail. Code alone ist not the solution. We need cooperative operations.

We, a hosting cooperative in Germany, mentioned Lemmy in a book about free software that we published two weeks before. It is in German and targets clubs, non-profits, foundations and cooperatives. It’s free to download. https://www.hostsharing.net/publikationen/vereinshandbuch/

I really like your idea of promoting Lemmy by providing a limited free hosting offer. It gives people the chance to find sustainable funding.

In the book mentioned above we recommended Lemmy as a forum solution. Many organisations like clubs are looking for something like discourse or flarum to replace a mailing list for discussions or a community help desk. If an organisation uses Lemmy for inhouse needs giving accounts to all members the instance is funded by the organisation – and thanks to federation the users can join communities elsewhere too.

This is the organisational approach to sustainable Lemmy instances.

If there is no organisation that pays the bills, I have to look for funding elsewhere, as users won’t pay. I have to pass the hat around. But this is not sustainable at all.

Or I could go the usual internet way using ads to fund the instance. Is there a function in Lemmy that could be used as an advertising tool? A broadcast message by the administrator that is published to all accounts. Can instance administrators pin messages in communities? Or can administrators promote messages so that they get higher ranks?

I think of a Lemmy instance for a hobby targeting a community of consumers and producers where the producers are willing to pay for advertised postings.