[EnKopVand]

> I mean what are the economics of fediverse? Who pays to keep the lights on, and where do they get their money from?

Is this a genuine question? Because it depends. Some people/groups run their own server. Others run free servers, kind of like people ran IRC servers. Some pool money together to run a server. Some are run by NGOs. One I saw was charging around $2 a month, but would use any profits to plant trees. I know it's not really polite to call out people for a lack of effort on HN, but all that information that I just gave to you, I got from browsing the server section of join mastodon or whatever it was called for like 5 seconds. It took you longer to wonder about this stuff, than it would've taken you to actually find out.

I don't want to come off as advertising mastodon or the fediverse. I just think the payment model is actually quite good and that there are more serious concern. Like what happens with your "twitter" handle if you've joined a server that goes rogue or shuts down. You can solve this by hosting your own mastodon server on your own domain or by joining a server run by some sort of established organisation, of which there seem to be very few. I like the concept personally, but I can also setup a self-hosted serve, or alternatively spin up a vps fairly easily, as can a lot of people here on HN. That's probably quite a barrier for most twitter users though.

[raydiatian]

> It took you longer to wonder about this stuff, than it would've taken you to actually find out.

It was a genuine question, because I didnt know the answer, but the effort it took to write all that out is because I’m trying to make a point. Additionally, it also didn’t require much effort to imagine theoretical models for how it, or any platform covers operating costs: Decentralized BYOServer, Ads, Subscriptions, User data markets.

I just don’t see it reaching scale without not grinding through people unnecessarily. And with the planet gently cooking itself stupid, I don’t understand how building YetAnotherSocialNetwork™ is a priority (which I know you aren’t advertising for).

I think we should all just let Elon run Twitter into the ground, and take it as the win it secretly is, and quit socializing on the internet (which I know will never happen).

[EnKopVand]

I think the concept of it is kind of cool. The NYT or any other journalist institution could put up their own "twitter" and not rely on Elon not to ban them if they criticise him. Other people are setting up what is essentially their own YouTube, at least I found a French Blood Bowl 2 mastodont server that was full of match videos. I'm sure it'll be too much of a hassle, because you sort of need to put effort into it, and you don't on twitter/YouTube/discord/tiktok/whatevercomesnext. Especially in terms of actually turning your "views" into money, but the concept is pretty cool and very old "you own your own shit" internet.

Unlike a blog or something else you make on your own, it'll all be semi-connected though.

[raydiatian]

WRT the “uncensorability” of fediverse, the servers are all still built on top of (a) Amazon/Google/Microsoft IaaS or rolled at home. Those silicon chips and boxes are almost guaranteed to be produced and distributed by Apple/AMD/Intel/Qualcomm. They will pass around bytes on the internet policed by Comcast, Xfinity, Google, and Mediacom.

While it’s not impossible to pull off a coup against corporate owned social media, there are so many places where fediverse counts as parasitic competition that we basically need to have an open-source eternally-libertarian RISC-V shop at the scale of AMD to have a fighting chance of building a truly unbiased fediverse.