I’m fairly new and don’t 100% understand it yet, but instances are run on servers that require money. Are we heading towards seeing ads or subscriptions to raise funds instead of relying on donations to cover overhead?
Especially with the influx of new users. Hardware upgrades are needed.
I think there should be some monetization. Otherwise how will people pay for the server costs. Maybe small ads placed in the platform across the fediverse?
I’m donating $2 a month for Lemmy.world. It’s not much, but it adds up if enough people pitch in a dollar or two here and there.
It needs to have some kind of monetization. More like voluntary buy-in. Maybe the web 3.0 could fix some of the money problem here. NFT as skin or avatar, some coin or medal to give others. A portion of the sale could go towards maintenance cost and whatnot