The fediverse and money.
An informal glance around the fediverse suggests that money is currently a problem. All the signs are that there is a lack of it flowing around the fediverse. As evidence I suppose informal methods such as looking at publicly available information which is freely available on funding sites like Patreon(other sites are available) is one approach. The Mastodon instance with the most users is mastodon.social. Mastodon.social's Patreon page shows donations of just over 4,000 dollars per month. Now the front page of mastodon.social tells us that there are currently 300,000 members(approx) on that instance. so per year mastodon.social is taking in approximately 16 cents per user. If that was the only income(and presumably it isn't) then obviously a fully functioning and responsive social network cannot hope to properly function and (hopefully improve) on such a shoestring budget. Presumably it will leave the admins of such a site constantly cutting corners(it is true that if such penny-pinching is going on it is not particularly evident on the surface, from the quality of the offering).
But mastodon.social is the largest instance on the internet. Most instances (informal numbers suggest between 3 and 4 thousand mastodon servers) have far fewer users. How could an instance of 1,000 users hope to fund itself if, say, we extrapolated from mastodon.social's numbers and came up with a yearly budget of 160 euros. There is a very slim chance that by using every short cut in the book an admin could just about cover their hosting fees(it would be a near miracle) but there would be a zero budget to pay for their time and expertise and effort.
The current ideas circulating on the fediverse suggest that the appetite for an alternative to web 2.0 where billionaire companies offer 'free' services(we know how that turned out), to users whilst selling their data behind their backs, is massive. People don't trust the old web 2.0 companies and with good reason. But if people won't pay up front, history tell us then they will be made to pay somehow, someway.
The informal new fediverse is currently working around this problem with voluntary contributions. If people like a project and have spare money then they can donate. But all the evidence from the catastrophic web 2.0 outcome tells us that long term this is not sustainable. This is not a criticism of those currently operating according to this model but merely an attempt to see where it will lead to in the future. It would be a real shame if the new fediverse which shows so much promise were to degenerate into simply a decentralised version of the old web.
So what can those who believe in the new fediverse do to guard against such an outcome? First off ironically, I would suggest people should continue donating voluntarily, directly to the admins and operators of sites on the fediverse. Long term however people should start to realise that direct payments to fediverse websites in the form of dues is probably the best model to aim for. After all if you go to a restaurant you expect to pay so why should a website with admins and which guarantees the safety of your data be any different. Paying 20 euros or the equivalent per year does not seem unreasonable if you're getting a good product.
Another, controversial, suggestion is advertising. Web advertising has a terrible reputation because as we now know giant databases have been constructed which can connect all your web history into one place whether you like it or not. (It is incumbent on savvy navigators on the fediverse to keep a look out for the tell-tale signs of unethical web-tracking and to spread the word). These databases can then dictate what ads you see no matter where on the internet you are(very Orwellian). Codes of conduct which tell users up front what data is being collected and whether or not it is being shared are necessary to instill confidence. Some users will not have a probem if say they constantly blog about a particular topic to be shown ads on that topic, but most would feel far more comfortable if the exact methods being used were offered up front and presented in clear straightforward language.
A third option is to contribute time and skills. The operation of even a small service on the fediverse can be extremely time-consuming venture. So ask around for who is looking for volunteers for various fediverse projects. And also realise that setting up your own fediverse server is not some incredibly difficult undertaking. If you don't feel you have the skills now maybe after a stint volunteering on someone else's site you will feel more confident.
The old web was free to use because as we now know it wasn't free at all. All that money users didn't pay up front they ended up paying out anyway. If advertisers payed for ads to be shown presumably they added that cost on to the ticket price. So not only did users pay money in higher prices for products they might have bought anyway, they continue to pay in perpetuity by knowing that the monlithic web companies have all their data. The exploitative web companies have so much power accumulated from their unethical behaviour that they have still not been forced to come clean on how much data they have, what they have been doing with it and how they intend to use it in the future.
The pioneers of the fediverse have a massive task on their hands: to forge a new web that is self-sustaining, that empowers users and the new fediverse websites alike. The idea that open protocols such as ActivityPub are a one-stop solution to the problems of web 2.0 is naive. Fediversians must also realise how much work is needed to forge the new web. They must contribute their time, expertise and ideas if the new web is to suceed. They also need to pay cold hard cash up-front so as to not end up being cheated further down the road.
It would be a real shame if the new fediverse were to simply merge without trace into the rest of the web. But in order for that not to happen users of sites and technologies like Mastodon, Peertube, Pixelfed, Pleroma, GnuSocial, Friendica, Nextcloud, Write.as, Plume, and others need to realise that support in the early days means pitching in and donating their time and skills in whatever way they can. So ask around on your social networking site of choice as to who is doing what and whether volunteers are needed. And stop spending so much time avoiding sites that charge annual fees and instead start investigating the trackers and cookies that other sites are trying to push onto your web-browser.
FediverseRising.