I mean, there's always other places in the fediverse to put ur money
ik this isn't what ur asking, but i wanted to put it out there for you to consider
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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Ask Lemmy
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Why should I convince you for free?
I would answer but I feel like this post is more about you trying to convince others to retire their economical support that any other thing. Or at least it feels like that.
Decision is yours, same as our decisions are ours.
Decision is yours, same as our decisions are ours.
Honestly, I think that is not really helpful.
If they had developed a centralised bit of software such as Twitter or Reddit you'd have a point. In that case you can't support one without the other.
On a decentralised bit of software you can support the developers and spend your time on an instance they have no control over. So supporting the developers for development is not the same as supporting any particular instance - thats why a lot of instances accept donations too.
Except there is no separation in where the money goes
Not the point. The issue OP has is with the instance .ml - if they are donating to the developers then they're contributing towards development costs which affect both .ml and every other instance. If that's too much of a hurdle for them, maybe they could switch to donating to their instance admin.
There should be a way to donate to development of Lemmy and it not go to ml but there is not that option because just goes to desalines and he clearly spends his time power tripping as mod of ml.
Donating to your instance admin is great but that is not furthering the development of Lemmy, it is ensuring your instance endures.
I have donated to all (my app, my instance as well as others, and lemmy dev) but i am not happy with the fact that last one means i have donated to ml and the issue IS there is currently no way around that. That IS the issue, and is why piefed is growing.
Admins/Mods like db0 do advance lemmy. Maybe not in the fundamental lemmy core but in form of tools.
"that option because just goes to desalines"
Who is the developer of the software. How they choose to develop Lemmy is up to them - you do have a choice though. Support them or don't. What no one who donates has a choice over is how the developers choose to use the development funds they receive.
No more money from me then. Simple as
I paid a couple hundred in the past and done going forward
Because they are ok with other instances operating without censorship. Or with different ideological bias. Some people want their safe space. I do consider it generally harmful, but that's how humans are - we want to discuss with like-minded people even if it limits the range of discussion.
On the balance, Lemmy existing is a benefit to humanity. You don't have to talk to developers themselves.
This really just seems like "I want to complain about .ml" with extra steps.
I don't care for them, so I don't go there.
Open source projects will be used for things of which you approve and of which you do not, that is life.
You do realize that the developers of Lemmy (the software) have a very close relationship with lemmy.ml, right?
My question simply relates to whether I can support the software development without supporting lemmy.ml.
My question simply relates to whether I can support the software development without supporting lemmy.ml.
No. You can't support Lemmy without supporting lemmy.ml because the developers use lemmy.ml for testing. They have not created a means for users to separate out their donations from one or the other.
That's why others are suggesting you should just support a different but similar fediverse project like PieFed or Mbin instead.
That's not what your question says though. Your question asks for reasons why you should support the development of Lemmy because you don't like the moderation decisions that the developers make on their instance. That's a different question than "how can I support the software without supporting the people making it." The answer to that is you can't.
As others have said, you can fund your instance if you so choose. You can also try to fund a fork/replacement.
Bear in mind that ActivityPub is so much more than just Lemmy. Mbin and Piefed both exist as alternatives.
At the end of the day you need to decide what kind of person you are. Are you pragmatic or idealistic? Are you able to separate art from artist and creation from creator? Should you support a good open source service created for the betterment of everyone if you dont like the politics of its developers?
I'm a pragmatist by nature. I believe that a useful tool remains a useful tool even when its crafted by tankie assholes. If I found out the maker of a computer command like sudo was a leninist or whatever I wouldnt go out of my way to install an alternative just because I dont agree with the batshit politics of the creator. Just like I wouldn't stop enjoying a song after finding out the ones who made it were greedy egotistical dickheads in personal life.
Young and politically charged idealist love that online social justice warrior signalling and political identity posturing. Everythings gotta be us vs them culture war, with us needing to always be on the morally/politically high ground else your a filthy inhuman nazi them who must be refunded/canceled. You get older and realize most people no matter the lean have some level of dogshit half baked politics or some other degree of mental emotional whackiness from past trauma or poor life circumstances causing them to be imperfect animals with dumb fucking biases. That's humanity and the heart of darkness for ya. You can choose to associate the imperfections of the creator with the creation, or you can try to decouple them and see them as separate entities linked by causality.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I will consider the matter further.
It is exactly as you say: Lemmy is, of course, excellent and absolutely worthy of support. I am just not entirely sure whether my contribution will actually end up in development. However, I will have to live with this uncertainty. I just find it problematic that .ml stands for pretty much the opposite of why I want to support Lemmy — namely, free discourse free from political influence by the platform itself. That's simply not the case with .ml, because their moderators only allow their own narrow-minded views — and I fear that this approach is supported by the developers.
Nevertheless, the software itself remains worthy of support, you're absolutely right about that.
I still throw a cpl bucks in the pot now and again. .ml is ridiculous, but I'm loving .world and all the other instances not full of Stalin ball lickers. And all of it is better than the capitalistic, mass manipulation, ai driven cesspool reddit has become.
Just to be real:
Every instance is an example of arbitrary censorship. It's just that .ml is specifically about a kind of censorship you don't like.
All that said, there is no "should". Donations are voluntary, they are not the only way to contribute to the development of the fediverse, and there is already both alternatives and competition, and you could support those instead. I hear Pixelfed is making the rounds.
I hear Pixelfed is making the rounds.
I think you meant Piefed. Pixelfed exists too, but that is more Instagram-style. Piefed feels pretty similar to Lemmy, just written in Python.
I personally like how Mbin integrates with Mastodon. Or at least the idea. I can't figure out how to search up a specific Mastodon user.
Piefex! Pixelfie! Fedfed! I always get them mixed up!!!! I'm Fedfed up with it! XD
Thanks for the notice.
Also interesting note on mbin, I tend to forget it can do that and it has also a lot of other niceties, but I have experimented very little with mbin. ~~My account sits 3 weeks unused~~
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Thank you. People seem perfectly happy with lemmy.world blacklisting lemmy.ml altogether and such because it's censorship that they agree with, people generally only get cranky in the pants about censorship when they agree with the thing being censored.
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I mean, you could support piefed development or one of the *bins, instead.
Donate to an individual instance then. Or fork your own, call it Demmings, and see where that takes you.
I already do that. So stop supporting Lemmy developers and only support the instance?
Yes.
This is what I do. I don’t give tankies money but I’m happy to support all the instances I have accounts on.
Please create an account on PieFed if you don't already have one. Let's keep the momentum of more and more users migrating to PieFed. Also help contribute content to other instances so we can reduce .ml influences.
By the way, piefed.blahaj.zone is a thing.
Prepare for the transition to Piefed.
You should not continue supporting it if you don't feel that the developers aren't deserving of your money.
Just finished that librapay subscription and reallocated the amount to another FOSS project.
There's more to lemmy than just the instance they operate.
I don't know how they divert resources between the two.
Censorship is an awful thing and we need to fight back against it.
Piefed is growing
Support piefed instead. It's fine for the Lemmy devs to have their opinions, but if they are going to be assholes about it then they can deal with the fallout. I've been around open source communities long enough to know that this quickly becomes a sunk cost fallacy, and the fediverse will be better off ripping off this bandaid as soon as possible.
You are supporting the development and technology. That is the great thing about the Fediverse, you go where you want to be, but can reach out to other isolated communities and take the parts that you want and need.
The developers of Lemmy created this specific platform and are improving it. Since Mastodon started, everyone wanted a Reddit replacement, we now have it.
From the Fediverse I have now made life long friends and we have private Matrix chats. Without servers with sepcific communities, I would never have met them.
It's open source (AFAIK or least I certainly hope so). So once published, the bad guys' work was effectively done for free. Take the win.
You do whatever you like
You shouldn't. Support your instance or something idk.
They're building a system that allows you to avoid censorship that you don't like. I'd focus on that part.
It's not arbitrary, you're just upset.
Support Mbin?
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