TLDR - Why don’t Lemmy instances use methods like affiliate links to increase their funding?
I’m a relatively new Lemmy user (I created my account today.) and I noticed that some Lemmy instances are slower than others and that video and GIFs aren’t supported. To fix this, Lemmy instances would require more funding. I know that Lemmings don’t want instances placing ads in their feeds, but couldn’t they find other ways to receive extra funding? For example, the Pi-hole project has affiliate links on their site and they earn a bit of money every time you buy something through a link. Why can’t Lemmy instances do the same? Edit: I don’t mean ads and I hope they don’t follow us here. I mean on the funding page for an instance, they’d have affiliate links to things like Amazon so that they could get more funding. Not as a post either, like Pi-hole’s method.
I kick down a couple bucks a month to my Mastodon server operator via Patreon, and figured I’d do a similar contribution here at some point. Not everyone is into donating but hopefully enough users would be willing to help keep their instance healthy if asked. I’m pretty new here but I easily found the donation options for my Lemmy instance.
Patreon and a non-profit funding organization NPR-style is the way to go I think. I haven’t done any non-profit stuff so far but would love to set that up for an instance!