Here it is, the update I’ve been promising you for some time.
When I first started this instance, I wanted a place where people could come together and share their experiences, knowledge and start discussions about the things that mattered to them. A place that was not driven by corporate greed but instead by its users.
In the early days of this instance, I founded the community /c/Agora to serve as a platform where users could openly discuss instance or fediverse-related matters and advocate for improvements and changes they would like to see. I want to put emphasis on the fact that this instance belongs to all of you, now and in the future.
Most of you know that since the start of this instance I’ve been personally funding the costs associated with it. While a lot of you have been generous enough to ask for ways to contribute over the last year, I haven’t allowed it. This reason was mainly related to time and in no rush in making donations my top priority. Over the last few months I’ve reflected and come to understand that for this instance to truly be about its users, it also needs to be funded by them. Today I am taking the first step by sharing more details regarding the costs associated to running this instance and sharing with you all platforms that you can use to donate towards keeping this instance running.
So here it is. I’ve broken the rest of this post in the following sections. Feel free to jump to whichever section are most important/interesting to you:
- Current running cost
- Wishful 2025 budget
- Donations platforms
- New announcement community
- New front-end available
- A special thanks
Current running cost
Note: Some of these items are paid yearly however to keep things consistent I’ve broken it down monthly The running costs includes everything that relates to keeping the lights on. The time the admins and moderators put in keeping this instance decent is all volunteered.
| Service | Description | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1U Server Colocation | Bandwidth, Power and Space | $99 |
| Domain Name | The just.works domain | $4.66 |
| Image Hosting | Object storage used for the images | $8.25 |
| Email Account | Used by me solely for instance related communication via email (ProtonMail) | $7 |
| External Backups | Remote Backups of the entire instance | $20 |
| Hardware Repairs | For the eventual drive failures. (This might need to be adjusted in the in future) | $15 |
| Total | $153.91 | |
| *All amounts are in Canadian Dollars |
This break down is quite conservative but as this instance continues to grows, so will its costs. I’ve already had to replace a drive and a power supply since switching to the new server. The current breakdown doesn’t leave much room for improvements. If we get enough donations, here’s what I’d do with the extra money throughout 2025. The focus is around speed, stability and general site availability. I look to do this by implementing a more robust disaster recovery strategy, add extra resources for new future hosted services and switch to a proper external email sending service to address some delivery issues during waves of new accounts.
2025 Budget
| Service | Description | Monthly Cost | Yearly Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1U Server Colocation | Location 1 | $99 | $1200 |
| 1U Server Colocation | Location 2 | $99 | $1200 |
| Remote PBS Backup | Location 3 | $20 | $240 |
| Domain Name | The just.works domain | $4.66 | $55.92 |
| Image Hosting | Object storage used for the Images | $8.25 | $99 |
| External Email Sending Service | Email Delivery Service | $15 | $180 |
| Email Account | Used by me solely for instance related communication (ProtonMail) | $7 | $84 |
| Hardware Repairs | For the eventual hardware failures | $30 | $360 |
| Total | $282.91 | $3,418.92 | |
| *All amounts are in Canadian Dollars |
Donations
Its taken far longer than anticipated, but it’s finally here! 🚀 For now, I’m launching with two donation platforms: Liberapay and Ko-fi. If there’s demand for additional options, I’ll gladly expand in the future.
Where your donations go:
- 💻 Keeping this instance running smoothly (see Current running costs)
- 🔧 Funding improvements and new features
Community-driven priorities:
You can shape how extra funds are used. Join the discussion in the /c/Agora community—your input matters!
My commitment:
I’ll personally cover any funding shortfalls to ensure this project thrives, no matter what.
Thank you for your support!
New Announcements Community 📢
As this was posted we came across a bug related to local only communities. We will circle back on this once a fix has been implemented.
We’ll be moving away from the /c/main community for posting future announcements moving forward. Instead we’ll be using the /c/announcements community. The community has been restricted to only allow posts from admins.
Be sure to subscribe!
New Tesseract front end available
One of our members @CaptDust@sh.itjust.works raised a discussion in the /c/Agora to introduce a new lemmy front end called Tesseract. I’ve went ahead and added this front end for all to use. You can access it from here: https://tesh.itjust.works/
A special thanks ❤️
It wouldn’t feel right if I ended this post without taking a minute to thank and appreciate the admins for all that they do on this instance and the fediverse. @InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works @kersploosh@sh.itjust.works @imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works thank you for your support, volunteering your precious time and continued dedication in keeping this a place running smoothly for many that call it their home. I’ll always be in your debt!
Recurring payment inbound!
Mad lad!
TheDude, you are an amazing human being and your efforts enrich many lives, thank you!
Very cool, you run a great instance, I’ll donate.
I don’t know how many of your users are european but for those it might be easier to donate on librepay if you accespt Euros as that allows for Bank transfers to donate.
Disclaimer: I don’t plan to donate. I allready do for the instance I’m on and don’t have that much money to spare. But I thought it might be worth thinking about if you have a significant european userbase.
me being on the internet in 2016 means I had a double-take when I read the title
should we be offended?
Thanks for all the work you and the rest of the mod team do to keep this instance great. I appreciate the transparency on the operating costs and the opportunity for the rest of us to contribute.
What, if anything are you doing to help shield yourself against any personal liability? I’ll admit I have exactly zero knowledge of Canadian law on the subject so I have no idea what what the implications are. I’m mostly just curious.
Accepting Crypto donation would help me a lot.
Thanks for keeping the lights on. The effort and time is appreciated.
Whewee tesseract is fancy lewking! Here’s to hoping you have no shortfalls to cover!
Keeping the pricing lean and reasonable! Hope we share the burden well.
Thank you for your generosity and the incredible experience you curate 😍
Wooo weee! tesh.itjust.works happened!! This is quite exciting.
Thanks for the update, all your efforts, and thanks to all the mods. They do great work here, folks. Happy to chip in and cover some costs.
Checked it out, it is truly the sh.it. Definitely a nice lookin’ frontend!
[Edit: played the usual period placement game and this time I lost, it was a working link to something. Fixed.]
It’s awesome. Am I being stupid though? Is there a way to open your feed with a only the a group selected? For instance, if I want to open all of my grouped politics feeds only, I can’t seem to do that.
Awesome, signed up for an annual donation. Live long and prosper, admins!
Any chance of enabling multi-instance support on tesseract? Mods currently need accounts on multiple instances due to issues with remote accounts not federating mod actions.
Hey there, I considered this at first but my understanding with tesseract is that this would mean we’d be proxying account credentials/tokens of other instances. I’m comfortable in doing this for our own instance but it doesn’t feel I’d be being responsible human to enable it for other instances. If there was a way to be more transparent to users using it for external instances I’d reconsider. I’m open to any feedback.
tesseract.dubvee.org allows you to connect with accounts from different instances
I know, that’s what I’m using at the moment :)
Yup this one works.
Turns out “local only” communities are bugged.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/4853Any considerations towards becoming a non profit or otherwise tax exempt entity (US: 501c3)? Some employers match donations to those (which could lead to more monies).
If you want to see what that looks like in the relevant context here (Canada), check out what lemmy.ca is doing (fedecan.ca). Would be curious if there’s non-Canadian instances taking this approach too.
I assume there’s at least some tax benefits/less of a tax liability to TheDude if doing this, but likely requires an additional level of support from folks too for the adminstrative aspects of that.
FYI, things will work out a bit differently since the server (and I assume TheDude as well) is located in Canada
