this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023

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Why do instances not run ads? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by arisoda@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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It probably goes against the philosophy or whatever of FOSS or Lemmy itself, but why not be a little evil so that you can actually sustain yourself? Donations can bring us far, but small non-intrusive ads can be a bliss in the skies for the people actually hosting the instance. Especially if there are millions of users uploading thousands of images and videos. This is extremely expensive.

Is running ads really that taboo?

EDIT: some people seem not to get the point of "millions of users", which presumably includes non-techies that do not use adblockers. I mean that without ads (or mining?), no instance would be able to scale to the point where it can compete with Reddit for example. If you were to want that. And not for profit, but solely for sustainability.

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[–] Skrounge@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Just curious, what are some? I've no experience hosting any sort of website or anything. I assumed ads were pretty much the best bet?

[–] TGRush@forum.fail 4 points 1 year ago

On that note I highly suggest you read EFF's "To save the News" articles, where they also go over why targeted ads don't work. It's a great read

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

[–] CoderKat@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Ads pretty much are the best bet.

That said, they aren't the only option. Donations are a big alternative. That's why Wikipedia is ad free, for example. The other big one is subscriptions, but you basically have to offer a lot to convince anyone to subscribe. And a lot of "subscriptions" are actually just a convenient way to donate, which should be viewed differently from non-donations, since far fewer people are willing to donate, due to being completely optional.

There's also sponsored content, but that's just deceptive ads. I'd rather ads be 100% transparent and obvious about being an ad.

Finally there's angel investors, but those aren't typically paying out of the goodness of their heart. They usually want to grow a business that they'll later commercialize. They'll get a great period of time where everything just magically gets paid for, but odds are, they're gonna do something terrible later to monetize.

An obligatory mention that ads don't have to be scummy. That's the norm, yeah, but it's entirely possible to serve only ethical, clearly marked ads that don't utilize deception or are scams. It doesn't make as much money as accepting scummy ads, which is why we usually end up with ads being scummy, but it is an option.

[–] tate@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

ads are shit. They make everything smelly and gross, and it has to be scrubbed.

[–] arkcom@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wikipedia gets a lot of funding from billionaires and corporations. It's not going to be easy for most instances to be funded entirely by user donations long term.

Wikimedia Endowment
In January 2016, the Foundation announced the creation of an endowment to safeguard its future.[93] The Wikimedia Endowment was established as a donor-advised fund at the Tides Foundation, with a stated goal to raise US$100 million in the next 10 years.[94] Craig Newmark was one of the initial donors, giving US$1 million.[95] Peter Baldwin and his wife, Lisbet Rausing, donated US$5 million to it in 2017.[96]

In 2018, major donations to the endowment were received from Amazon and Facebook (US$1 million each) and George Soros (US$2 million).[97][98][99] In 2019, donations included US$2 million from Google,[100] US$3.5 million more from Baldwin and Rausing,[96] US$2.5 million more from Newmark,[101] and another US$1 million from Amazon in October 2019 and again in September 2020.[102][103]

As of 2022, the advisory board consists of Jimmy Wales, Peter Baldwin, former Wikimedia Foundation Trustees Patricio Lorente and Phoebe Ayers, former Wikimedia Foundation Board Visitor Doron Weber of the Sloan Foundation, investor Annette Campbell-White, businessman Niels Christian Nielsen, and venture capitalist Michael Kim.

The Foundation itself has provided annual grants of $5 million to its Endowment since 2016.[104] These amounts have been recorded as part of the Foundation's "awards and grants" expenses.[105] In September 2021, the Foundation announced that the Wikimedia Endowment had reached its initial $100 million fundraising goal in June 2021, five years ahead of its initial target.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Wikimedia_Endowment

edit: removed "most"

[–] tate@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have contributed money repeatedly to Wikipedia and will continue to do so (I have no interest in editing). I'm not rich.

If you want to really measure the support for Wikipedia, you have to include the editing. That's hard to measure in dollars but I'm sure it dwarfs the 'billionaire' contributions.