Ask HN: How do Mastodon instances monetize?

3 points·rib3ye··5 comments

To my understanding, Mastodon instances are simply VPS hosted web sites. And if they are successful, then they are high-traffic hosted websites.

In lieu of a VC-backed slush fund to throw as their cloud provider bill, how are popular Mastodon instances paying the bills?

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Generally either donations from users, or paid out of pocket, or some combination of both. This has, broadly, worked fine for years.

> And if they are successful

Do you mean "if they grow big"? Because that's generally seen as the opposite of success, on Mastodon. Large instances have fairly unavoidable moderation and operational problems (and also become increasingly more difficult to fund, because there is less social cohesion).

The ones I've heard about are self funded by those that want to donate their time and money. That's why Mastodon will never be a true competitor to Twitter and Threads. There's no permanent way to finance it.

> That's why Mastodon will never be a true competitor to Twitter and Threads. There's no permanent way to finance it.

This phrasing makes it sound like Twitter is currently profitable. Actually it's Twitter that doesn't have a permanent way to finance itself, whereas donations to Mastodon could scale with its user base.

> That's why Mastodon will never be a true competitor to Twitter and Threads. There's no permanent way to finance it.

There's no way to permanently finance Twitter. Twitter jumped off a cliff and is building the parachute on the way down. Threads has the backing of Facebook and Instagram's dollars so it might be more 'permanent'.

I assume they do not, like everything that is open

That is the biggest problem of our current internet , that nobody wants to solve

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