To everyone upset that I'm suggesting people DONATE to Mastodon, which is a NON-PROFIT, you can read for yourselves what this funds: the continued development of Mastodon.

That is to say, everyone who runs and maintains a Mastodon instance benefits.

I make no apologies for urging people to donate. This isn't a zero sum game where if someone donates to one cause, they cannot donate to another. Yes, let's spread the wealth around.

But also, let's DONATE to ensure the continued survival of Mastodon because I'm really sure we'd all like it if Mastodon continues to function.

By the way, I'm now actively blocking anyone coming here to argue about the merits of donating to the NON-PROFIT that builds Mastodon.

It's absolute dirtbag behaviour when Mastodon struggles so much under a #TwitterMigration of millions of users.

Now lets put things into perspective. Last month, Twitter was employing 6,500 people. Mastodon employs 1 person who's working 14 hour days -- and only compensates himself €36,000 a year.

How is one guy supposed to take build the app that replaces Twitter when Twitter pays hundreds of engineers well over $100,000 to do a fraction of the work?

Yeah, other people deserve donations too -- so donate! Be a hero to the person who's running your instance, as well as the person who builds whatever app your instance is running.

And lest you think that I don't bang the drums on donations for other devs, this is not the case.

Last week, I told everyone to donate to @dansup. A couple of days ago, I told everyone to donate to @Are0h who, by the way, is making another app that builds safety features for marginalized communities. And I'm banging the drum all the time on @thatonecalculator@stop.voring.me and his work with Calckey.

But right now, I'm urging people to help out with Mastodon!

So if you have it in your heart to donate to a very good cause -- the continued development and existence of Mastodon -- contribute to Mastodon's Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/mastodon

By the way, everyone who donates to @Gargron @Are0h @dansup and @thatonecalculator@stop.voring.me, you're all superheroes!

I'm patting you on the back!

Someone asks a fair question: How does donating to Mastodon help every other instance?

It means continued funding of Mastodon's app development. Every instance -- which is most of them -- benefits from this.

For example, Mastodon recently added the ability to edit your posts. And not just edit them, allow you to view logs of the edits! This was a paid feature on Twitter, but it's now FREE on Mastodon.

Every instance that updates to Mastodon v4.0 now has the edit feature. Thus everyone who's on an instance that runs Mastodon v4.0 can edit their posts.

There's a lot of additional work Mastodon needs, and this is why donating to the non-profit helps!

Chris, thanks for strongly promoting support for Mastodon as a project, alongside one's instance. I completely agree with you, and have reactivated my membership at $5/month.

For folks who strongly disagree with Gargamel's approach to governance and project leadership, it's worth mentioning the Hometown fork as well, which has a Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/tinysubversions

Or any other open software of your choice that you think will help nurture the community you're part of.