Administered by:
@stux@mstdn.socialOoof 
this morning i got the server bills and currently im still a massive €470+ short..
Upcoming week I'm gonna dedicate go clean up servers, merge some to cut costs
Unofrt active users has gone down but the cost do keep return and even increase every month
Please, if you can and want, help me out with these bills
https://paypal.me/stuxOS
https://patreon.com/mstdn
https://ko-fi.com/mstdn
https://bunq.me/stuxhost
https://stux.me/donate
https://liberapay.com/mstdn
Boosts would also be a help
The server bills are paid thank you so incredible much for your support 
This takes away my biggest worry for this month 
I'm gonna do my best to cut down costs but without it impacting any service!
Without your help i would not be able to affort to run all our services thank you!
May I ask are the bills in line with the previous ones, or/and can you see peaks that can be read as being due to outside/AI scrabbing?
Also hoping you get the bills covered. That's an important thing you're doing.
@stux €10,- down. Thanks for your work!
I just sent @stux a tenner, he shouldn't have to pay the server costs out of his own pocket. I'm actually not on mstdn.social, but we're all in this together, right?
If many give a small donation, he will hit his target.
@stux
Just sent 10 Euro, thanks for your hard work!
@stux Well, this one the easiest way to support the @buyfromeu movement. At least we would know our support is going to somewhere good and not another tax haven. #RejoinEU. Hope you also donate to #Mastodon as well.
@stux Done. Thanks for hosting and managing gram.social
@stux I have a (small) monthly setup that should arrive within the next few days via ko-fi
@stux Done (boost and contribution)
@stux Dunno what you're running this on; But anything that could be done to help in-kind not in-cash? (host for shipping static/cdn to get some traffic off etc?)
@stux Suggest you investigate other donation options (e.g. Visa/MC) for U.S. folks, and adding a 1 time donation option. Keep up the good work! 
Outstanding admin, I do annual donation on patreon!
@stux
I'd definitely consider gating behind a subscription or at least an initial donation. That's a lot of weight on yourself for such a huge instance.
@stux Done 
Thanks for all you do!
@stux Done Thanks for all you do!!!
@stux Boosted and I sent a bit extra. I'll see if I can up my Patreon as well.
@stux Happy to help!
@stux I'll share this github issue again: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/34289
It needs more discussion and, preferably, support.
@collectifission @stux One other option would be to figure out if there's a way to streamline importing subscriber details from Patreon or Kofi to mark them as paid.
As well as optionally having some kind of 'flair' for people who support their servers (for servers that want to keep things optional).
If you are going to ask for money every month, have you considered flipping the script?
Turn the server into a subscription-only system, but make it so that each paying subscriber gets to invite N people (where 3 <= N <= 10)?
@stux Thanks for the reminder. You're a bunch less short now.
@stux Maybe you should mention the instances you run. I suppose that people on them are more willing to donate, when they know.
@stux Congrats on raising so much money so quickly. A clear sign people appreciate what you do, stux
I sent a little... as there are always bills for net month.
@stux I am so glad you have a Patreon. My last instance had no way to support them and it showed with so much downtime.
Out of curiosity: do you know about instances that are (well)maintained because access is *only* given to paid customers?
- mastodon.green charges 1€/month
- social.lol charges $20/year for Mastodon and some other niceties
- communick.com charges $29/year and provides Mastodon, Matrix, Lemmy and Funkwhale (alternative to Spotify)
@raphael I didn’t know that. It makes sense. I would rather pay than be the one being sold.
Yeah, I feel very ambivalent about this idea of donationware, where admins put on themselves *first* to offer the service to users and only later rely on the goodwill of a few (relative to the total amount of users) to cover the expenses of everyone else.
Also, I think it is a bad incentive. Last month @stux had to run go around panhandling just to make rent. This month, again we are seeing a shortage of funds... So, when does it end? Are we going to see every month a drive to get 3k euros to cover bills just because he doesn't want to be upfront and actually *charge from their users*
I feel bad for pointing this out, but his working for free ends up devaluing the work of other professionals and creates false expectations.
@Linnefaulk @stux Totally understandable. It was also the first time you heard about the paid-only instances.
Which sort of brings me to my inquiry: what do you think service providers like me can do reach out to more people and spread the message that "maybe it would be better for *everyone* to pay a little bit, instead of this pseudo-gratis service offered by most?"
The tricky part about "showing your costs" is that most of the cost is labor, which is widely undervalued by the community.
E.g, a competent sysadmin could easily be making 10k€/month. If I put that as my target revenue for the service, do you think people will think "oh, that's more or less what a sysadmin makes, so it should be accounted" or they will say "wait, why do you want to be compensated for this, when other admins are doing volunteer work for free?"