From this post (https://sopuli.xyz/post/15865566) on !AskMbin@fedia.io
It’s very likely related, but we also figured out that both of debounced’s (the admin of kbin.run) accounts on GitHub and Matrix were deleted last night. So there is a possibility that kbin.run is no more.
We could have a constellation of smaller service providers, like we do for email nowadays. Everyone talks about Gmail+Outlook having 80% of the market, but we all forget that the tail still exists and that is made of hundreds of independent companies which make a healthy living charging $20-$50/year.
And what’s stopping that from happening now?
I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that servers die because they are difficult to maintain. This is perhaps especially true for kbin/mbin based servers.
I suppose for enough money some might be willing to maintain, but I’m not sure it’s that simple.
Mostly, culture. Everyone hates ads and corporate controlled networks, but almost no one wants to pay for a commercial service provider. People say that donations is an acceptable alternative, but no one pays enough for admins and developers to make a living out of this.
I can tell you that if if that I had 10000 paying customers for my commercial offering ($29/year for Lemmy, Mastodon, Matrix and Funkwhale), I’d be able to pay myself a good salary, support the developers (I pledge 20% of Communick’s profits to the devs) and hire a couple more people to help me. It is not a lot, and a lot less than Facebook extracts from each user by exploring user data.
I do not blame people for this, but that’s because as much as people hate ads and corporate controlled networks, they hate parting with their money more, and corporate-controlled, ad-ridden social media is free.
“Skin in the Game” is a powerful filter. If people are not willing to put their money where their outrage is, then their opinions and desires will be completely disregarded.
I can bet that the majority of people here on Lemmy have paid a handsome amount of money for their corporate-controlled smartphone, yet paying less than 3 bucks a month to sustain an independent internet is such an ordeal? I have no sympathy for these types.