• 𝓣𝓞𝓑𝓘𝓝@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Something that makes forums a bit different is that it costs the owners when people use the website. Unlike Blender, Firefox, Linux, etc… A server host can’t just make the forum available, then set and forget it, they either have to pay a huge fee to some host like AWS, or have a huge stockpile of computers in their basement.

    • Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Perhaps you are right. They also have server costs, but maybe they aren’t as big. But other federated networks exist: Mastodon, Matrix and PeerTube. I don’t think they have ads, so Lemmy should be able to at least reach their size without them. I can’t say what would happen when it reaches a billion users though.

      On the other hand the costs will be distributed among many instance owners, so I don’t know why ads would be needed. We can have thousands of instances for example.

    • Fylkir@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      How do you think Blender, Firefox, Linux, etc, are distributed? Probably get more requests per day than any single Lemmy instance does.