- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
obligatory preface: we’re 100%-user funded and everything you donate to us specifically goes to the website, or any outside labor we pay to do something for us.
overall expenses this month: $523.79
as expected, a full month of running on last month’s setup has come in pretty high. luckily, we expect downsizing to begin this month (and we have a pretty good idea of what we’re going to do) so this will be our last month of costs at this scale. our initial estimation is that we can halve or better what we’re paying now on a monthly basis.
$428.73 for Digital Ocean hosting, which can be further subdivided into
- $336.00 for hosting the site itself
- $67.20 for backups
- $25.53 for site snapshots
$28.87 for Hive, an internal chat platform we’ve set up (also being hosted on Digital Ocean)
- $24.07 for hosting Hive
- $4.80 for backups
~$39.16 for email functionality, which can be further subdivided into
- $35/mo for Mailgun (handles outbound emails, so approval/denial/notifications emails; also lets us not get marked as spam)
- ~$4.16/mo ($50/yr, already paid in full) for Fastmail (handles all inbound emails)
$22.87 for BackBlaze (redundant backup system that’s standalone from Digital Ocean)
overall contributions this month: $1,310.90
support still more than covers our expenses, and particularly with our upcoming downsizing we don’t believe this will be a problem. breakdown is:
- 100 monthly contributions, totaling $624.95
- 2 yearly contributions, totaling $67.10
- 36 one-time donations, totaling $618.85
between monthly and yearly contributions we are still sustainable overall—but now that the Reddit bump has ebbed most of our savings will come in the form of lowering costs and not “sheer amount of money being thrown our way.”
total end of month balance: $4,347.79
expense runway, assuming no further donations
- assuming expenses like ours this month: we have about 8 months and one week of runway
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If this level of transparency was available for various news and other social sites, I’d be more likely to buy a subscription to them.
The honesty is great and makes this feel more like an actual community or a co-op.
I’ll be curious to see how these numbers change, both the monthly cost and the amount of contributions, as more and more people join up.
Agree with everything in this comment, especially
makes this feel more like an actual community or a co-op.
🥰 TOTALLY, and it makes me feel very good about my recurring donation - the people running the server care, I care, pretty much everybody interacting here really, truly cares about the community, I genuinely love supporting that. This is a beautiful place on the internet.
Hey just a thought, but have you considered also measuring your labor in terms of hours worked by admin staff etc? I’m assuming it’s unpaid.
I think showing the financials is great but to me it shows only one part of the picture, if that makes sense. Your work has value!
I really appreciate all the work that goes into this place, and really, thanks for all you do.
I would wager I’ve spent between 40-70hours a week working on Beehaw directly or on things relating to it with as high as 90hours a week at the peak - I would wake up, open Beehaw, eat, sleep. None of us get paid for this, it would likely bankrupt Beehaw in less than a week if we were paid even minimum wage. The only reason I can do this is because I don’t have a job - which is putting me in a bad financial situation honestly… I really should’ve gotten a job but I didn’t.
Thank you for the appreciation.
Surely that isn’t sustainable for you or beehaw? On the one hand, please take care to look after your own best interests. We really appreciate your work, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of your well-being.
On the other hand, if the project is based on full time volunteer work by people who can’t afford to volunteer full time over the long term, surely that is a major risk to the long term viability of the instance?
On the other hand, if the project is based on full time volunteer work by people who can’t afford to volunteer full time over the long term, surely that is a major risk to the long term viability of the instance?
this is quite belated but now i’m back to a computer so i can answer this at some length: this is a fundamental issue of the fediverse which nobody has solved. the money is just not there for this to be any sort of compensated job, even at the level of “monthly stipend between the admins” (because that’d double the expenses you see here at minimum). maybe if this site was pay-to-join perhaps we could make a scheme like that work but that has its own drawbacks too–and at least in our case could select for an audience which would exclude many of the very people we want to make a space for.
there is a brute force answer which may or may not work in the long run, which is “have a lot of people keeping an eye on the website”. that of course introduces its own vectors for issues but is basically the way we’re making this work right now, and will probably be the case into the foreseeable future unless people get much more generous with their spending here.
Thanks for the detailed response. It doesn’t seem like there is a perfect answer here, but it is very important that you and other admins/mods can find some sort of sustainable way to delegate and manage for the long term. We really appreciate what you have done so far
That’s certainly true but the issue is that we don’t really have other options. Lemmy’s system allows for little delegation outside of giving full admin powers. There’s an issue to improve that but as with all of Lemmy’s moderation woes - it seems no one is working on it.
It worked for reddit for 18 years. They just need more volunteers.
40-90 hours a week isn’t sustainable, but adding a few more people takes it out of burnout territory.
Reddit has always had paid employees, only the mods are/were unpaid.
I really do appreciate the work you put into Beehaw, but to echo what others have said, I don’t think anyone wants this to be unsustainable for you, or anyone else working on Beehaw.
At the least I think it could be reported as part of donations/expenses? Rough numbers would be fine too (because the overhead of tracking hours is not fun). So I’m imagining something like:
400 hours unpaid work (2 full time people working, 1 part-time) (if paid, that’s $6,000 at minimum wage, $8,800 at a livable wage)
Which is a lot of money, and very scary, but at least it makes the behind-the-scenes work visible.
That said, I’m going to go set up a monthly donation now 🤗
I want to add my support for the unpaid labor being reported as part of the financial report. It would add more clear transparency to the total effort involved.
The human toll is hard to quantify but should not be ignored.
It’s worth mentioning that a lot of moderation work is kinda always in the back of your mind and work even when it’s not directly - answering people’s questions, chatting in our mod chat, talking to other admins, etc.
No illusions on my part. This is true for a lot of jobs that have 24/7 support activity and also jobs that have an emotional toll that lingers when not “working” (social workers, teachers in bad neighborhoods, nurses, content moderators). And as such, the pay scale is commensurate. It’s not that it solves the problem, but that it can afford the individuals time off and rehabilitation services.
At the least I think it could be reported as part of donations/expenses? Rough numbers would be fine too (because the overhead of tracking hours is not fun). So I’m imagining something like:
400 hours unpaid work (2 full time people working, 1 part-time) (if paid, that’s $6,000 at minimum wage, $8,800 at a livable wage)
i can attempt this for the next expense report but it seems a bit academic. just estimating here, the number per month is already something like twice the total amount of money we’ve received over the course of the site’s existence, and several times what we received this month.
I feel that putting dollar amounts on the work would be confusing to people, they might think we’ll take that money. I’ve thought about making a post to donate money to me personally because well, I need the money but I don’t know.
I would rather see ads or something than having someone work that hard for no pay to keep it going. Have you thought about other potential revenue streams, or would you like to workshop or discuss options?
One idea that I believe could use some discussion is Beehaw merchandise.
I would be delighted to wear a Beehaw shirt out and about, and I’d love a Beehaw sticker for my laptop. I am happy to contribute labor to making these things happen - please let me know if I can assist in any way. My design skills are mediocre, but I am capable of taking an existing thing and turning it into a format that works for various applications, and I’m familiar with setting up basic online storefronts for print-on-demand etc.
An official Beehaw merchandise online store would be something that would require talks with all the admins with voting power. That would be my self, Gaywallet, Lionir and Alyaza. You could begin by creating a post about this in c/chat and pinging all of us there.
☹️
I would also happily donate some design labour towards Beehaw merchandise.
I love the amount of transparency in this post!
I love this website and the transparency, sustainability and support. Super nice.
Have you considered merch
Yes but merch is a lot of work to do in an ethical way. We also would prefer to pay the people designing the merch than ourselves so it’s not something we’d consider using for fundraising.
I wish there was a link to donate at the end of this post.
Yeah… it’s at the top as the link for the post
Well, maybe it needs to be in 2 places for dummies like me. Lol. I kicked in a few bucks. Thanks. For what you do, friend.
Yeah this is absolutely the right place for it, at the bottom of a post that will attract almost exclusively people who care about the financials
Here, have some money
What is your intent with a comment like this? Anything constructive we can address for you?
What is your intent with a comment like this?
they were being quite literal [i got their donation email :)]
Alright, apologies @[email protected] , I was assuming the worst with a sarcastic comment.
Nope. This post was just the reminder I needed that I’m financially stable again after a hard month and that I’d pledged myself to put some money in the pot going forward to ensure the future of Beehaw. The comment coming from my slrpnk.net account is quite simple. I was on mobile and didn’t realize which account I was logged into
As always, thank you for your transparency! <3
I love these breakdowns of the financing! Thanks for all your work and communication, it really makes me feel like a stakeholder in the community instead of a string in a database.
I love to see the transparency. Thank you for facilitating such a great online experience.
A thought I’ve had for a little bit now is what is making sure Beehaw isn’t sold off? I have no doubt in the current intentions of the admins, but as Beehaw grows it can become very valuable for data companies. If this wonderful community thrives, there will be eventually be people and companies making offers to buy everything we’ve built. Is there any plan to ensure Beehaw doesn’t sell out? I’ve been burned before, and I want to ensure that if I’m going to contribute financially that I won’t lose Beehaw.
I mean, that’s a question of trust. There’s nothing I can do other than promise that I or any of the admins would never sell off Beehaw.
That said, if it reassures you, our disregard for “growth for the sake of growth” should push away any kind of company seeking money. It’d be much more lucrative to go for a big instance like lemmy.world.
How could we do more than ask for trust?
Our ‘Northern Star’ (or guiding principle) has been, for over two years, ‘be(e) nice’. This is the ONLY objective that we have.
That doesn’t answer the question…
I think they tried. It’s just a hard question to answer. How would you guarantee someone something like that?
How would you guarantee someone something like that?
Incorporate, NFPO, most likely 501©(7).
Besides that, I don’t think they tried. “Do no evil” isn’t reassuring in the slightest, especially to those of us who remember Reddit before Advance and Tencent bought in. This is when Reddit was literally user powered (image relevant). We bought gold for other redditors, knowing that the funds were directly supporting the site. Go take a look at how that worked out. “It’s your site”, “we couldn’t do this without you”, meaningless. I remember when they pledged 10% of annual ad revenue to non-profits, selected by the users. They really did the most to make the users feel like they were part of something special. We see how that turned out.
Obviously, support whoever and whatever you like. All I want to do is balance out the optimism. Real money is changing hands here, and some of us have been down this road a couple of times. Those experiences have taught me that it’s at least as likely that the site-runners want to be rich and successful as it is that they can resist the temptation when it comes knocking, and that’s being generous.
I see what you mean, but I also believe that the value of places like Beehaw often lies in the intermediary stage before they become an institution or wither away and die.
Right now Beehaw is pretty close to the peak of what it can be. It’s the equivalent of a large online block party. If it gets bigger than this it will need to institionalize or wither away. What you’re asking is for it to institionalize sooner than is necessary, which is what will kill the feeling.
Beehaw has a lifespan to it, we should all recognize this now. Beehaw is great because it runs on good faith and trust. These are limited resources and they’ll run out eventually, either sell out or burn out.
The best way to approach it is to put into it what you get out of it, and stop putting into it when you stop getting value out of it.
It feels as though you’re confusing the corporate model of websites with Beehaw.
Nothing lasts forever, but the motivations behind enshittification are key to enshittification, with the key one explicitly rejected by Beehaw being growth for its own sake.
There’s no need for Beehaw to get bigger, and thanks to the volunteer efforts of the admins and mods, it’s currently sustainable through donations. Pivoting to profit isn’t inherent to buying a domain and providing a service.
I feel like those of us who have contributed should receive in return an adorable cat gif.
Not like, to display or anything. Just something happy that bounces in our mailboxes after we contribute. Maybe the cat is wearing a hat! Or maybe the cat has gotten into a humorous predicament. Or maybe the cat is riding a dog. Or a human! The possibilities are endless, the joy boundless; and pragmatically speaking, it makes our monthly receipts for donation slide ride on through with less risk of begrudging it :D
I am not a business cat and you should not take this as business advice
Can I ask what is perhaps a very silly question - why are you advocating for cute cat gifs as thanks on BEEhaw, shouldn’t it be adorable bee gifs? We contribute, and the little bee gathers up pollen and then poots a happy little glitter confetti pollen fart or something? Idk.
I’m allergic as fuck to bees and wasps, I had a bad wasp encounter last year that has left me with PTSD regarding everybody who goes BUZZ BUZZ, I vastly prefer cats and dogs as animals to share space with - but this is Beehaw, it just seems totally wrong for any official anything to not involve bees.
PTSD
Bee TSD
I just figured the cat gif well was deeper than the bee gif well. I didn’t want them to move heaven and earth, just tape a piece of candy to the receipt, yanno?
Hey there - I work in film production and have a fair bit of HDD space just laying around. How much do you need to be useful for backups? Happy to contribute some hardware to the cause if it’s at all remotely useful and host a local backup as one more offsite redundancy for you. That being said, I don’t really know what your data storage demands are.
Current requirements are about 50GB a day, and keeping 7 days prior, and one a week (about 300GB a month) for backups alone, not keeping more than a month. Also using backblaze B2 as a standard for that storage now.
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Apologies, I may have not been entirely clear with my wording:
currently keeping 7 days of daily backups ~ 50 GB a day Keeping 1 backup of a week per 4 weeks ~ 50 GB each Keeping 1 full backup of the week a month ~ 50 GB each
Gives us a current storage requirement of (7 * 50) + (50 * 4) + ( 50) = ~ 600GB for a month of backups.
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