I’m a FOSS (free and open source software) contributor and enthusiast. So I prefer to use such products (Lemmy instead of Reddit, Linux instead of Windows, Firefox instead of Chrome, Signal instead of WhatsApp, you get the idea). Was just thinking that if everyone moved to such solutions, the tech and ad industry would lose billions of dollars. That would translate to governments losing billions of dollars in tax revenue. Would such a move ever be encouraged then by the governments?
As we have seen from the social media companies over the decades, they are making billions of ads, so it goes without saying platform like lemmy does drive the economy, the problem is that it needs a way to cover its cost.
I have read that people in lemmy dont like ads, if lemmy (instance) is run for profit, it may cast shitstorm like misinformation, bad moderation and agendas bc of profits and capitalism. It’s a very good reason not to be for-profit, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible to generate business if the profits could go to nobody.
We maybe able to sell ads, if the ads is run by the government and the profit doesn’t go to anyone but the government savings.
Lets say we forbid ads anyway just bc we hate. The government could still do the host of an instance and ideally makes goddamn clear that it only does moderation over the safety of the community(anti-spam) and illegal content, no agenda, no politics. Do so by raising taxes, or ideally sponsorship and donations. If we can do that, the inefficiency in Fediverse compare to a centralized platform is an non-issue, bc the state-run instance, as supported by the public, should be fast and stable. I mean, c’mon its just texts and images.