cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/65824884

Hey everyone

We’re really sorry to say this, but lemm.ee will be shutting down on June 30, 2025.

What you need to know

As of now:

  • New user registrations are disabled
  • Creating new communities is disabled

What you should do:

  • You can export your settings at https://lemm.ee/settings to take them with you to another instance.
  • If you’re moving to another instance, consider adding a note to your lemm.ee profile with your new username. Your old profile will still be visible from other instances even after we go offline.
  • Alternatively, if you want to delete your lemm.ee profile, now is the best time to do it, so the deletion can federate out before we go offline.
  • If you’re one of the folks supporting us with a recurring donation, please remember to cancel it (Ko-Fi donations should have been cancelled automatically already). Our leftover funds are already enough to cover our bills for next month, so we can keep things running without any more support.

Because of how Lemmy is built, everything posted on lemm.ee will still be accessible from other instances, even after we go offline.

Why this is happening

The key reason is that we just don’t have enough people on the admin team to keep the place running. Most of the admin team has stepped down, mostly due to burnout, and finding replacements hasn’t worked out.

The sad reality is that while there are a lot of great people on Lemmy, there are also some who use the platform to attack others, stir up conflict, or actively try to undermine the project. Admins are volunteers who deal with the latter group on a constant basis, this takes a mental toll. Please understand why our admins chose to step down, and be kind to the admins on whatever instance you decide to join.

We know this sucks. We’re genuinely sorry it’s ending like this. Thank you to everyone who spent time here and helped make it better.

– lemm.ee team

  • Kichae@wanderingadventure.party
    5·
    3 days ago

    Weirdly enough, community might actually be enough, but the Fediverse doesn’t really have much in the way of communities. As I think you yourself point out elsewhere, the Fediverse is lacking the connective tissue of shared ideology, goals, or even interests. It’s also both too large to create the familiarity that binds people socially, while also being too small to sustain itself off a donation model that makes sure there are professional admins and server mods. It’s too big to be a hobby, and too small to be a job.

    Aping the aesthetic of commercial social media is a significant issue here, because form follows function, and the function of commercial social media is not community, but convincing end-users to be content generators. People on Reddit and Twitter are accustomed to an endless stream of input generated by nameless, faceless entities that they don’t give two shits about, with some celebrities and internet-famous people interjecting from time to time. That requires tens of millions of users fighting for fleeting attention from fickle consumers. We have tens of thousands of people who – as far as I can tell, based on the types and volume of posts – are mostly interested in consuming, not fighting for attention.

    These are not the people who fund these kinds of endeavours. Neither group is – the content generators are no more interested in paying to get attention than the content consumers are to give it. So, without the firm social ties that motivate keeping the lights on, there is only burnout for the few who are willing to materially support the place, and gradual decay for everyone else.

    • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      It’s too big to be a hobby, and too small to be a job.

      Facebook allegedly extracts $14/month of value from each of their US-based users, ~$12/european user, $7/month for Latin America and $4 from Southeast Asia.

      If each active user contributed $1/month for their instance and $1/month for the developer of the software they use, the Mastodon developers would have an operational budget of ~$800k per month, the Lemmy developers would have $50k/month.

      I don’t think that the problem is we’re “too small to be a job”. I think that the problem is that the average “enthusiast” is an hypocrite. They will profess their hatred of the business practices of Big Tech, but they will look for any and every possible justification to excuse themselves to contributing to the pool.

      We have tens of thousands of people who (…) are mostly interested in consuming, not fighting for attention.

      Sure, but what I don’t get is this: why is that people are absolutely fine with paying 10-20€/month (or $50-$70/month in the US) for their mobile phone service but expect that the server hosting service and software development service to fall from the sky?

      • Kichae@wanderingadventure.party
        2·
        3 days ago

        Touche. I guess what I should have more rightly said was, given the level of contribution users have shown themselves willing to make, it’s too small to be a job.

        But in the end, I believe people aren’t willing to pay because we look like other spaces where they don’t have to pay, and we gate nothing behind paywalls. Most people don’t pay for services on the Internet, they pay for special privileges and to stand out. And if basic talk and text service was freely provided by volunteers, they’d milk those volunteer organizations dry, too.

        • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
          5·
          3 days ago

          Most people don’t pay for services on the Internet

          Yeah, but we are not “most people”. I thought “we” understood if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product. I thought “we” understood that “Free software” was not a “free lunch”.

          And if basic talk and text service was freely provided by volunteers, they’d milk those volunteer organizations dry, too.

          This is also why I think we should flip the script and stop cheering admins that run “free” instances. We should stop helping admins who can not make rent and we should start telling them to start valuing their work and demand proper compensation.