Sustainably? They don’t (mostly). Most are either pet projects, paid for out of pocket by the instance owner or run off donations. Neither are particularly sustainable long term, with rare exceptions like sdf.org.
The SDF runs just about every federated service you can think of, and has done so since the 1980s, run almost entirely off donations. Started as a dialup BBS (still active).
Sustainably? They don’t (mostly). Most are either pet projects, paid for out of pocket by the instance owner or run off donations. Neither are particularly sustainable long term, with rare exceptions like sdf.org.
The SDF runs just about every federated service you can think of, and has done so since the 1980s, run almost entirely off donations. Started as a dialup BBS (still active).
Yeah, I enjoyed checking out the open collective link that was shared by another commenter.
I pretty much knew the answer to my question but mission accomplished in the sense of getting more info.
I suppose out of pet project versus donation, the latter is the less of two evils.
I think it’s a good question to ask anyways just so more people see it and learn more how this all works. Myself included. Thank you.