Out of the existing >500 node count I expect more than half dropping off after the owners realize the cost of running an open registration instance.
I already see nodes with ~150 users startled that storage use grows 10GB per week.
@mulander Agreed. I set up a node, but never published it, just to learn, but my time and money are better spent supporting others who have more time and need the money for an instance.
@mulander Even if you have an instance that have 100 people on it, if HALF gave $1, I’d think it generally would cover most of the cost of running an instance, as THAT scales.
@viciousviscosity oh obviously but taking donations is also not a no effort task. You have to be willing to do taxes on it.
I am 100% sure mastodon will kick through and only grow. Just tooting to let people know about being careful spinning up new instances without research or joining random ones.
@mulander Yes, completely agree. Even the ones who aren’t just playing around can certainly get caught off guard at the rising cost. :dollar:
@viciousviscosity especially people starting off with a free $10 credit from DO. Roughly a kid with no instance and some time can spin up an instance and gain user base.
I'm afraid the kickback the network will feel if big nodes (>100 users) start suddenly going out of existence.
Bad publicity.
@mulander Yeah, a bit of a catch-22, because there isn’t a place OUTSIDE of mastodon I’m seeing this kind of GOOD information going, so people who join on a trendy, small sized instance and then it falls over after their time is invested could give them a sour taste for decentralization.
@mulander so 15 users produce ~~~ 1 GB/wk ? :-o What eats that much space?
@pnathan each node stores a copy of federated toots. If a person follows a busy node posting a lot of media like gifs that can eat into storage quite quickly.
@mulander Aha. Gotcha.
@mulander is it possible to run an ephemeral instance where content drops off after n days?
@Angostura I see no technical reason why that would not be possible but I believe that no implementation currently supports a setup like tht. That would also mean no permanent content links.
@mulander Yup. I was just pondering whether we might get a new kind of instance
@mulander They will learn quickly that running these types of servers isn't going to just run them $5 a month haha.
dumb stuff i think about but don't do Show more
@mulander I made some brief estimates and realized I just reasonably run an instance just for myself and few more extra people at most. Better to spend money and/or effort helping others.
@mulander *reasonably could
@mulander I've entertained running a restricted registration instance (pretty much just personal, really). Not sure what kind of system resources it expects, though.
@mulander agreed!