I prefer good faith discussions please. I love the Fediverse and love what it can be long term. The problem is that parts of the culture want nothing to do with financial aspect. Many are opposed to ads, memberships, sponsorships etc The “small instances” response does nothing to positively contribute to the conversation. There are already massive instances and not everyone wants to self host. People are concerned with larger companies coming to the Fedi but these beliefs will drive everyday users to those instances. People don’t like feeling disposable and when you hamstring admins who then ultimately shut down their instances that’s exactly how people end up feeling. There has to be an ethical way of going about this. So many people were too hard just to be told “too bad” “small instances” I don’t want to end up with a Fediverse ran by corporations because they can provide stability.
One note: It’s pretty rare for tech companies to directly issue profits to shareholders (i.e. as dividends). Rather, profits are usually reinvested into expanding the company; and shareholders make money by selling shares that have risen in value.
Eh… Tech companies do some of the biggest stock buybacks, which is a transfer of profits to shareholders.
But yes, they also reinvest money.