Reddit migrator here (shocking, I know)
Just wondering because I found out about all this yesterday and just realized the ammount of independent servers, but no sign of any ads or sponsors. So… is it all based on donations?
Also don’t just lurk, if you know you should answer because lemmy only counts users who posted or commented as active users.
I’m not sure there is one answer here. I guess it all depends on the instance. Also consider that it’s pretty early on, some instances might ask you money to join, others might ask for donations and yet others might show ads or be completely paid for by the hoster. Having a small instance doesn’t necessarily need to cost a lot.