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Explanation of the costs for running MastodonDE

Monthly costs

• Electricity: 316.8 €
• Internet: 35 €
• Domain(s): 10.45 €
  

Total: 362.25 € / month

How does this all add up...? :blobcatfearful:

Electricity costs :blobcat_rss:
We pay 0.40 € / KWh, the rack for #MastodonDE consumes ~1 KW, however at peak times also ~1.3 KW, so we calculate with 1.1 KW.

So 1.1 KW × 0.40 € / KWh × 24h × 30 days = 316.8 € / month.

Internet :ablobfoxloading:
The servers are operated out of the home of @ErikUden and also use his Internet bandwidth for more than 50%, however, in order to simplify calculations we will pretend as if the servers use 50% and the other 50% continues to be used privately. Since MastodonDE is also reachable by phone via this telephone line + internet contract, it is also fair to charge 50% for it.

We have the Red Internet & Phone 1000 Cable from Vodafone with 1150 Mb/s download and 56.7 Mb/s upload, this costs 70 € / month.

70 € / 2 = 35 €.

MastodonDE thus needs to pay 35 € / month for the Internet connection.

Domain(s) :blobfoxcomputerowo:
The domains and instances which are operated by the MastodonDE network:

• mastodon.de (4.29 € / year - Regery)
• fediverse.gay (28.14 € / year - Namecheap)
• fediver.su (5.59 € / year - Regery)
• fedive.ru (3.39 € / year - Regery)
• ostfriesland.social (29.05 € / year - Namecheap)
• fediblock.wiki (24.50 € / year - Namecheap)
• pixelfed.party (25.41 € / year - Namecheap)
• beertu.be (4.99 € / year - Regery)

Total domain costs:

• 125.36 € / year
• ~10.45 € / month

Total 362.25 € / month :blobcatgoogly:

With this money we could maintain MastodonDE if:

• No device or server ever breaks and needs to be replaced :blobcateyes:
• Storing backups externally wouldn't cost money :blobfoxlaughsweat:
  
• We never need external help :blobfoxnomcat:
  
• We never get in legal trouble :blobcatfearful:
• No one will ever be compensated for working on the project, or paid for previous expenses :blobcatmeowcouple:
  

As you can easily see by reading this post the 362.25 € are really only to cover the costs at optimal operation. If this value is reached by donations there are no more running costs on our end, which we, beside our time, gladly sacrifice for this project, but possibly cannot continue to do forever.

These costs are so far covered out Erik Uden's open source software company called Uden AI which is also for the moment the legal vehicle behind MastodonDE. Erik Uden founded Uden UG (haftungsbeschränkt) (comparable to an LLC/Ltd) in February 2021 and is the CEO as well as the sole employee of the company. It mainly provides web services (web-hosting, web-design, etc.) and generates exclusively open source code. I, Erik Uden, am writing this text just to make clear that no exploitation had to happen to fund MastodonDE. I worked completely on my own and earned the necessary money to cover the monthly costs of MastodonDE for a few times through a few invoices over the past years. I did all of that next to getting my high school diploma, next to my political work, and later also next to studying in university.

In the long run MastodonDE shall become a non-profit to ensure that we as a platform always remain advertising-free, algorithm-free, without data theft, anti-commercial as well as anti-capitalist!

To make this possible we need donations of at least 362.25 € / month.

You can view many popular options to donate here!

Once this bill is covered, MastodonDE will be possible to continue existing long-term! :erikuden: