UPDATE: Mastodon now has 5,472 patrons and appr. $24,000 in funding from Patreon. Pat yourselves on the back -- we're all contributing to a better Fediverse.

Because other people ask how donating helps, I will re-iterate:

1. It helps the continued development of Mastodon itself. Continued developments benefit every instance that runs Mastodon.
2. It helps the continued maintenance of instances run by Mastodon, who are among the largest instances on the Fediverse. Both these instances provide stress testing smaller instance as they grow.

Now of course, donate to your local instance too. I've mentioned this already: it's actually the first reply to the original post.

All this said, today I've spent a large portion of time blocking MAGA alt-right orcs, concern trolls, and people who generally don't read threads but like to argue anyway. Apparently, many folks get hot under the collar when you actually *make* a positive change in the world.

Nevertheless, donating whatever is in your heart to give takes guts and courage -- even if the stakes are a couple of dollars a month.

So pat yourselves on the back. You've done a good deed!