Curator of Mastodon.art fediblock :newt: on Nostr: >So, if you’re running a $5/month server, don’t go viral. btw currently ...

>So, if you’re running a $5/month server, don’t go viral.

btw currently stereophonic.space costs me about 12 euro/mo plus the domain costs. Running your server on a VPS is a recipe for disaster. Get a real box and use that.

quoting nevent1q…4pms

Let’s talk about going viral on the Fediverse and what it means for people running small single-user or family servers like mine.Background

Two days ago, I sent out a message that got thousands of boosts and likes. I knew it was going to pop off almost as soon as I sent it because I was immediately seeing tens of boosts. Within two hours, I had hundreds. I knew it was going viral because I touched on two things the Fediverse obsesses over.

First, the Fediverse loves talking about itself. That’s just the truth. Anytime I talk about the Fediverse, people notice. Second, I mentioned AI, which is another hot topic. Even though the Fediverse says it doesn’t like AI, it sure loves to talk about it. My post confirmed that ChatGPT and Gemini were indexing the Fediverse, and that got a response.

This isn’t about that message, though. This is about how it affected my small, mostly self-hosted server.Server Setup

I handle core admin tasks on my server, but I get backend help from a hosting service called SpaceHost. Going viral on the Fediverse isn’t something to take lightly. On centralized platforms, going viral just means you enjoy the engagement. It happens, you get your likes and boosts, and you move on. But for self-hosted servers, it’s different. Servers cost money, and a boost can kill your server.

If you don’t have the infrastructure to handle virality, your server could go down. So, if you’re running a $5/month server, don’t go viral.How Boosts Impact Servers

When someone boosts your post, it gets sent to other servers, multiplying the number of systems your message reaches. Each boost uses system resources.

I pay $105/month to host my server, which has 8GB of RAM, 50GB of disk space, and two CPUs. My server primarily serves me. I have a few family members on it, but they aren’t very active. When my post got over 1,000 boosts, it taxed my server. It didn’t go down, but some features briefly became unavailable. For example, I couldn’t edit a message for about 30 seconds because the system was too busy processing boosts.Followers and Scale

I have around 13,700 followers. On the Fediverse, that’s a lot. On centralized platforms like Instagram or TikTok, it’s not much. Self-hosted Fediverse accounts with 100,000 or 1 million followers are almost unheard of because the costs would be too high. If I had 100,000 followers, I wouldn’t be paying $105/month—I’d need funding.

At that scale, you either rely on Patreon, advertising, or some other revenue source. I know this idea bothers some people because the Fediverse is supposed to be anti-commercial, but servers cost money. People can only afford to be anti-commercial if there are no costs. If there are costs, they have to be covered somehow.The Price of Freedom

I’m not at the point where I need funding, and I hope I never get there. Right now, I’m happy to pay $105/month. To me, that’s the price of freedom—the cost of participating on social media on my own terms. I know that price is too high for many people, especially when centralized platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Threads are free.

But consider this: if I’m paying $105/month to keep my small server running, how much money do you think big social platforms are making off you? They’re running massive data centers and turning a profit. That’s not chump change.Final Thoughts

Going viral on the Fediverse isn’t like going viral on Instagram. On the Fediverse, it can cost you money. Thankfully, I have a solid hosting service that keeps things running, but for anyone thinking about self-hosting, be prepared. Virality has its price.