Like if I put $200,000 into a piece of work I need to have some guarantees.

That’s called investing, and guess what, sometimes you lose on investments. If you want guaranteed income, you can be a salaried employee.

I can’t put years of my life into a project that I need to make money off of, give it out for free and hope for donations. That’s insane.

If the end goal is monetization, then say so upfront, don’t worm your way into communities and start hawking your wares. Again, not everything needs to be a profit making machine, volunteering, donations and non-profits exist.

You know, people who do it for a living, who’d like to eat food and be independent rather than being stuck in some dreary ass company or under the thumb of Google. Ever consider that?

Your personal ambitions are not a concern of me, or anyone else. You sound like the Lemmy community is putting a damper on your dreams of making it big (it’s never just about putting food on the table,right?). Maybe we want a place where we can talk to each other and not have ads shoved into our faces, like on every other platform?

If you want to set up a commercial based instance, go ahead, just don’t be surprised if you don’t recieve a warm welcome.