--- title: CoSocialism Update | daily.dev description: CoSocial, a Canadian nonprofit co-op running a Mastodon instance, just held its AGM without drama. The service has a bit over 200 members at C$50/year and is... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/cosocialism-update-9dbhnbz7y twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: CoSocialism Update | daily.dev og:description: CoSocial, a Canadian nonprofit co-op running a Mastodon instance, just held its AGM without drama. The service has a bit over 200 members at C$50/year and is... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/cosocialism-update-9dbhnbz7y og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/9dBhNBZ7Y.png og:image:alt: CoSocialism Update og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # CoSocialism Update **[ongoing by Tim Bray](https://daily.dev/sources/tbray)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary CoSocial, a Canadian nonprofit co-op running a Mastodon instance, just held its AGM without drama. The service has a bit over 200 members at C$50/year and is growing. Tim Bray says the paid membership model has nearly eliminated moderation problems: in several hundred person-coop years, only one actionable complaint occurred, resolved with an informal warning. The co-op uses FediHost for hosting and has a 'Elbows Up' policy, with most infrastructure moved off US providers except for QuickBooks and Stripe. Bray argues CoSocial is a plausible model for social media's future: decentralized, self-funding, and free of advertisers and trolls. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Does charging a membership fee actually reduce trolling on a Mastodon instance? Yes, a small paid membership fee is described as astonishingly effective at preventing problems. One Canadian Mastodon co-op with over 200 members paying C$50 per year received only one actionable complaint across several hundred person-coop years, resolved with just an informal warning from moderators, because trolling relies on free, frictionless access. _Weighing paid community models for moderation headaches is a recurring debate daily.dev readers track in fediverse discussions._ ### What does it cost to run a small nonprofit Mastodon instance as a cooperative? A Canadian nonprofit co-op charges members C$50 per year, which covers operating costs but still relies on significant volunteer effort. With over 200 members, the organization uses FediHost for hosting because it is competent, affordable, and not US-based, and has moved most infrastructure off US providers except for QuickBooks and Stripe. _Developers scoping self-hosted community infrastructure costs can follow similar fediverse cost breakdowns on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The world needs social sovereignty](https://daily.dev/posts/the-world-needs-social-sovereignty-eggds61lb) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Mastodon, The Only Good Choice](https://daily.dev/posts/mastodon-the-only-good-choice-45lxqhbsh) · ongoing by Tim Bray · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Mastodon, a decentralized alternative to X, plans to target creators with new features](https://daily.dev/posts/mastodon-a-decentralized-alternative-to-x-plans-to-target-creators-with-new-features-15yypwbgw) · TechCrunch · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Self-Host Weekly \(14 August 2026\)](https://daily.dev/posts/self-host-weekly-14-august-2026--txxhhkqv3) · selfh.st · 77 upvotes · 5 comments - [Mastodon adds email newsletters so people who don’t want an account can still follow creators on the open social web](https://daily.dev/posts/mastodon-adds-email-newsletters-so-people-who-don-t-want-an-account-can-still-follow-creators-on-the-rvgxnrrs5) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#mastodon](https://daily.dev/tags/mastodon), [#fediverse](https://daily.dev/tags/fediverse) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/cosocialism-update-9dbhnbz7y) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"CoSocialism Update","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/cosocialism-update-9dbhnbz7y","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/cosocialism-update-9dbhnbz7y"},"datePublished":"2026-10-30T23:07:37.543Z","dateModified":"2026-10-30T23:08:02.036Z","description":"CoSocial, a Canadian nonprofit co-op running a Mastodon instance, just held its AGM without drama. 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