One stated purpose of the campaign is to show the size and influence of the fediverse so that politicians and governments will set up instances and/or accounts and maintain an official presence on it. $500k may or may not be enough to do that, but the organizer is meeting with Democratic Party officials this week to discuss the campaign and there could be meaningful outcomes for the whole fediverse.

“I’m not owned! I’m not owned!” I continue to insist as I slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob

Back during the real estate frenzy of the late 2010s I would get calls all the time asking how much I would sell my house for. I’d say “I could probably let it go for 2 million dollars.” (Even at the ridiculous peak, it was never worth more than 750k.) There would be a few seconds of silence on the line while they actually looked up my house. Then they’d say “oh.” And hang up as fast as humanly possible.

At time of publication, the campaign had raised 485k on ActBlue. Yesterday it broke 500k and is still going strong, with smaller daily fundraising goals.

You can see the progress tracker here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mastodon-for-harris

Do we think anyone would actually opt in?

I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that making it opt-in is probably seen in this case as equivalent to throwing the entire feature in the trash.

I’m with you there. The only explanation that makes sense to me is if they’re really hurting for cash. And if they are, I honestly don’t have a solution that falls between “go bankrupt” and “sell out our users in the least noxious way we can come up with.”