The corpos:

"This is outrageous! This is unfair!"

as long as they pay

To who?

To the IP licensors? Nah. Pass. Prefer piracy.

To the creators? Arguably much better.

How to control intermediaries in those cases?

Also payment processor information usually requires KYC crap and puts people in lots of danger of fire from trigger-happy companies (or governments).

I am not married to any particular language's syntax choices but sure if we want to play "make it feel like C++":

std::cpp26::string a : std::cpp26::make_unique( std::cpp26::string{} );

I could try and pass it through a number of iostreams or a to_array conversion to see if I can push a to_string() in somewhere...

String a: new String()

That's the part we have to combat. The idea that being a fan of something means any contribution you do to the fandom has to be treated as essentially unpaid workforce for the franchise. In truth, it's nothing in the fact that you are a fan, but rather the fact that the thing you are a fan of is defended by some of the vilest scume of the earth (lawyers) that is a problem.

Down with copyright law!

I was gonna make a pun, but I'm not in any hurry for it to come out.

Nothing in any of those three words precludes payment (it's work after all) but it's still notoriously scummy. A donation jar would make far more sense.

To be fair, it’s entirely reasonable to be able to expect that paying money for something should get you the thing you paid for.

Fam, it's 2025, the last time what you say was entirely reasonable was, what, 1986?

GOS has lots of time to - even before their very own conception - to see the writing on the wall.

Sure, Karen.

I liked the (first four) movies. Honestly awesome if short Alan Rickman screentime. I pirated them. I watch hem whenever I want, not when you think I have to be a soldier for your cause, and that bitch still don't get a cent from me.

Like, sure, conveniently I won't have any spare time to rewatch them this month, but that's because life is busy not becuse you think you're right.

In English I guess it would be something like "mother-in-law".

This is the kind of content I got to lemmy for.

Joke's on you, at the work I'm in we are running a project 32 months late.

Young intern. Only now, at the prerelease meeting, do you understand. Your coding skills are no match for the requirement of the client. You have added the tasks for your lack of vision. Now, young intern, you will refactor.

Piefex! Pixelfie! Fedfed! I always get them mixed up!!!! I'm Fedfed up with it! XD

Thanks for the notice.

Also interesting note on mbin, I tend to forget it can do that and it has also a lot of other niceties, but I have experimented very little with mbin. My account sits 3 weeks unused

Then the next best thing to do is to support instances directly. I'd guess most of them have a tip jar or donation box.

Be aware that if supporting unsavory people is your issue, you might want to skip some payment processors and pay the instance hoster directly. Some payment processors, like PayPal or Stripe, are into some unsavory stuff such as targetting sex workers, or appropriating your savings if you post speech they disagree with, or blocking access to service in countries of the third world.

I just don’t want my opinion to be censored for political reasons. That’s what I had hoped for from Lemmy – not some propaganda bullshit. Do you really see this platform as a counterpart to Truth Social?

Literally look at Truth Social. Or better, don't. For a social platform to be healthy, it needs to be censored for poitical reasons. It's just the political reasons have to be about, and for, good.

Just to be real:

Every instance is an example of arbitrary censorship. It's just that .ml is specifically about a kind of censorship you don't like.

All that said, there is no "should". Donations are voluntary, they are not the only way to contribute to the development of the fediverse, and there is already both alternatives and competition, and you could support those instead. I hear Pixelfed is making the rounds.