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2026-06-02 08:00:24 UTC

nobody on Nostr: How does Centralized Social Media (roughly) spends its revenue? Infrastructure / ...

How does Centralized Social Media (roughly) spends its revenue?

Infrastructure / hosting: 6–12%
R&D: 15–30%
Sales & marketing: 15–35%
Content / creator payouts: 10–25%
Moderation ops: 5–10%
G&A: 5–10%
EBITDA / retained: 0–20% (often low or negative during growth)

The Nostr drama focuses on that 15-30% R&D budget, it always does.

Let’s imagine I decide to operate a subscription relay…

6-12% go to running cost of the relay.
15-30% is redistributed, 1/3 kept for internal RnD, 1/3 is redistributed to clients based on ratio of notes posted to relay from specific client, 1/3 goes into a user voted grants funds.
15-35% is spent on community driven advertisement programs (or classical advertisement)
5-10% is redistributed to the community for moderation (relays have to keep it legal)
The rest goes to G&A fund and profit.