[DEADMINCE]

> I love Linux, but it would not exist without corporate sponsors.

Of course it would, for it already did. It might not be as polished, and there would be more issues with hardware, but it would certainly still exist, and even thrive. Because enough people want it and can put in the manpower to create it.

> but there's really no possibility a social media platform (or the internet at-large) could adopt a similar strategy.

By decentralizing it could.

> Hosting is expensive

Decentralizing would work around that.

> Blind authoritarianism is ironically one of it's strongest defenses.

The strongest defense is GPL, because if a company tried to do that then the same thing that happened with nginx would happen.

> The decentralized internet, the blockchain, the darkweb and I2P all need someone to pay for hosting costs.

With a properly designed protocol these costs would be neglibile.