And if your friend isn't convinced by you and somehow missed the months long protest, destruction of third party apps, and mass exodus, honestly they should stay in reddit. We don't need another Facebook.

Plus, have you considered that Lemmy isnt singularly owned? You literally can't say ANY of what you want to say in your ads. "We don't have ads". Really? You can assure me that no single instance has ads? Which instance are you even going to link to? Your own? What makes that one special? What happens when you advertise for "Lemmy" and people find the intolerant instances and assume that's all of the fediverse? What about other offshoots like kbin and mastodon? Not gonna advertise for them? And why should I trust you with money in the first place? For all I know it's just a scam to collect money and run. What happens when someone else pops up claiming that their donation campaign is the real one and yours is fake? Literally anyone can spin up an instance and claim to be "doing it for Lemmy!"

Yeah, hard hard hard no