Ludedude

You said it, not me

Dark_Sub_Rosa

I've never been a guest so I'm not sure what they see...

aronparsons

Use AdBlock and stop bitching. Before using AdBlock, I never once clicked on an internet ad; now I don't even have to look at them...

cthree

Or you can pitch in a few bucks and see fewer (Basic Membership) or none (Gold Membership). Members have been carrying the weight of thousands of guests for too long and now those who choose not to kick in to cover their share of the check can make up for it in other ways.

The bills have to get paid one way or another. You may consider the site to be free but it's not for me and the members who pay for it.

trivium

Not to be some Troll but exactly how much does it cost to run this site that it requires membership fees and/or paid advertising?

xviper

Sounds a bit "trollish" to me.
It doesn't "require" membership at all. Once upon a time, it WAS free. Then we were faced with having this shut down because it became too much of an expense for the owners. It was "WE", the users, who decided to VOLUNTARILY kick in DONATIONS to keep this thing running. For quite some time, it was held together by donations. Then cthree decided to give us "philanthropists" some perks, like huge photo storage, email, etc. There started to be more and more "donations". As a result, he decided just to call them "memberships". About the same time, businesses and companies wanted to advertise here. Noone twisted their arms. They just wanted to tap into a rapidly growing site. It became a "business" opportunity. To hold it against anyone for conducting "business" is infantile and selfish.

As for telling you how much it is to run this site, why should he have to? It's absolutely NONE of our business. If you were a private businessman (and this site is a PRIVATE enterprise), would you lay all your financial records on the table so all your competitors can see them? Geez, get over it!

cthree

Call he.net and ask them how much a full rack and 20 megabits per second of bandwidth costs and multiply by twelve. Add $10K per year in new hardware and maintenance, $3K per year for insurance and another $10-20K for general operating expenses (travel, office supplies, telephone bill, promotion, etc). Finish up by adding in your annual salary and divide by 12 to get a rough figure.

cthree

And BTW I make less than $30,000/year, manage 8 servers, 40000 accounts, 12 million pages per month to 280,000 unique visitors, 500+ email accounts, 1500 members and 2 dozen sponsors. I handle sales, accounting, customer service, technical support, promotion, business development, answer the phones and everything in between. I'm the CEO, CFO, CTO, CIO, COO and the receptionist. If my car wasn't paid for I'd be driving an '83 Corolla. Keep your day job.

mxt_77

[QUOTE=Another Suprised Guest]Just a suggestion, I think there'll be a lot of guests that are unhappy about this, so you might post an "Announcement" (if you haven't already) that explains what you've explained here... the ads are to cover expenses, and that some/most are suppressed for paying members.

xviper

Cthree, you are WAAAAYYY more forthcoming than I would ever be.
When I go to a restaurant, do I have the right to know where the owner's revenue goes? Does he have a responsibility to tell his patrons how much he pays in utilities? Rent? Salary for staff? Insurance? Capital equipment? Absolutly NOT! I'm satisfied to know that what I paid for was worth it or not worth it.