Regarding ads, exoclick is a good adult ad network I can recommend at least from the advertiser perspective (have not tried it from the webmaster perspective). Juicy is also good, but less flexible. In-house ads is also a great option, and there are some open source packages that you could use so you donāt have to write such a system yourself (some even can show stats to advertisers), though the management time concern is fair.
I can sympathize with cloud hosting being very expensive. If the load is relatively predictable, than colo/dedicated servers can be a tremendous cost saving. (You can install proxmox and get basically your own private cloud that you can still run VMs inside of.) High availability is trickier, but possible with a router and two machines. Downside is colo can be kind of a pain to set up initially since it requires negotiating deals and shopping around; plus I donāt envy anyone buying RAM right now! But 1U/1A colo can be had for $60-80/mo each including bandwidth. For equipment, used enterprise gear (was) cheap on serverpartdeals/servermonkey etc. For newer gear, ServeTheHome has some good server building/processor reviews that are worth checking out ā newer generation processors can do crazy amounts of CPU within 1 amp (ex: an Epyc 4464p gets you 12 cores (24 dedicated threads āvcpuā in cloud parlance) with a total 47k passmark score at ~$500 upfront purchase). So for a single colo server with new equipment, thatās $2-3k upfront investment and <$100/month ongoing for colo vs the equivalent āGeneral Purposeā (dedicated thread) VMs (16+8vcpu for 24 thread) runs $756/month on digital ocean. (Or used equipment is much less cost if less performance is required) So basically you make your money back in a few months, because cloud markups are crazy high. Or pay nothing upfront and higher monthly to rent dedicated servers and still pay less than cloud.
Also for static content CDN, I really like Bunny.
Anyway, unsolicited suggestions but I saw this and thought it might be useful info.
Unless I missed it, we might need a clearer idea of where the Patreon should be during non fundraising times. More is obviously better, but Iām not sure if being above 2k is fine or if it needs to be 2.4k most of the time.
Generally speaking, its preferred to be around 2.4k for most of the time. That being said that $400 is buffer though mainly for slow months, fluctuations, or sudden costs/cost increases. We donāt need it to be 2.4k every month as long as it stays above at least 2k for most of the year.
That all being said, I donāt think its sustainable long term without me crying about money all the time (which I dont want to do). So with most of the moderation stuff done now I have been working on some options that I hope will encourage people to help out which I hope I can chat about June or July.
Its a personal thing of not wanting to take advantage of anyone and spread out the burden.
When we had some of the higher tiers (like $500) we had a few of the people in them who stayed on the tier even when they shouldnāt have out of a sense of responsibility since leaving would be such a massive hit to us. If some one is kind enough to donate their money I dont want them to ever feel trapped like that so I wanted to try to limit it and $250 felt like a good compromise after talking to a few people.
We are slowly aproaching 50% of the goal. Just from the wrong side.
Right now it looks as if the fundraiser will need to be repeated periodically to keep this side running. Through I would understand not wanting to go through with it multiple times. Just please donāt go into dept. The world throws enough problems already.
Its just the nature of it. Its hard to keep traction on it up unless I constantly pester everyone about it. Luckily, we are still in an ok spot atm due to a generous donation from a very kind user, but I do still need to be careful especially since we just had another round of layoffs where I work this month.
I am almost done with something I think will be a bit more sustainable though then me just begging everyone to pitch in every 6-12 months. I plan on chatting about it beginning of next month in an update post.
Would it make sense to leave the banner up more often? Like I know you donāt want to be asking for money all the time, but it seemed effective at raising awareness about the issues and how this site is managed and the cost in doing so.
Like if it just popped up once a month until someone dismissed it, then thatās not that big of a nag, and reminds people where things are at 12 times a year. It could just go alongside a general global notification with an update post to group both things together.
Also, should the WG Finances - Weight Gaming category be revived too? Folks could then more easily subscribe for monthly updates that way too.