Sponsorship is 120+, happy days.
Does this mean we can ditch the ads?
I mean, I’d rather GKS than no GKS, and money is a sad reality of existence in our modern world.
But if we don’t need those ads can we ditch them?
“What’s the deal with them now that we seem to be sponsored enough” and such.
You don’t get to see them anyway, unless you’re not logged in, right?
Indeed I don’t see them once I log in, but that remains irrelevant to anyone who isn’t me.
Not quite.
Sponsors don’t get to see them at all, no matter which tier.
And for other users, they appear (or reappear if you click them away) after some time. That time is longer for logged-on users and even longer for authors.
Only anon users get to see them right away.
I mean, sure, I was speaking whimsically about the “people who aren’t me” bit.
The main thrust I’m tryna get to is do we need them anymore? (maybe we do/don’t) and are they ditch-able? (maybe they are/are not).
Do people have opinions on them? hate them? love them?
That kinda stuff.
They don’t really bother me. And I’m happy if the site is awash in extra funds. Best site on the ‘net, IMO.
I agree with Beaner, the ads don’t really bother me Also, it’s better to have a surplus of funds rather than having to have Martin pay the difference.
I am in the don’t bother me and if they bring in money to the site let’s keep them group.
If my query existing in the first place hasn’t given me away, personally, I dislike ‘em.
The site is a place for literary erotica, and the ads are “noisy” and off brand (and - I believe - redundant).
Like, most people who consume porn, consume visual porn (animation, video) it’s definitely the most common type and you can easily find some without needing flyers for it.
In a more philosophical note, advertising visual porn mediums on a literary porn site is like… handing pop music flyers to people queuing to see an opera; The people queuing either already know where to find pop music (because it’s everywhere) and didn’t need to be helped with finding some while queuing for an opera, or, they are there specifically there because they’re not interested in pop music (because look where they are.)
I believe if the revenue isn’t needed, then the ads are redundant.
I think you can make lots of arguments about them but ultimately, Martin has put in tons of his own money on this site over years, which definitely hasn’t been paid back just because we have a surplus for a few months. And that’s pretending the hours and hours he put in for free don’t count.
If we have a $20 a month surplus for 4 years or something, Martin still likely won’t have recovered his money, but that’s probably when we should have this discussion next.
I feel like I’m pushed into justification mode once again.
But to give this some perspective: Nifty is asking for like 5 times as much as we do - probably even more - and they’re also advertising GayHarem.
As I know from Kinkoid (the company behind GayHarem) the actual impact of Nifty and our sites on their games is in the same ballpark. Which is telling a lot.
I don’t think that the hosting of Nifty is more expensive than our sites - if at all. They may have way more visitors, but our bandwidth load, database load, and CPU load is probably much much higher per user, as we just have way more features. like images, the rating system, the advanced search engine and so on.
So I guess the expenses are comparable. But still Nifty asks five times more than we do.
Consider this.
P.S.: Thank you for all the guys voicing their support!
P.P.S: Which site would be more appropriate for hosting ads for gay gatcha games, if not sites like Nifty or us?
I’m sorry. I don’t know how to marry the last two posts with the question my topics asks.
I’m willing drop the subject.
I personally think if Martin can run ads and retire on this site it is justified. He should, again my opinion, be able to make as much money off of this as possible, so much so that it can be reinvested back into the site and eventually pay people to do their jobs. I know all of that is a pipe dream but it cannot happen without ads…so i say all the ads it can support to make it better.
The other day I saw them for the first time because for some reason when I came to the site on my laptop it didn’t auto log me in.
I just said to myself “Oh yeah, there are ads for people who aren’t sponsors, I must not be logged in.”
It didn’t affect me in the slightest. Having to look up my password was hundreds of times more of an annoyance to me than the ad that I saw.
It’s always best to have reserve of a few months. Just in case. Long time lurker here. Thanks to everyone who writes.
Yeah, just imagine dropping the ads, then having sponsorship levels drop, or unexpected extra costs (and there’ll inevitably be those) for Martin. He’d have to jump through whatever hoops to get the ads back again (quickly enough to help with the sudden change), and we’d still be right back where we started here.
Of course they don’t bother me, being a sponsor myself, but I can’t imagine the ads turning away anyone who isn’t. Barring government or non-profit sites, the price of free things on the internet will always be either data collection and sales, or ads.