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Australian and cod? If you're quoting that to webmasters, I don't think you'll get the expected result.
Ethical cod. Fished from sustainable hippy farms.
im not a provider
but i'm not a fan of this... you already make some cash from ads, doesn't that cover the cost of infrastructure?
i hoped this would be free for all to buy/sell
some packages cost like 10$ per year... and you want 16$ per month... cmon man you sound greedy tbh, this is low end
again, im not a business man but how about you sell idk? colored names? personally i'd pay 5€ to stick out
I already mentioned one idea - take the LEB provider directory and monetise that (you should put a link to it in the LET header as well).
The three forms of advertising that people actually like and want are: real estate, automotive, and classifieds. The problem there is that there are now dedicated websites for all of those things, if you treat the LEB provider directory as a premium classifieds site and pack it full of referral links &/or LEB exclusive coupon codes (which are a form of advertising) negotiate the referral amount with providers and you can provide a good experience to providers and punters alike. LEB really needs a face-lift as it is IMHO.
There'd be lots of people who don't care about getting the very cheapest low-end deal and where a well organised, easy to navigate provider directory would suit them.
I've been called worse than that before.
No it's not breaking any social contract whatsoever. Google does not pay hardly any tax in Australia, they're a tax-evader. They normalised spyware and adware through the Google adware-spyware store, not to mention the evils of in-app purchasing that they and Apple also normalised. If you want to be a part of their system that's your choice. Remind me - how exactly does a Linux repo normally work - does it normally work the way that Google runs theirs? No it does not.
The fact is that most advertising adds no social value. The problem like I said before is that with print for example Newspapers you had two major forms of advertising that people liked and engaged with: 1. real estate, and 2. automotive. They also liked classifieds, but that brought in MUCH less advertising revenue to papers it was like 10% or so of advertising revenue, most of it was real estate and automotive. Oh and the most annoying stuff - ads in the newspaper content and full-page/half-page ads - those only brought in like another 10-20% of advertising revenue. So the most annoying ads were not even contributing that much overall, they were just being used to squeeze out as much advertising revenue that a paper could get. The stuff that people liked you didn't need to force on them in the content - you could put them into their own section and people would even buy the newspaper just to get the real estate section for example - and they put a lot of effort into making the real estate brochure as nice as possible because would keep it even after throwing away the paper.
With the internet the problem that was faced was those forms of advertising were taken away from the papers. Real Estate now how dedicated websites to advertise on - domain.com etc and so too does automotive e.g. CarSales and so too does classifides (Gumtree, Ebay, Craigslist, etc). That provides users with a much better experience - when they want to engage with advertising they can go to those websites and see exactly what they want, without having to see stuff forced upon them or at times that they don't want to be seeing it. Since all the good stuff is now taken, now they have to advertise the crap that people don't want advertised to them, and then they have to do it so forcefully that they need to invade privacy and track users around the internet for that type of advertising to be effective. In the 90's you didn't have to do that, ads were already effective, but by the early 2000's once the novelty wore off the click-through rate dropped off a cliff for static advertising.
The internet was not born with advertisements all over it. I used to use adblocking methods (including at the system-level with the HOSTS file) in part due to the poor download speeds and low monthly data-caps of my internet. There's no way I should be paying for excessive MB use because of advertisers putting their ads into websites. These days while the internet got faster the problem got way, WAY worse. You do not need to have scripts from 2 dozen+ different servers embedded into your website - that's outrageous and ridiculous.
FWIW I block a bunch of other content not just ads to improve websites. So half the problem today really is that websites tend to be very poorly designed and organised, and they often provide a poor experience without any customisation.
Define "many".
Ok, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the existing revenue coming from ads based on facts/figures.
As of now, I can see 8 BSA placements, 9 250x250 ad blocks, 4 250x70 ad blocks in the sidebar and one 728x70 ad-block in the footer when viewing LET from desktop.
I cannot exactly estimate how much revenue they are bringing in on a per month basis but is it helping to at least cover the cost for sustaining the site?
I mean, just by speculation and with no proper thought given to it, I'm sure it must be bringing at least $1k per month? (correct me if I'm wrong here).
As I stated in the private provider's thread, I'm against & find it unfair that @jbiloh is spending so much out of his pocket for a "hobby" community to sustain. We never know what is the person's financial condition, so yeah a bit crucial there, that the burden of running the site is on one person's pocket. That being said, turning this into a commercial/business kind of site/forum won't go well either.
Putting up ads is fine, asking users to disable ad-blockers for LET/LEB is also not wrong - considering ads are what brings revenue to LET so that it sustains & everyone can have a place to browse/hangout (I love the occasional dramas here) but then trying to make a move which will upset the very core thing of a community will be like self-destructing.
Perhaps, just a genuine suggestion, maybe you can have some sort of "premium" feature for users - wherein they can pay to get a feature of "ignoring" certain providers (example: RackNerd - sorry @dustinc)? and keep it as low as $12/yr ? it might be a success you know. Or some other cool features which won't affect that much to the providers or the community.
@jbiloh what you're trying to do here is, trying to make honey from nectar yourself whereas you can save the whole hassle of converting the nectar to honey if you just approach the honeybees
Do the math, go with facts & figures. Identify what the community wants (as well as providers). Oh and if you can, be transparent with the costs involved as this is a community driven site so it follows the mob rule. You want to go against the mob, they'll find a new home, then will come back to torch you, might as well even spit on you & some might even pee on when they're done with you. The only loser in this scenario will be you.
Hope it helps.
Also, its a saying, "Don't try to fix things which are not broken" - with all the new content crap on LEB, I can understand it'll require $ to get it going but is it really necessary?
On LEB, interview posts are like the exclusive thing which one might not find it on any other site. Similarly the exclusive offers on LEB - one may or may not find it but still its a gold content.
Tutorials, meh, no one can beat Stackoverflow
If the content generation is what drove you to take this decision of milking more from the community & upsetting the very own providers/users (who are more important than the content) then you'll have to take a strong decision & let one go. I know it is 2022, content/data is the new gold but if that's influencing your decision to destruct an already sustaining model, don't do it, you might regret it later.
Can give you examples of communities (some not related to hosting) who went in all greedy for "new improvements & upgrades" and ultimately killed it. After the stupid CC take over, LET already became half-dead, now with this, perhaps only "gibe me dobal brandwirth" zombies might lurk.
You have a chance to make LET into a more alive community, do the right thing @jbiloh
Looking at the ads that are listed on buysellads...
The mobile footer (125x125 ) is 100 usd/month an the sidebar buttons(125x125) are 100 as well. The sidebar rectangle (300x250) is 125 usd and the bottom leader-board/banner (728x90) is 75. However that site also states that this is non-exclusive, meaning it will be rotated with other ads in the same spot.
I still think my idea reigns supreme: make the LEB provider directory a premium classifieds site. If you just invest in making that as user-friendly as possible and monetise all the listings, then it will pay off in spades and way more than banner ads. Here we go, this is how it would look:
Before
Avter
Searching the LEB site for providers is like using the Yellow Pages - it's hard to find what you want. So there's the perfect opportunity there to make it more usable and then everyone benefits.
I have to admit, there were a lot of topics and posts i had to catch up with due to my time away.
I’m not here to discuss if the pricing is right or not, or if the idea in general is right or not, it’s @jbiloh decision and he has all the rights to do whatever he wishes with the community, like it or not.
Now if his decision impact the community for good or bad, stand by your decisions but i would recommend however to listen to the community more as that will keep you running for a long-time and believe me when i say it, it’s never too late to admit you made a mistake and change it.
Now regarding why am i here, i am not a host. Nor do i sell weekly/daily. I post here every 5-6 months or heck even more marketing my new themes. Is it possible for me(us) web designers in the hosting market to have a different kind of tag? A Restricted tag may be able to 1 post per x months and so on or pay an amount if wanted to post more often. I’m looking for something low-budget tag/donation or even the ‘host rep’ or whatever it’s called with some ‘service rep’ or whatever. Hopefully you get my point.
Anything is possible for $200 per year. How much are you offering?
You could theoretically pay for just a quarter. Assuming it's $50/qtr, you would at least cover the costs if you sell 1 theme. If you look at it from this perspective and consider the fact that WHMCS alone costs more than the provider tag, the $200/year price tag is really cheap. It only looks bad because it is an infinite price hike from $0 and because this is a community forum.
Since it looks like the provider tag fee is here to stay, if you don't want to pay, your other alternatives are to contact @Not_Oles to get included in his LEB posts or try to take part in megathreads.
Also, as we all know, the community frequently post great deals on LET without the providers doing so themselves. Some examples are hetzner, ovh and netcup deals. You could try to send out promotional mail for your themes and hope someone likes it and posts on LET. Or you could...
I understand the suggestion, and putting some time resource into the Provider Directory, regardless of its income potential is a good idea.
We did consider an affiliate strategy to achieve our goals with this transition but decided against it given the overhead and burden it could place on the providers and end users themselves. If LowEndTalk were to start taking a recurring piece from every sales that get funneled through LEB/LET that will drive up prices for consumers.
For hosting companies on the fence based on an economic equation we are now offering quarterly (rather than semi-annual) payments. We've also announced a 20% discount for the first payment, which means a host's first quarterly payment would be only $40. For a platform that generates tens of thousands of value for many providers, and in other cases hundreds of thousands or millions $13-$16 bucks a month seems reasonable to keep growing the story for the benefit of all.
The roll out wasn't perfect, and the idea isn't perfect, but we continue to adapt and make tweaks towards the goal of incremental improvement. Many of the suggestions made here on LowEndTalk have been rolled into the policy. So we are listening.
I agree that $16/month, $50/quarter, $100 semi annually or $200/year (however you chose to look at it) is extremely fair for the benefit received by providers who advertise here. Those making the most money from this platform should be expected to pitch in a few bucks to keep the positive momentum going.
I wish I had a chance to improve the roll out of the change but I firm believe we are doing right by the community by investing into LowEndBox and LowEndTalk -- and of the real options available to fund that investment -- this is the best route.
You raise many good points. I am listening and we will continue to tweak things to ensure a positive outcome occurs here.
The overall cost to run, manage, administrate, write content, etc, is more than the hosting costs of the combined platform.
The idea of selling perks is something we considered but right now we are focused on listening to feedback, making tweaks where it makes sense (as we've done a few times now based on community feedback, since the initial release of this concept).
Crazy suggestion if your actually serious about improving community and your goal isn't to turn this into a for profit buisness.
Become a non profit
Simple solution then if anyone questions what your doing /if you actually need the money we can just look at the finances and find out. As is as others have mentioned we got no clue why so much $$ is needed to write a few articles and host a website and it ultimately just looks bad on you without transparency.
Oh good so someone is listening to my low-end ass after all.
haha.
Though TBH sounds a bit like when cPanel said "we're listening" and then literally 2 weeks later took over buycpanel...
You're dreaming.
If you're referring to @dustinc saying he bills millions pear year, he doesn't. Not from LET for sure.
Not a dream. Fact.
Its possible though.
I am sure he had a big chunk of cash left from all the 3yr deals people prepaid for and didn't get at AlphaRacks, so I'm sure he reinvested that back into ads and SEO.
Plus he likely had enough money left over to pay for people's sudden amnesia 😂
Can confirm that we do, though you're correct, our business isn't exclusively LET.
I'd also assume we aren't the only one here achieving this.
To be honest I think the exposure providers get is far more valuable than the $80 every 6 months. It’s obvious the community is growing (even if it’s just to double their bandwidth). I totally understand that it takes quite a bit of resources to run and further develop the community. I am happy to give back and support the growth of LEB/LET.
Reading a bit, I realized that some info was shared with providers in the private provider forum that the rest of the community didn't see. Most of the info in the provider thread was exactly what's been shared here (fee, timeline, etc.) but @jbiloh did outline what he plans to do with new revenue:
Obviously, the aim is for the virtuous cycle of better/more content = higher traffic = better ROI on someone's advertising dollar.
As for "write a few articles and host a website," that's perhaps not surprising from an outsider perspective but I'd wager you've not done content creation, video editing, etc.
I looked at YT videos and thought "I could do that in 15 minutes"...until I started doing YT videos. Rule of thumb for pro work is one hour per one minute of video. I don't spend anything like 15 hours on a 15 minute video, but it's a helluva lot more than 15 minutes.
When I used to write technical tutorials for magazines I'd think "they'll give me $300 for that? easy money!" until I realized all the time taken not only in the writing itself (proofing and rewriting) but in the testing and making sure what you're presenting is reproducible. Also, I often write about things I'm doing in my own world so I often need to redo it to anonymize, etc. It was still a fair wage bu
BTW, a fair amount of the content comes from community suggestions.
As for "hosting a website," this is not a Blogspot page. There's a ton of attacks, and things have to be up 24x7 otherwise advertisers aren't getting what they paid for. It's a pretty significant monthly hosting bill, plus Jon is not a sysadmin so there's a cost for that as well.
I certainly will not defend the CC years and the Deluxe time was like LET's Brezhnev era when things stagnated. When Jon bought LET, there were literally hundreds of backlogged tickets on LEB and the LET ticket system was not even operable, advertisers were adrift, things broke and stayed broke for months because no one had access, etc. Even without mentioning any improvements made (which are huge), I think it's hard to argue that things have gotten worse since then.
He did mention it a couple times over in the original thread:
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3389165/#Comment_3389165
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3389171/#Comment_3389171
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3389224/#Comment_3389224
But I assume most people probably missed that.
And my thoughts on this:
People using LET couldn't care less about LEB. And LET tends to generate a shitload of content on its own.
As above - users of LET couldn't care less about LEB. All tutorials are done on LEB, so meh.
From what I understand - WP is only running on LEB. Don't want to repeat myself, so just look above.
Hm? What note?
So instead of gaining revenue from ads - you will pay for ads?? And not only that, but pay so people can go to LEB? That makes no sense.
More? So far - all have been done by the purple guy. Let the providers run their giveaways.
So you are effectively charging providers for a tag on LET to sponsor the dying LEB? Perhaps only charge companies that advertise on LEB?
To be fair though, LEB likely has its own audience, just because LET users probably don't care for it much, doesn't make it irrelevant.
Other than no guarantee of a sticky at the top of the forum is there anything right now that prevents any provider from making a giveaway thread? Don't think there is although I may be wrong.
I agree. I am just saying that LET users generally don't care about LEB.
I am sure its a great place for many people, but it makes no sense to charge providers on LET, and use the funds to improve LEB.
Everyone is free to do a giveaway. And its great. That is entirely in the spirit of this community.
Giveaways by LET, however - means this is no longer a community, and is not being operated as one. It is, in effect, a company.
There is no specific rule against making a giveaway, though I believe they're usually treated the same as offer threads (Need provider tag, time limit, etc.)
The above (struck out) actually is probably only true for provider based giveaways intended to advertise services. Members can give out whatever they want without restriction.
The last time someone asked if they could do a giveaway similar to what Racknerd does, they were just told to contact the admins to organise it. I don't know if there is payment involved in the sticky and the LEB advertising but I would imagine there would be on at least the latter (Since this current one is portrayed as a partnership between RN and LEB)
Maybe @jbiloh can enlighten us on the process for giveaways or point us to somewhere else the information is published? It would be really niice to know for the public record how that works.
I believe we can all just agree to agree that there is a mutual reach around contract between the two. And I am sure AlphaRacks pay a lot more than $200 for the benefits they get because as @JBiloh keeps saying, those that benefit will pay.
It would at least be good if he allowed other providers to have a clear path and cost to have a sticky thread of their own when AlphaRacks is not using it of course. Levels the playing field a bit at least.
Regarding giveaways, here is what is in the Rules:
For LowEndBox sponsored giveaways they are a free benefit to advertisers (perks like this are outlined here - https://lowendbox.com/advertise/)
We have run a sponsored giveaway before from a non-advertiser and there was a small administrative fee to run that promotion.
So, users are welcome to give away whatever they like.
Providers, we just ask that you ping an administrator to discuss your intentions and you're all set.
Generally speaking I really like the idea of seeing more giveaways.
Honestly I think this is allowed as things stand. If a provider asked to run a giveaway with a flashy stickied thread like the current one then I imagine admins would be receptive.
Only issue is:
Would you be willing to tell us what ballpark figures that administration fee would be? It's the only black box of the process currently.
A lot of people are worried about potential special treatment of Racknerd/dustin so it would be nice to clear the air as to how hard/costly it is for a random other provider to acheive the same kind of reach.
I appreciate that I'm not a provider so none of this directly affects me, but I'm sure you can appreciate that I value honesty and transparency and dislike when the inner decision making of a forums management are kept a closely-guarded secret. You have been open about other things in this thread and I respect that.
Providers on LowEndTalk are eligible to run a giveaway without any fee here on LowEndTalk, so long as they've discussed their intentions with the administrators ahead of time.
The administrative fee I mentioned is for giveaways sponsored by LowEndBox, and for which use our tools (like Gleam, Sendy, etc).
The fee is based on the nature of the giveaway, how much overhead is created in the prize distribution, creation of the posts surrounding the giveaway, timeframe the giveaway will run, etc. So there isn't a straight fee but it is quite reasonable -- we aren't talking about big money here.