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« Last post by mouser on December 26, 2007, 06:10 PM »
I should say this isn't really about pursuadeing me as much as it is about making a decision as a community. Some people really hate ads with a passion, some don't mind them at all. I don't think they are pure evil but i'm definitely on the side of the spectrum that doesn't like them.
However i completely understand that they are an important way that many sites raise enough money to be able to finance the site, and i would never begrudge anyone for putting ads on their site in order to make a little revenue so that they can keep working on the site.
In the case of DC, let's remember that the goal is not to maximize profits at all costs. The goal is to make a site we can all be proud of and excited about, and which raises money to fund the stuff it wants to do. Money helps a lot because it means I and others can spend more time coding stuff and doing other stuff for DC, but we *will* make sue and continue soldiering on regardless of how much money the site raises.
So really these kinds of decisions are up to everyone who makes up the site.
Financially the site is in a kind of weird position.. We raise enough money from donations to pay the server hosting costs every month. There are no paid "employees" on this site. That means that there is no danger of this site going away and we can continue like this forever, without any ads etc.
The other side of the coin however, is that the site does not take in enough money for anyone to work on DC as their full time job. I come close to it sometimes, and i really was working full time on DC for the first year or two. But I have to take "real" paying work in order to pay for my rent and food, and student loans.
It would be an amazing thing if the site had enough income to actual make it something i could work on full time without having to worry about taking other real jobs. There are so many programming ideas and additions to the site, and web services that i would LOVE to work on for DC as my full time job. There are probably others here who feel the same way. When the site started i didn't for a minute dream that could ever be true. It's still not something i can imagine happening in the near future, but perhaps one day DC will receive enough funding that it might be possible. I don't know.
But anyway, the point is that right now we are not in the situation of NEEDING to raise X dollars per year and looking for ways to raise it (ads, etc.). But rather we are in the situation of using the money we raise to allocate time and resources to the site -- the more we raise, the more time i/we can work on it. So we as a community have the luxury of pursuing only the funding options we feel we want to.
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