26 comments
Well this is interesting for a few reasons. This was inevitable, and was probably caused by their inability to somehow monetise the site. They had a ridiculous amount of traffic for a few months and I have no idea why they didn't capitalise on it while they could. There is no way in hell they're going to get any investors now, because the site has such a bad image after the hate sub influxes.
Another thing is I'm not entirely sure what Putt is talking about. Azure - which is a bad idea in my opinion because it costs so much money - apparently gives huge discounts to startups, yet I clearly remember Atko putting the figure of monthly costs at just over 5k a month. That was a year ago or more. So what were they doing with the donation and merch money? They also said they had poured their own money into hosting a few times.
What the hell is going on with their costs?
Well this is interesting for a few reasons. This was inevitable, and was probably caused by their inability to somehow monetise the site. They had a ridiculous amount of traffic for a few months and I have no idea why they didn't capitalise on it while they could. There is no way in hell they're going to get any investors now, because the site has such a bad image after the hate sub influxes.
Another thing is I'm not entirely sure what Putt is talking about. Azure - which is a bad idea in my opinion because it costs so much money - apparently gives huge discounts to startups, yet I clearly remember Atko putting the figure of monthly costs at just over 5k a month. That was a year ago or more. So what were they doing with the donation and merch money? They also said they had poured their own money into hosting a few times.
What the hell is going on with their costs?
The hate subs being so active and dominating v/all chased away a lot of good contributors as well as any investors. There's nothing much left on Voat to go back for.
The hate subs being so active and dominating v/all chased away a lot of good contributors as well as any investors. There's nothing much left on Voat to go back for.
Lack of financial transparency there makes it almost impossible to really say. If it was a decent chunk of change, pocketing it would be the only rational explanation for failure to maintain overhead.
Lack of financial transparency there makes it almost impossible to really say. If it was a decent chunk of change, pocketing it would be the only rational explanation for failure to maintain overhead.
What the hell is going on with their costs?
It started as a student project by Atko, using .Net and MSSQL, some of the SQL they were able to migrate. But once you use MS, you pay if it goes big. Plus there were allegedly several ddoses. Cloudflare isn't cheap, merch probably doesn't pay for much, there were almost no new ads in the last months, who donates for this quality content,... it adds up.
> What the hell is going on with their costs?
It started as a student project by Atko, using .Net and MSSQL, some of the SQL they were able to migrate. But once you use MS, you pay if it goes big. Plus there were allegedly several ddoses. Cloudflare isn't cheap, merch probably doesn't pay for much, there were almost no new ads in the last months, who donates for this quality content,... it adds up.
I know costs are massive, but I'm just wondering why they were saying costs were 5k/month over a year ago, now they're at 6.6k/month with more traffic than before. Yet they should have had big discounts during the time period when it was supposedly 5k.
If they were actually paying 5k/month all this time, the site wouldn't still be up because they don't get much money in donations. I am also guessing they don't have the money themselves to float 5k/month for however many months it has been. If that is indeed the case, what was the real cost, and what happened to the donation money?
Hosting is clearly a huge issue, so I don't understand why concerns weren't seriously raised and actions taken before now if they wanted the site to stay up.
I know costs are massive, but I'm just wondering why they were saying costs were 5k/month over a year ago, now they're at 6.6k/month with more traffic than before. Yet they should have had big discounts during the time period when it was supposedly 5k.
If they were actually paying 5k/month all this time, the site wouldn't still be up because they don't get much money in donations. I am also guessing they don't have the money themselves to float 5k/month for however many months it has been. If that is indeed the case, what was the real cost, and what happened to the donation money?
Hosting is clearly a huge issue, so I don't understand why concerns weren't seriously raised and actions taken before now if they wanted the site to stay up.
he died on the cross for our sins... i mean he voluntarily spent his free time coding a site to ask the big questions like the feasibility of cum troughs.
he died on the cross for our sins... i mean he voluntarily spent his free time coding a site to ask the big questions like the feasibility of cum troughs.
They built Voat on .net and used almost all the Micro$oft options for software and service.
That was a really bad choice. I guess at the time Atko never expected it to grow the way it did.
His choices doomed Voat to a small dev team and mega-bucks for operating costs.
If my assumptions are correct, user donations and merch sales could cover bandwidth, but not much more.
They built Voat on .net and used almost all the Micro$oft options for software and service.
That was a really bad choice. I guess at the time Atko never expected it to grow the way it did.
His choices doomed Voat to a small dev team and mega-bucks for operating costs.
If my assumptions are correct, user donations and merch sales could cover bandwidth, but not much more.
Being tied to a Microsoft server due to .NET was a bad idea. They should have re-written it to be compatible with Mono as soon as possible.
Being tied to a Microsoft server due to .NET was a bad idea. They should have re-written it to be compatible with Mono as soon as possible.
Last? To me it looks more like they never even thought about how they could get cash. An option to donate bitcoin, CC for part of the time, merch about twice a year.
It looks to me more like Putt pulls an Atko, and he had enough of this site eating up his lifetime with bullshit as well.
Last? To me it looks more like they never even thought about how they could get cash. An option to donate bitcoin, CC for part of the time, merch about twice a year.
It looks to me more like Putt pulls an Atko, and he had enough of this site eating up his lifetime with bullshit as well.
Well, they haven't been paying to run voat out of their own pockets for a long time. They have had a few donation runs and what not that infused them with capital with pizza-chasers being the last large one. Atko and Putt are why that site became shit, and thus are the reason for their own endings. There's about a zero percent chance that they will ever gain a solid investor. That site is like a new diet version of storm front. The only way putt can make a least a little profit or some of his money back if he's been paying is to do exactly what he's just done.
Well, they haven't been paying to run voat out of their own pockets for a long time. They have had a few donation runs and what not that infused them with capital with pizza-chasers being the last large one. Atko and Putt are why that site became shit, and thus are the reason for their own endings. There's about a zero percent chance that they will ever gain a solid investor. That site is like a new diet version of storm front. The only way putt can make a least a little profit or some of his money back if he's been paying is to do exactly what he's just done.
I agree, complete missmanagment and they only have themselves to blame. The irony is they got handed the goose with the golden egg and could have cashed big time.
I agree, complete missmanagment and they only have themselves to blame. The irony is they got handed the goose with the golden egg and could have cashed big time.
April Transparency Report
$17,652.56 PRO payments
1054 monthly
214 annual
$9,604.04 in donations
$300 in bitcoin
-$19,262.01 in operating expenses
6 employees/contractors
[Reference](https://gab.ai/gab/posts/7499575)
April Transparency Report
$17,652.56 PRO payments
1054 monthly
214 annual
$9,604.04 in donations
$300 in bitcoin
-$19,262.01 in operating expenses
6 employees/contractors
Ahhh, the end of my sub is nigh!!!!
Ahhh, the end of my sub is nigh!!!!
It's sad really, I like those guys and many folks on Voat. I support free speech completely and believe in their mission however "free speech" does not mean putting up with everybody's crap. Sometimes you have to protect the platform, which means telling some subs "take it private" and telling some people to "settle the fuck down", they both wanted to be members of the community first and owners second so when they made decisions based on pleasing vocal factions it drove good users away. Sometimes you have to lay down the law and make users know "hey you can do this stuff in this sub but in another sub it's inappropriate" or "your group is fucking up the user experience here, brigade again you're banned". It's not like 4chan where mods are just like "fuck you for the lulz, japanese porn pays our bills".
It's sad really, I like those guys and many folks on Voat. I support free speech completely and believe in their mission however "free speech" does not mean putting up with everybody's crap. Sometimes you have to protect the platform, which means telling some subs "take it private" and telling some people to "settle the fuck down", they both wanted to be members of the community first and owners second so when they made decisions based on pleasing vocal factions it drove good users away. Sometimes you have to lay down the law and make users know "hey you can do this stuff in this sub but in another sub it's inappropriate" or "your group is fucking up the user experience here, brigade again you're banned". It's not like 4chan where mods are just like "fuck you for the lulz, japanese porn pays our bills".
It's a bittersweet moment. I have a lot of positive memories of Voat especially in the early gold rush days, but apart from the souring of the community, the site was always on the skids financially. An expensive overhead due to being to a Micro$oft server to keep .NET running + low income is a nasty combination that can only be run on your own pocket, heart blood and sweat, not something that pays for itself.