More Bandwidth and Revenue Needed

[Phade]

Hey,

Things would be much more easier for international users if the org had his own credit card payment system.

We have actually been working on that for a long time. We have the account, but no online method to process them yet. Since Derobert always complains about my broken code, I asked him to write up the CC processor. Normally I would write something up that works most of the time. But when it comes to CCs, Derobert's method of coding is much better.

Phade.

[SuperFusion]

Give donators better advantages. The things you get when you donate aren't great at all, but I sure as hell would donate if I were able to remove videos entries.

[Phade]

Hey,

Give donators better advantages. The things you get when you donate aren't great at all, but I sure as hell would donate if I were able to remove videos entries.

We already do that with lots of bonus search features and information on the video info page. Deleting video entries goes against the point of the site, so that is very unlikely to happen.

Phade.

[paizuri]

^ Yes, some people legitimately cannot afford to send $1. But if you are high-school-aged or older and not on welfare, you can generally afford $1, an envelope, and a stamp per year.

Yeah, and what about people who don't use $ as their national money ? It becomes quickly more complicated for people out of USA to make a donation, as the money isn't the same, and the sending fees can be much more expensive. I know that Absolutedestiny offered to receive donations in euros vy checks from editor in Europe, and convert it into dollars to make the donations (I don't really remember the details) but that kind of things can be only done exceptionnally. Also, donating throught Paypal needs to create an account, and I believe it's not free, so not everybody would like to create that account for a single donation. Things would be much more easier for international users if the org had his own credit card payment system.

I can't speak for any actual statistics, but I do not believe that 99% of the .org population is below high school age or come from foreign countries. The fact that the roughly 1% of the .org population that do donate typically give much more than $1 is a fact that we should all be grateful for (ie. think about that the next time you see someone with a Donated status).

PayPal is free to sign up with, but they require you to register a bank account or credit card number to withdraw money from.

If you don't want to use PayPal and really wanted to send money, you could always go to your local bank and get your currency exchanged and THEN mail that. However, we understand that this is inconvenient too and probably not the best way to guarantee that the donations get to us.

[Zarxrax]

I still like the idea of capping the bandwidth of non-donators. This is in no way forcing people to pay for amvs. Rather, it is forcing people to pay for a faster download ability.

As for bittorrent, I was of course not referring to putting all of the videos on it, but only the most popular videos. It's unfortunate that every time you have used it, you got slow speeds, but you should not judge it on that. it is very possible to get extremely fast speeds over bittorrent, and I normally do. It's like saying "the internet is slow because my downloads are always slow" :p
Also, bittorrent is used for a multitude of legitimate sites, unlike most other p2p networks.

An alternative to BT though, is Dijjer. I have never encountered a site that uses it, but it looks promising. It seems to incorporate the advantages of bittorrent with the ease of normal downloads. It would be extremely easy to implement on either the entire site, or just on certain videos. I don't believe it should cause any drawbacks as far as download speed or anything, because it still downloads from the org when other users arent available. The only thing I see about it that might not be good, is it might not be compatable with the link obfuscation stuff you use here on the org. I think it looks quite promising though. Perhaps you could do some test runs of it on just a few videos just to see how it works out.

[Pwolf]

hmm this might be a good idea and encourage some to download (and give us dev people something to work on >.>) but maybe set up a priority system where donating members get bandwidth priority over those who don't. cap the bandwidth for non donators and thus encourages people to donate. i don't know how to implement it though.


Pwolf

ps: yea, i'm a leecher also. i'll probably donate sooner then i was expecting (<i>trying</i> to get a job so i can afford it) but i think i can spare a few $$ for the cause

[BasharOfTheAges]

I second the idea for a Priority Queue for downloading where donating members get higher priority than non-donating one. Bandwidth caps are also a good idea. The content is available either way, so caps are more arguably related to bandwidth useage.

[godix]

I'd support Zarx idea of capping download speed. That isn't saying 'pay money to get the vids' it's saying 'pay money to get the vids QUICKLY'. The videos are still avalable to anyone but donation would have it's benefits.

Another possability to help lower demand is to place more focus of direct/indirect links. Perhaps a brief message on the upload screen explaining why, if possible, it would be better to do an indirect/direct link instead of local. You could even specifically point out one advantage if is the creator ever decides they no longer want the file avalable then they have the control do stop distributing it which local does not allow.

As far as increasing donation rate, this post alone might help. As a non-donator myself I know I've quickly gotten to the point where 'oh, it's ALWAYS asking for money. They aren't in real need, this is just their standard form' so increasing the number of donation pages I have to click through doesn't really increase the odds I'll donate since I've long since mentally blocked them. Now that I've read this topic and realize there's a more immediate need than usual I'll be sending in a donation shortly. Chances are I'm not the only one but we'll have to see.

[Kusoyaro]

place more focus of direct/indirect links. Perhaps a brief message on the upload screen explaining why, if possible, it would be better to do an indirect/direct link instead of local. You could even specifically point out one advantage if is the creator ever decides they no longer want the file avalable then they have the control do stop distributing it which local does not allow.

I don't think the aim here is to discourage people from using the server.

[kitsunebeolnet]

This was intended to be a joke, but the more I thought about it, the better it sounded...

How about actually 'selling' banners? $1 buys you a 'point' or 'vote' toward your banner. $90 completely buys your banner. Of course, banners would still be subject to acceptance rules for appropriate content.
members could 'bank' points toward a banner until they choose to use their points BEFORE a vote is taken. They would get a 'XX' yes vote head start unless they had the required 90 points to automatically 'sell' their banner. Once the points are designated toward a banner, they are used. Period.

Pro - It avoids the stigma of 'selling' AMVs.

The biggest drawback (of several, I admit) is that those who already donate might be inclined to divert their funds toward such a program.

This isn't intended to solve all money woes, but with the ego-game of banner acceptance, may be worth persuing.