LowEndSpirit Is Not a For-Profit Site and Will Never Be Pay-to-Play

Mason

Due to recent changes in related communities, I'd like to take this time to remind our visitors that LowEndSpirit is NOT a for-profit website nor will ever be in the future while under @mikho and my dual ownership. LES also does not and will never charge hosting providers nor community members to participate here.

These are some areas that set LES apart:

Our costs are transparent. I've outlined our specific costs to operate this site. Comes out to ~$30/mo and some change (3x Hetzner VMs ~$15/mo, monthly runcloud sub $15/mo, yearly mailcheap email hosting ~$2/mo). All of which I'm paying out of my own pocket without any issue.

Our ownership is transparent. @mikho and myself have full control over LES and its properties. We do not run LES as a business, but as a community-focused discussion space. We are the only admins at the moment, no moderators.

No membership fees... ever. We will never charge our members to participate here -- business-owners and private individuals alike. Doing so would be counterproductive to our goal of fostering a welcoming and all-inclusive community. Our ideas for generating revenue to fund development or pay for content have always been non-intrusive donations or sponsorships of blog posts from providers (i.e. "this month's technical blog post brought to you by TwonkRacks").

Ad-free. We don't have ads and won't be adding them. Period.

Community-powered Decisions. We believe before making any decision that impacts the community at-large, the first step is to gather input from those that will be impacted. Many many many feedback threads have been posted over the past couple years to gather community feedback to drive our decisions here at LES.

Feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions or concerns.
Cheers,
-Mason

Neoon

MannDude

Happy to be here. I lurk mostly on LET but the surprise $100 invoice in the inbox left a bad taste. Seemed too urgent and desperate for comfort.

Mason

@MannDude said:
Happy to be here. I lurk mostly on LET but the surprise $100 invoice in the inbox left a bad taste. Seemed too urgent and desperate for comfort.

The legend himself. Welcome, Sir!

yokowasis

So, LES is going to F2P route ? pay $100 for a chance to obtain shiny top ultra mega rare provider tag.

Ganonk

Mason

@yokowasis said:
So, LES is going to F2P route ? pay $100 for a chance to obtain shiny top ultra mega rare provider tag.

Current plan is to introduce loot boxes, but they'll have super shittly low-end prizes. Like free 3 day shared hosting trial, one of those ancient off-white IBM keyboards (you pay shipping), and a NFT for that picture of a server in a cardboard box at FDC

MikeA

@Mason said:
Our costs are transparent. I've outlined our specific costs to operate this site. Comes out to ~$30/mo and some change (3x Hetzner VMs ~$15/mo, monthly runcloud sub $15/mo, yearly mailcheap email hosting ~$2/mo). All of which I'm paying out of my own pocket without any issue.

Where can I donate? I can't afford a marketing budget so I can only donate to support communities I enjoy,

Dazzle

@MikeA said:
Where can I donate? I can't afford a marketing budget so I can only donate to support communities I enjoy,

Can't agree more. I've seen open source projects live and sound with donation programs. Put a $1/month sponsor button for us to show support for the community.

Mason

@MikeA said:

@Mason said:
Our costs are transparent. I've outlined our specific costs to operate this site. Comes out to ~$30/mo and some change (3x Hetzner VMs ~$15/mo, monthly runcloud sub $15/mo, yearly mailcheap email hosting ~$2/mo). All of which I'm paying out of my own pocket without any issue.

Where can I donate? I can't afford a marketing budget so I can only donate to support communities I enjoy,

I just set this up at Donorbox as I was just using my personal PayPal in the past. Should make things easier as I've used Donorbox for a gaming group in the past with good success. A thousand thanks and heaps of appreciation to all who donate.

https://donorbox.org/lowendspirit-donations

qps

@Mason said: one of those ancient off-white IBM keyboards

This actually might be worth something.

MichaelCee

Bunch of weirdos /they/ are. Wish I could delete my LET account altogether.

Amadex

👏🏻 Bravo

DP

That's the spirit!

vyas

@TheDP said:
That's the spirit!

That’s the LowEnd spirit !

FTfY

lentro

Woohooo! $22k/year seems a bit excessive to me from LET, maybe they need to start thinking with the Low End Spirit

Thanks @Mason and @mikho! Providing value to all community members with costs so low that donations and personal contributions are enough to keep the forum afloat

mikho

Not to toot my own horn, but Beep, Beep!

Sent a donation, matching the provider tag …
LES is more!

Falzo

@Mason said:

@MikeA said:

@Mason said:
Our costs are transparent. I've outlined our specific costs to operate this site. Comes out to ~$30/mo and some change (3x Hetzner VMs ~$15/mo, monthly runcloud sub $15/mo, yearly mailcheap email hosting ~$2/mo). All of which I'm paying out of my own pocket without any issue.

Where can I donate? I can't afford a marketing budget so I can only donate to support communities I enjoy,

I just set this up at Donorbox as I was just using my personal PayPal in the past. Should make things easier as I've used Donorbox for a gaming group in the past with good success. A thousand thanks and heaps of appreciation to all who donate.

https://donorbox.org/lowendspirit-donations

This. Done.

_MS_

Good work, @Mason & @mikho!

It would be interesting to see the (change in the) analytics of LES in a week from the announcement on LET.

Jord

@MichaelCee said:
Bunch of weirdos /they/ are. Wish I could delete my LET account altogether.

You can, just say under GDPR and they push the button 😂 stick the ticket in and heck I’ll even do it for you. DM me first before you send the ticket so I can be on to grab it.

pikachu

@MS said: It would be interesting to see the (change in the) analytics of LES in a week from the announcement on LET.

While most of the community members are here (as can be seen from the thanks list), it seems that the spirit of the original community is lost in forum transitions such as this and I don't think this place would become active just because of this. Maybe providers need to run some specials just for this community to increase engagement (yes, that sounded Biloh-esque but it's coming from a good place).

pikachu

Sorry to hijack this thread but what are the requirements for the OG tag? I'd like one too and I feel I meet the requirements.

mikho

@stevewatson301 said:
Sorry to hijack this thread but what are the requirements for the OG tag? I'd like one too and I feel I meet the requirements.

It was/is for the first group of people who signed up.

@stevewatson301 said:

@MS said: It would be interesting to see the (change in the) analytics of LES in a week from the announcement on LET.

While most of the community members are here (as can be seen from the thanks list), it seems that the spirit of the original community is lost in forum transitions such as this and I don't think this place would become active just because of this. Maybe providers need to run some specials just for this community to increase engagement (yes, that sounded Biloh-esque but it's coming from a good place).

I totally see your point here.

They come for the deals and stay for the talks.

Thats kind of how the userbase increased in LET middle-age. (Can’t say early days, since it was another interest back then).

Mr_Tom

Thanks @Mason and @mikho

Transparancy goes a long way to keeping things as a community.

Appreciate the hard work you put in. Happy to help support things where possible.

sweatbar

Hats off for the decision

jmaxwell

Faith in LowEnd community restored

mikho

@Mr_Tom said:
Thanks @Mason and @mikho

Transparancy goes a long way to keeping things as a community.

Appreciate the hard work you put in. Happy to help support things where possible.

You help by being an active part of the community.. 👍
we love the users here (even if some push our limit )

Be active, post answers, help others, ask questions, be curious.
This is a couple of things you can do that only ”cost” a little bit of your time.

And if time is limited, there is the donor option.
We will, in light of transparancy, disclose the amount of donations.
At this moment, we wont disclose the name of the donors. To avoid feeding that ”we and them” feeling that might grow.
We don’t make a difference if you donate or not.
We are all a part of this community and the bread and butter which makes it a better place.

@Mason said:
I just set this up at Donorbox as I was just using my personal PayPal in the past. Should make things easier as I've used Donorbox for a gaming group in the past with good success. A thousand thanks and heaps of appreciation to all who donate.

https://donorbox.org/lowendspirit-donations

Aidan

Thank you for the disclosure @Mason.

Finally decided to join.

MannDude

@Mason said:

@MikeA said:

@Mason said:
Our costs are transparent. I've outlined our specific costs to operate this site. Comes out to ~$30/mo and some change (3x Hetzner VMs ~$15/mo, monthly runcloud sub $15/mo, yearly mailcheap email hosting ~$2/mo). All of which I'm paying out of my own pocket without any issue.

Where can I donate? I can't afford a marketing budget so I can only donate to support communities I enjoy,

I just set this up at Donorbox as I was just using my personal PayPal in the past. Should make things easier as I've used Donorbox for a gaming group in the past with good success. A thousand thanks and heaps of appreciation to all who donate.

https://donorbox.org/lowendspirit-donations

Donated.

henix

Welp, here we go

Lampard

Just joined LES - was thinking to join already from a long time.
I really like the transparency here, and personally believe that the cost of running the forums shouldn't be too much.
I myself have run different forum communities for many years that were related to gaming, which were really active.

ehab

@Lampard said:

welcome ... over here you can get a free neck massage or a soap.

Falzo

@ehab said:

@Lampard said:

welcome ... over here you can get a free neck massage or a soap.

Ssshhhh! Won't you spoil it yet?

mikho

@ehab said:

@Lampard said:

welcome ... over here you can get a free neck massage or a soap.

One make you soft, the other hard.

terrahost

Donated

Erisa

Not a provider nor an LES regular (yet) but this kind of passion is how to get my cash, not anything else.

Communities should be built on passion, not profit.

DP

Community driven 👍🏼

MikeA

Wonder how many donations Mason has gotten for LES in the past 24 hours compared to Jon's $200/y dedmand.

risharde

Wow, I have been lurking once and a while (for years) but glad to finally be registered. It's amazing what you have done with such little resources and out of your own pocket. I totally regret now not upping my stats by having an account here but hopefully that will improve. Looking forward to reading, learning and of course inputting where I can!

mikho

@MikeA said:
Wonder how many donations Mason has gotten for LES in the past 24 hours compared to Jon's $200/y dedmand.

He is still counting ……

Mason

@mikho said:

@MikeA said:
Wonder how many donations Mason has gotten for LES in the past 24 hours compared to Jon's $200/y dedmand.

He is still counting ……

Dusting off the abacus, will post the total number of donations and donation total soon has been quite unexpected to say the least

MichaelCee

@Jord said:

@MichaelCee said:
Bunch of weirdos /they/ are. Wish I could delete my LET account altogether.

You can, just say under GDPR and they push the button 😂 stick the ticket in and heck I’ll even do it for you. DM me first before you send the ticket so I can be on to grab it.

Nah, I’m locked out with a random@mydomain email at the mo. Cheers tho, will do when I figure it out.

P.S my “they” does not refer to 🐼 but 👨

Not_Oles

Morning guys! MetalVPS just sent a low, low, low, low end donation to @Mason! We were able to use Paypal Friends and Family so that the full amount of our donation went to Mason.

Please note DonorBox pricing. Should DonorBox use a .com domain instead of its present .org domain?

Abdullah

Made a small lowly donation to LES. I'd suggest add the donation link to footer or somewhere in sidebar.
Should this place help one save $$ , will be happy donating to community.
I know a non-hosting related forum, such 'donation model' works for them.
Also +1 for public monthly cost statistics & similar. this will give users transparency & more trust.

Mason

@Not_Oles said:
Morning guys! MetalVPS just sent a low, low, low, low end donation to @Mason! We were able to use Paypal Friends and Family so that the full amount of our donation went to Mason.

Appreciate it, good sir!

Please note DonorBox pricing. Should DonorBox use a .com domain instead of its present .org domain?

Not sure I understand the .com vs .org issue. Is it because they're making money (1.5%) from people using their platform? While direct payments are indeed the best bang for the buck, Donorbox has a lot of features that make it worth it in my opinion -- i.e. multiple payment options in one place (Stripe, PayPal, ACH), better ability to track donations and where they come from, ability for recurring donations, website integration (widgets and such), monthly goal trackers, etc. I can see us using a lot of these features moving forward.

lentro

Offered jbiloh a donation instead:

Hi Jon,

I'm wondering, can I make a one-time personal donation as a show of support and then switch to a host rep account? An interview sounds tempting, but it's a bit premature. We're trying to raise a seed or accelerator round from some pretty well-known investors for their reputation that'd close in a few months, assuming it works out. We are still too young. When the time comes, I'd love to author some guest posts on LEB or something like that, but that's a bit too far out in the future.

I would love to stay on the community, but a recurring $200/year price is a bit high for my company for a forum that we won't actively make sales from. That being said, I want to show appreciation for you running the forum here and for all I've benefited personally from it, so I hope [amount] helps a bit

Thanks!
Jonathan

Response (won't include the full thing out of privacy), I was just surprised he wants to charge money and doesn't want LET to be a donations-based / community thing. Seems like it's going to become a business and not a community.

We looked at the option of accepting donations but morally and ethically it made me uncomfortable because we are a commercial entity. That's why after quite a bit of internal discussion it was decided to ask providers, the ones who benefit most from LEB/LET, to contribute. Granted the roll out could have been better no question about it.

Update: Just donated $25 to LES.

Mason

In about 18 hours since posting the donation link, we've amassed $705.22 through Donorbox!!

Including the 3 donations that went through Paypal directly, $742.22 in donations have been racked up over the past month or so. I don't have words right now to express how appreciative I am! This will be put to good use over the coming months covering server/subscription costs and possibly funding some small development efforts to improve the user experience here (no YouTube videos or double bandwidth giveaways, I promise). We'll be reviewing past feedback threads and make a prioritized list of what we'd like get done and keep everyone updated on any progress/milestones

Thanks again, all!

Neoon

@Mason said:

In about 18 hours since posting the donation link, we've amassed $705.22 through Donorbox!!

Including the 3 donations that went through Paypal directly, $742.22 in donations have been racked up over the past month or so. I don't have words right now to express how appreciative I am! This will be put to good use over the coming months covering server/subscription costs and possibly funding some small development efforts to improve the user experience here (no YouTube videos or double bandwidth giveaways, I promise). We'll be reviewing past feedback threads and make a prioritized list of what we'd like get done and keep everyone updated on any progress/milestones

Thanks again, all!

Time to scale up the cluster, so we can match LET.

Mason

@Neoon said:

@Mason said:

In about 18 hours since posting the donation link, we've amassed $705.22 through Donorbox!!

Including the 3 donations that went through Paypal directly, $742.22 in donations have been racked up over the past month or so. I don't have words right now to express how appreciative I am! This will be put to good use over the coming months covering server/subscription costs and possibly funding some small development efforts to improve the user experience here (no YouTube videos or double bandwidth giveaways, I promise). We'll be reviewing past feedback threads and make a prioritized list of what we'd like get done and keep everyone updated on any progress/milestones

Thanks again, all!

Time to scale up the cluster, so we can match LET.

Already discussed with @mikho. Setting up the cluster on dual AX101's as we speak (/s)

DP

Well done folks

Not_Oles

@Mason said: Not sure I understand the .com vs .org issue.

Don't mean to make a big deal out of it. It might just be me! I thought .org was for non-profits. When I followed the donation link I didn't notice anything about fees on the landing page. I thought that there would be no fee. But, since I'm a suspicious guy, I decided to look around. On the DonorBox home page there was a link to Pricing. Wow! I was so disappointed that I forgot to check whether they are a non-profit or not. Maybe they are!