Wow, was offline for a good portion of last night and just saw this. Completely humbled, and wanted to say thank you to everybody, as there were a bunch of you who were incredibly generous overnight.
As
@DaBruinz alluded to (shoutout to him for this thread), I registered the domain back in June of 2000 (I think it was June 17th), which is crazy, and definitely can't believe it's been this long. Many of you played a role in the recent server changeover, which was massive because behind the scenes, that whole situation became a little stressful at the end. I'm incredibly grateful for that, and hopefully we're good with this one for a while.
The online climate as a whole is really not great right now in terms of the shifting in search trends, AI, etc, which is crushing independent sites when it comes to search traffic. As a result, it's really hurting ad revenue for everybody. Here, at least monthly, there are the server costs, licenses, Cloudflare, and a few other things. Overall, I basically ride the wave and the season tends to balance out the offseason, albeit the overall interest in the team the last two years in late Oct, Nov, Dec really had a tough impact. Definitely need that to turn around.
I don't run ads for registered users, because I just need it to sustain itself. But the arrow continues to point downward, and I shudder to think what we'll be up against in the coming years. It is what it is, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. But any of you who might know someone who has a site, I'm sure they've probably said something. If you have another site you visit in whatever industry they're in, if they're an independent site and they're helpful to you, please help them out if you can ... because it's not awesome right now.
In the meantime, thank you all so much. It definitely means a lot. As always, I'll continue to keep my head down and keep working on this place, primarily because - as I've mentioned - it also helps clear my head from the day-to-day. But the relationships I've made with so many of you over the years has both kept me motivated and helped get me through some times where things have been difficult. The PMs many of you send throughout the year, whether you're just checking in, inquiring about something, etc. are always appreciated.
And as I told someone who recently messaged me, if you spot something that isn't working or have any suggestions, please send them. Always assume I don't know or that I've made an error - because that's probably a correct assumption.
