WoWoWoWoWo...Whoa!!! "This Website is "For Sale"!!!! (SALE PENDING)

originally posted by: canucks555
Back in the day we used to have our own game server for quake 2. Lots of people lot's of threads and four or five mods.

That used to cost us about 120$ a month.
I seriously don't understand how any of theses forums are worth the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ the people ask for. Not just ATS, I dunno. I just don't think it's that expensive to keep a forum up is all. Maybe things have changed quite a bit since quake2 lol

Forums were worth something when advertisers were here, now, not so much.

a reply to: Freeborn

And my last post went over yours.

a reply to: vonclod

Modern marketing is assault and battery.

I don't mind quiet, tasteful ads.

Ad blockers became necessary.

I remember that one time forbes begged their users to disable ad block. Then like 10 minutes later served a malware ad. Good times.

Many times websites change owners and no one even knows.



Advertisers pay sites depending on number of views

Mods will have to volunteer

Bandwidth is probably expensive

Should be a huge donate button.

Are there memberships here you can buy for exclusive content.

originally posted by: Ahabstar
a reply to: AScrubWhoDied

How about $300k a year then? Storage, security, 24/7 up time (as best as possible so ddos mitigation), access time to the database to serve requests...but the number one thing is the cost of the traffic.

If this was a blog with 3TB of Jack Russel pictures called Granny’s Little Boy Bailey that has 12 unique visitors per month. Then yeah it would cost next to nothing. But then again GeoCities sold for $3.5 Billion and it wasn’t worth it for Yahoo to keep the lights on past 1999. And Yahoo got 100% of the ad revenue on all those webpages.

An particulat enterprise customer of ours that does several billion a year in revenue that has a highly available multi AZ cross regional infrastructure doesnt exceed 10k a month in passthrough billing, though sometimes it can get as high as 14k.

Theres nothing here that requires 25k a month to run or operate.

So I guess this means the attempt from a small group of members to buy the site has failed? It would be interesting to know more about that

I also wonder how long we have before the site goes completely dark, any idea yet?

originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan
Does anybody know any of any sites where we can go? There are so few discussion boards left these days.

Maybe we should see if Tom delonge wants it OR george noory coast to coast.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I mean I guess if you want to pay people to rebuild your application from the ground up and migrate to a data center (pretty sure at one point ATS was on prem, not sure if that's changed) maybe you'll pay near that amount, depending on how many you hire.

This site doesnt do very complex things, it's almost 100% crud.

a reply to: AScrubWhoDied

That's the spook estimate. 🙄

Here's what I would do if I had the money:
Everything I've read about making money online says that the difficult part is getting the traffic, which this site already has. Once you have that there are various options:

1) Advertising: Apparently this is not working out... but I think we're using google ads here. Maybe try selling the space directly. As I understand it if you make the ad part of the page it can't be blocked, just like we're all seeing the for sale banner now. Perhaps Robbie is still around and wants to advertise his new album, or we have other less well known but wealthy members with a product they want to sell.

2) Merch: ATS has a great logo, a great name and great graphic design on the forum icons. You could sell T-shirts, coffee mugs, car stickers, baseball caps etc. There are print on demand services like this: printify.com...
Which will as the name suggests print them on demand so you don't need a warehouse full of coffee mugs.

3) Affiliate marketing: There are so many books, movies, shows about conspiracies and aliens ancient civilisations and all the other topics we discuss here. Set up a review forum where users review and discuss these things. And of course you link to amazon, netflix or whatever using an affiliate link:
affiliate-program.amazon.com...
Anyone who buys the product will be paying a small amount to this site.

4) Direct advertising. Many conspiracy theorists are interested in web security. There is more and more of a push to track and hack people online, and a push back with VPNs, password managers and the like. All of these companies will pay well known sites and influencers to promote their product. I'm constantly seeing this on youtube, even when the video is about movies or something irrelevant.

Then Ditch the front page full of servile left/right US politics and replace it with a new one that puts those things on display to all members.

originally posted by: Freeborn
As an aside; if anyone does buy ATS they really should go back to basics and scrap all this politics bollocks that has dragged this site down - and yes, I know....I have been actively involved in such bull#.

On one hand I agree with this, on the other there are so many conspiracies intertwined with politics and politicians how and where do you separate them? Or you have to have dedicated Mods to bring the hammer on people who can't leave it out of every thread? Or a 3 strikes and out rule?

originally posted by: Bigburgh
a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Sorry, but when you say this.
Do NOT reply to this post!!

You of all people know the comedian in me wanting too. You've removed my post before, for such sophomoric silliness. And I still respect ( expressions of love or adoration is not permitted by ATS ) love you're being here.

What happens if I reply to a reply to a do not reply to this post, post?

There's an old saying which goes...."If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride".

Here's the thing, many people have come forward with great ideas. Some of them were "pontifications" more than a specific idea. Early on I made a suggestion that everyone wanting to pony up money pony up $5,000 bucks. You'd have been shocked to see the response I got to this! The vast majority of people with all the ideas and pontifications were like...."WHAT???? Five THOUSAND bucks??? NO FREAKING WAY will I EVER put up THAT much money!!!! SCREW THAT!!! I'll put up maybe $20 bucks...maybe even $20 bucks a month if I can afford it, but NO WAY to $5000 bucks!!!"...

It was visceral. The recoil by members was incredible!! Then, there were some who said..."Okay, I'll put up $5000 bucks, but how much do I get out of the deal...in 30 days????"

Bottom line; business doesn't work like that, and therein lies the challenge!! It's called lack of business experience.

a reply to: Xtrozero

You will be attacked by garden gnomes. They're gnarly ankle biters.

It's sad to see ATS go but that's the way of this brave new world.

I don't see it as much as a problem as others as Skynet is going to kill us all anyway sometime soon so why bother?

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

Ironic it's called 'Skynet', isn't it?

Skynet is the exact opposite.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: Creep Thumper

We did that once in another thread.

I have 4 sites saved. We never really decided on just one site that we would all go to but I'll be telling the other sites that I'm an ats refugee.

Could you PM me the sites too please

a reply to: SonOfThor

www.theblackvault.com...

www.thelivingmoon.com...

rogue-nation3.com...

a reply to: Creep Thumper

Can you let me know too please?

originally posted by: Creep Thumper
a reply to: vonclod

Modern marketing is assault and battery.

I don't mind quiet, tasteful ads.

Ad blockers became necessary.

Yes, it is, I never had to ad block though, the ads only covered the now red banner, and a strip down the left side, never blocked content..for me, I think others had issues.