💥👇Metafilter Wants You - The Fundraising Post! 👇💥
October 25, 2022 8:33 AM Subscribe
Metafilter depends almost entirely on user contributions. The community needs your help to stay up and running and to improve in the future. Contributions, especially recurring contributions, are what pay for servers, moderators and technical support. Please contribute through the Metafilter funding page!
Details about the financial situation along with discussion are over in MetaTalk. Please hope.
Details about the financial situation along with discussion are over in MetaTalk. Please hope.
Thanks. Made a one-time donation.
posted by stevil at 9:08 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by stevil at 9:08 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Will do.
posted by aleph at 9:19 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by aleph at 9:19 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Finally joined up, and signed up for a $5 monthly subscription.
posted by Baxx_24 at 9:21 AM on October 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by Baxx_24 at 9:21 AM on October 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
Been a monthly donor for years - the blue must continue - continblue? It's painless and worthy of our ongoing support. Let's go people!
posted by skippyhacker at 9:23 AM on October 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by skippyhacker at 9:23 AM on October 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
I will contribute. May I suggest that on the funding page, the references to plates of beans be linked to this, for the benefit of the uninitiated?
posted by beagle at 9:36 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by beagle at 9:36 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I did not realize it cost so much to run this website. Thanks for the open breakdown of actual numbers. I had no idea the initial $5 to join goes practically nowhere as far as keeping Metafilter going.
I did not mean to freeload so long, and I wish I was in a position to do more!
posted by jellywerker at 9:53 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
I did not mean to freeload so long, and I wish I was in a position to do more!
posted by jellywerker at 9:53 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Thank you for making it so easy to do!
posted by Lookinguppy at 10:24 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Lookinguppy at 10:24 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I already make a monthly contribution and also just made a one-time contribution.
posted by joannemerriam at 10:45 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by joannemerriam at 10:45 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Thanks for the open breakdown of actual numbers.
Seconded.
Some other actual numbers I would appreciate being able to see are how many recurring donations are currently active and what the mean and median donation amounts are.
posted by flabdablet at 10:45 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Seconded.
Some other actual numbers I would appreciate being able to see are how many recurring donations are currently active and what the mean and median donation amounts are.
posted by flabdablet at 10:45 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Have you looked into ads extended underwriting credits?
Proud to be a monthly supporter and hope everyone gives what they can!
posted by TedW at 10:46 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Proud to be a monthly supporter and hope everyone gives what they can!
posted by TedW at 10:46 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thank you to the Steering Committee for posting this to the Blue. I'm sure it will get to the eyeballs of many people who otherwise would miss this important message.
Metafilter remains the best of the web. Let's keep it going!
posted by gwint at 10:54 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Metafilter remains the best of the web. Let's keep it going!
posted by gwint at 10:54 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
I now have the shiny star.
posted by zenon at 10:57 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by zenon at 10:57 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
To TedW, we are considering it, a sidebar ad is already shown to users who are not logged in. It would take some coding effort though and we don't have the development time/energy to implement that yet.
posted by JHarris at 11:22 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 11:22 AM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I just cancelled a subscription to a pricey magazine that I rarely read anymore. I'll channel that back to Metafilter. As soon as I can find my wallet....
posted by martin q blank at 11:23 AM on October 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by martin q blank at 11:23 AM on October 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
oops, forgot PayPal's an option. Done!
posted by martin q blank at 11:28 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by martin q blank at 11:28 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Does the site have a preference (in terms of which one has lower fees) between Stripe and PayPal?
I notice that Stripe is positioned above PayPal on the donation page, which suggests to me that Stripe might be considered preferable… but it'd be nice to know if one is significantly better than the other.
I'd be paying from the same credit card either way, so it's six/half-a-dozen to me which route I'd use. But if one is taking a 3% cut and the other is taking 5% or whatever, I'd certainly rather use the one that has the lower fee structure for my "fire and forget" subscription.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:00 PM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I notice that Stripe is positioned above PayPal on the donation page, which suggests to me that Stripe might be considered preferable… but it'd be nice to know if one is significantly better than the other.
I'd be paying from the same credit card either way, so it's six/half-a-dozen to me which route I'd use. But if one is taking a 3% cut and the other is taking 5% or whatever, I'd certainly rather use the one that has the lower fee structure for my "fire and forget" subscription.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:00 PM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
My understanding is that stripe and PayPal were different, but now they have settled into a nice cartel situation with roughly the same prices
posted by rockindata at 1:22 PM on October 25, 2022
posted by rockindata at 1:22 PM on October 25, 2022
Indeed, I understand there's not a substantial difference between Stripe and Paypal fees. Whichever works better for you.
posted by tavegyl at 1:26 PM on October 25, 2022
posted by tavegyl at 1:26 PM on October 25, 2022
Checked on my monthly donation, and I'm happy to report that it is rolling along as it should be. I can't afford to raise it, but I'll keep it going.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:59 PM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:59 PM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Hope y'all doing fundraising are treating yourselves to some fancy dinner and snackage while receiving pledges contributions.
Happy to be an $8/month contributor since I forget when.
Have there been any thoughts to poke a (non-profit) org for limited dollar-for-dollar matches?
posted by JoeXIII007 at 3:54 PM on October 25, 2022
Happy to be an $8/month contributor since I forget when.
Have there been any thoughts to poke a (non-profit) org for limited dollar-for-dollar matches?
posted by JoeXIII007 at 3:54 PM on October 25, 2022
My once-a-month email from PayPal is always a bit of sweetness in my day.
Do it!
posted by Wilbefort at 6:20 PM on October 25, 2022
Do it!
posted by Wilbefort at 6:20 PM on October 25, 2022
TedW: For a while there Metafilter did largely support itself through ads - Ask used to bring regular traffic and basically kept us afloat. In around 2012 Google changed how its search engines ranked user generated stuff like Yahoo Answers or Quora and Ask itself, and traffic dropped off a cliff basically overnight crippling our revenue. Matt writes about it here.
The long and the short of it is that ads are no longer a reliable source of income, and will only become worse as time progresses. The last decade has been spent trying to diversify and find ways of moving away from ad dependency, because it's clear it's just not going to cut it.
There's a lot of details on the situation from the steering committee in the Metatalk link posted, it's interesting having a read of it. I've been here something like fifteen years and it'll be interesting to see how many of those ideas bear fruit. Personally I really do think paid subscription is the absolute only way we're going to stay afloat, with the periodic fundraiser to provide a bit of padding for unexpected expenses.
posted by Jilder at 6:49 PM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
The long and the short of it is that ads are no longer a reliable source of income, and will only become worse as time progresses. The last decade has been spent trying to diversify and find ways of moving away from ad dependency, because it's clear it's just not going to cut it.
There's a lot of details on the situation from the steering committee in the Metatalk link posted, it's interesting having a read of it. I've been here something like fifteen years and it'll be interesting to see how many of those ideas bear fruit. Personally I really do think paid subscription is the absolute only way we're going to stay afloat, with the periodic fundraiser to provide a bit of padding for unexpected expenses.
posted by Jilder at 6:49 PM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Paypal vs Stripe.
Ever since the wikileaks debacle I will never have anything to do with Paypal ever again. It is a morally bankrupt organisation.
Metafilter should look at wise ex transferwise used by many outside of USA.
posted by adamvasco at 7:39 PM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ever since the wikileaks debacle I will never have anything to do with Paypal ever again. It is a morally bankrupt organisation.
Metafilter should look at wise ex transferwise used by many outside of USA.
posted by adamvasco at 7:39 PM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Stripe had lower fees than PayPal when we used it to accept payment for a zine on bigcartel, but PayPal has more users outside the USA.
posted by subdee at 7:25 AM on October 26, 2022
posted by subdee at 7:25 AM on October 26, 2022
Donated! I already pay the monthly subscription. This is my main source of news, after the news app Newsy.
posted by subdee at 7:28 AM on October 26, 2022
posted by subdee at 7:28 AM on October 26, 2022
I was just joking about the ads; I’ve been here long enough to remember the Suicide Girls controversy! But the advice to check your donation status was good; I looked at my PayPal account and didn’t see it. I’m guessing it got lost in the shuffle when I switched banks a while back. So I have re-instated it, with an increase to cover inflation and the time I wasn’t donating when I thought I was.
posted by TedW at 11:08 AM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by TedW at 11:08 AM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
In around 2012 Google changed how its search engines ranked user generated stuff like Yahoo Answers or Quora and Ask itself
Yeah, this was also when Google's actual search results started being a lot less useful, and not coincidentally sometime after that, they also started returning their own (presumably machine-generated) "answers" at the top of the results page, which are often dangerously wrong. Grr.
My understanding is that Ask Metafilter has traditionally been the way lots of people first encounter Mefi and where a lot of users (myself included) started. It's also just a huge volume of really high-quality information in itself. I've been trying to think of ways that the site could get more exposure to Ask content outside of Google, but I'm not sure what other mechanisms people really use for question/answer discovery these days. It's a tough problem.
Also, thanks all for the info re Stripe/PayPal. I will probably continue to use PayPal, crummy company though they are, because I already have subscriptions through them to other sites/services that only do PayPal. Easier to have things in one place if it's all the same on the receiving end. (Also, Stripe is owned in significant part by Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, so I'm not sure how less compromising they are. And they do some pretty shady corporate tax-dodge shit via an Irish holding corp, too, but I guess that's basically table stakes in the "fintech" space.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:26 PM on October 26, 2022
Yeah, this was also when Google's actual search results started being a lot less useful, and not coincidentally sometime after that, they also started returning their own (presumably machine-generated) "answers" at the top of the results page, which are often dangerously wrong. Grr.
My understanding is that Ask Metafilter has traditionally been the way lots of people first encounter Mefi and where a lot of users (myself included) started. It's also just a huge volume of really high-quality information in itself. I've been trying to think of ways that the site could get more exposure to Ask content outside of Google, but I'm not sure what other mechanisms people really use for question/answer discovery these days. It's a tough problem.
Also, thanks all for the info re Stripe/PayPal. I will probably continue to use PayPal, crummy company though they are, because I already have subscriptions through them to other sites/services that only do PayPal. Easier to have things in one place if it's all the same on the receiving end. (Also, Stripe is owned in significant part by Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, so I'm not sure how less compromising they are. And they do some pretty shady corporate tax-dodge shit via an Irish holding corp, too, but I guess that's basically table stakes in the "fintech" space.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:26 PM on October 26, 2022
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posted by toastyk at 8:49 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]