Originally Posted by Sharlikran
I am sorry that people (including myself) are suggesting ways to keep the site up rather then post site issues. However, I sympathize with your situation and support having to find some kind of way to fund the site.
May I ask, do you have a way to keep the site and the file people download with the client.exe separate? It would be a shame if the lack of site revenue affected the ability to download the price table.
If you are able to keep the site separate could you experiment with a login that only allows you to search a certain amount for free like 5 searches and then have a paid structure to search more? Do you have any site statistics to see what kind of traffic you have? Do you have a way to know that someone is abusing the ability to have a certain amount of free searches by creating new accounts?
I just feel bad for the situation you are in and I hope there is a way to keep the price table available to download for free, while having some kind of funding for the site to enable people to search for items they are looking for. Having the ability to search for items is a convenience and people should understand that it requires some kind of revenue to provide that convenience.
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Addon/Client and price table are unaffected. They are still free to download and can be used even without ads. The forced ads potion only applies to the search and details section of the site.
idk about the 5 searches/account is a good idea. I can see people will either register bunch accounts or rage even harder about membership only.
People who are willing to pay are probably paying the $2 sub for ad free content already. The ones who complains are the ones that does not want to see ads and does not want to pay either.
The main problem is the growth rate of adblock users. Right now TTC sees around 70% in EU and 60% in NA of users using ad block. If you plot the rate of growth it will reach 90+% in 2024. Doesn't matter how efficient the infrastructure is 90+% adblock rate is not going to fund the project at that point.