TTC website issues thread

[cyxui]

Originally Posted by SainguinLibras Ok but why does any of that give him the right to pull shady practices like forced ads and data selling? I appreciate the free work. I appreciate everything a lot of you have done for the community. Even if I disagree with you strongly right now Sharlikran, you're absolutely prolific in the ESO community and you've done some great work. Regardless, none of you are free from criticism. I'm not the only person who disagrees very strongly with what is going with the TTC website. I'm just the only person who managed to find this thread. And I have given constructive feedback, the ESOUI moderators deleted it. I literally asked him to create a Patreon. There's no way the community wouldn't rally around that. But it wasn't even a option and cyx won't even respond to it. So it's kind of hard to give him any benefit of the doubt in this situation.

I can't reply to every single post. But I can address couple issues you mentioned.

1. You dont need to turn off your anti-virus. However some antivirus providers have ad block module built in. For example Malwarebytes has something called Browser Guard and kaspersky has a module called internet security. Those modules blocks ads and needs to be either turned off or whitelist TTC.

My privilege inside your browser is very limited. I can't even reliably tell which browser you are using so let alone checking what you have installed on your PC. All I am able to check is whether ads are being loaded or not.

2. I failed to see why Patreon would work when Paypal donation button failed miserably hard.

If we are being realistic here we can look at how many sites in the history have managed to survive purely on donations. Only one website comes in mind: Wikipedia. And it is in fact one and the only one that ever came close.

Even for a site as famous as Wikipedia this is what they wrote on their donation page

"We're a non-profit that depends on donations to stay online and thriving, but 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way. If everyone who reads Wikipedia gave just a little, we could keep Wikipedia thriving for years to come. The price of a cup of coffee is all we ask."

Public donation was actually not the only source of income for Wikipedia. Company sponsorship, federal funds, and services are playing big parts.

So back to the question: was there any website that survived solely on donations? Sadly none.

3. So what are the options for publishers nowadays with the rise of ad blockers? Well not many.
a) bite the bullet and hope the revenue can sustain
b) requires paid membership
c) other revenue stream like selling data
d) put on banners to request users to remove ad blocker and support the site
e) ask for donations
f) anti-adblock

Based on the growth rate of ad block uses we already know a) is not an option.
No explanation needed but we know b) is not going to work
Just like you I dont like c) either
d) and e) have already been tried for 7 years and failed

This is not a TTC specific problem but the internet as a whole. More and more sites are choosing f) with no better choice. So if you have a better idea please do not just limit it to TTC. Share it with the whole internet and you can potentially have your name written in the history book as the savior of all publishers.