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Suggestions for monetization

Posted by Creeoer

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Forum: SpaceHey

Hey,


I've made an account on here yesterday, and so far I'm impressed with the functionality of this site and how fast it seems to be growing right now, especially given that this was developed by one person.

Although I have to wonder how this site is going to scale with 150k+ users in terms of moderation + server space. As for moderation, I've come across my fair share of racist, troll accounts as well as spammy accounts while browsing "Cool New People". I'd imagine community mods are probably getting chosen so I'll leave it at that. 

As for monetization, I think expanding the benefits you get with a "supporter" badge could be a way to incentivize more people to buy stickers. I really like how Newgrounds does it where they give you more server storage for your own content, along with animated forum signatures and other benefits. Now, Newgrounds is a pretty insular community and it probably doesn't need huge amounts of storage. If this site stays similar in size, I'm sure it could work well enough. One-time sticker purchases might not be sufficient though, so a small monthly fee (less than 5 dollars) along with banner ads for non-supporters is probably more practical.  

Good luck with the future of the site.



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Reply by ☆Lucky☆

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why would you want/need monetization on a site that's meant to look like and operate as a site from the 90s/early 2000s? If you want stickers you could get some from redbubble or something, and the lack of ads here is super refreshing. You don't need to earn money from every social platform on the internet 


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Reply by Creeoer

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Server space isn't free, it costs money to host content. The stickers are sold on here and meant to support server costs, I'm simply suggesting more incentives for buying them. An has blogged about wanting to add a photos/galleys feature but can't due to the storage it needs which equals higher server costs. This site is also growing at a fair pace, and more users equals more content so more storage required. Monetization isn't a debate, it's a necessity for websites that are as large as this one. 


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Reply by Hatch

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Yeah, websites need a lot to be run. 

These are decent ideas, things that are Better without making the free version Less. Could also come with early like. Beta access to new features n shit?


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Reply by John

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I think there are a few possibilities.
  • Could treat it like Wikipedia, have fundraising drives/turn it into a nonprofit; or
  • Let users serve ads on their own page, with the condition that—oh idk—49% of ad revenue goes to SpaceHey's maintenance. This seems very unlikely though.


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