What do you think of membership charges? Have your say here.

[Jesse]

$10 for unlimited speed sounds like a good deal. I'm sure more people would be willing to pay that. I don't know about entire sections, but making larger files off-limits to free users sound good and fair. Like, all files 100MB and over, or something.

[Hot Trout]

What does everyone think? Is $20 too much for an unlimited download speed account? Maybe 4x faster just for registration is too generous.

Currently the settings are as follows:-

Unregistered (Guest) 64 kb/s
Registered 256 kb/s
Donation of $20 or more Unlimited (most likely up to 400 kb/s)

I am starting to think that I need to reduce the speeds for registered users so that $10 for registration becomes more worthwhile. Either way I need to get more income from this site.

Comments?

[Jesse]

I vote for a one-time $10 donation (or maybe $10 for a year or two?).
I'd knock the Registered speed down to 128 kb/s (or maybe 192). That isn't too bad.

[crustyasp46]

I just recently moved to the boonies of Ontario, and am on (don't laugh ) dial up so my downloads will be minimal until I acquire some sort of high speed. I see the dilemma with running a site like this and I tip my hat to you. Unfortunately so many people only see the free download aspect and that is as far as their thoughts go. I really hope this site survives and however you do it to accomplish it, I will save my pennies and contribute.

[Hot Trout]

Guys, In response to this thread, I have made the following changes for charges. As a result I will also be removing this thread from the global sticky and returning it to normal.

Guests are limited to 64 kb/s (1x)
Register Members are limited to 192 kb/s (3x)
Paid Members are UNLIMITED typically 512 kb/s+ (8x)

The minimum donation for an UNLIMITED account will now be reduced to $10 in an attempt to get more people to upgrade. The benefits are more than ever. Effectivly everyone has been reduced in speed except members that have donated (or won a competition).

[Hot Trout]

OK, I have made all these changes, banner adverts etc have been changed to inform people. Please read through the new material and let me know your opinions. Hopefully this will have the desired result.

[Kherr]

side note, you broke your own no double posting rule. :p (but seriously, I like the new idea, but I still think a point system would have been better. We'll see where this goes. )

[Hot Trout]

LOL cheeky boy.

The points system is the best idea but it will take time to implement, something which I plan to work on this Autum. For now the simply $10 donation should bring in a little revenue to help out.

[Kherr]

Or you could transfer domain hosters... I've never heard of a company charging 250 a month for hosting a website. 25 a month is the highest I've seen, and that's for everything under the sun... and then some. I have never ever seen 250 a month... That's just absurd... and then having a transfer limit? BS. 15 a month with that godaddy place and you get unlimited everything. Something is not right here... I don't understand how it's costing you so goddamned much. And I stopped looking for other solutions for you because you never acknowledged anything about godaddy so I figured you weren't interested... But it is what it is I suppose...

Oh, and yes, I won't hesitate to moderate the forums...

......LOL......

X3

[Hot Trout]

Kherr,

Having been doing this for some years now you can rest assured that I know my way around in this sphere.

Simply put, for a website as busy as this one, companies like GoDaddy, FastHosts, BigFish etc will all insist taht you take a dedicated server, you are simply not allowed to share a server due to the hits and load on the server. Another thing you learn is that unless you own your own server, there is NO SUCH THING as unlmiited downloads. All those providers will cap and throttle your download speed as well as the concurrent users. If your download speed and no of users at one time is limited then quite simply your bandwidth is limited (it has a maximum upper limit, no of users x capped speed).

For a site this size which is basically a file store/download site a dedicated server is a requirement. I know of no company on the planet taht would offer me a dedicated server of any spec for $25 a month. The current deal I have is good when compared to the market and beleive me I looked.

To confirm what I am saying, take a look at a monthly cost for a dedicated server with the following spec:

CPU : Quad Core Xeon 2.4GHz
RAM : 4GB
HDD : 500GB x 2 (Mirror or Raid1)
Pipe : 5MBit
DL Limit : 3TB a Month
OS : CentOS + WHM + CPANEL
Support : 24/7 Telephone

This is currently costing approx $220 a month.