lol, Fazle charging for access to the MAIN FORUM

motivez · 03-29-2008, 09:04 AM

Absolutely hilarious. I visit OT maybe once every couple of months now, it's full of high school kids that graduated from genmay, hardly anything really funny or interesting is posted now, especially compared with SA..

I guess now that his cash cow, selling porn subscriptions to underage kids (OTAH) is gone, he needed a new way to make money.. tons of backlash on this already though.

Hopefully this puts to end the idea that Fazle has been losing money on the site all these years and is interested in the community instead of his wallet

Scrum · 03-29-2008, 11:36 AM

JaJae · 03-29-2008, 12:15 PM

It always amazes me that people are so naive to believe hasn't been making money off that site. I frequent web admin forums all the time where people discuss the amount of users and fees and profits of running a forum. There is no possible way a person with that many users, especially paid users, isn't making a profit. It's just not a possibility. Especially now that he's charging everyone. His median fee (6 mos) is $1.75 each month. There is no possible way each user costs him $1.75 a month or even $1.00 a month for that matter in hosting.

motivez · 03-29-2008, 12:22 PM

big board admins can make anywhere from 2-10k a month

He's managed to convince people that it costs way more than it does for bandwidth, and way more than it does for hosting space, and way more than it does for servers that can handle that many people

I don't begrudge him the opportunity to make money, but the whole idea behind it was a huge joke

JaJae · 03-29-2008, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by motivez

big board admins can make anywhere from 2-10k a month

He's managed to convince people that it costs way more than it does for bandwidth, and way more than it does for hosting space, and way more than it does for servers that can handle that many people

I don't begrudge him the opportunity to make money, but the whole idea behind it was a huge joke

It's the truth man. Even if he weren't trying to make money (which I think is false) he would be making a profit by default. The income he takes in from users just far exceeds to costs of running that site, even if he goes with some of the most expensive hosting options available to him, he'd still be making a profit. He lowered his prices some to accommodate the new users, but before he was charging a few dollars a month per paid user.

You figure 2k+ active subs ($3 each or whatever it was), $200 a month in banners, $350 in members forums and he's easily making $7000 a month in revenue off that site. This was an ad hit on google, but basically to give an idea of pricing:
Dedicated Servers - 179+ Category 5

Even if his costs are for something like 5 of the top tier server package (he doesn't) that's under $2k a month in fees. I believe he runs multiple servers like this with shared databases to host his site. Cause whenever he adds a new server he brags.

JaJae · 03-29-2008, 12:44 PM

To correct my above post.. this is his hardware:
Future Hardware that has already been purchased and will be installed in a month (june 2004):
Cisco 11503 Content Switch with 18 ports, GBIC, Dell Powerconnect 24 Port Gigabit Switch, APC 5000VA
Web Servers - 3 of them: Dell Poweredge 1750, Dual 2.4 Xeon, 2 gigs of Ram, Dual Broadcom Gigabit Interface, LSI Ultra 320 SCSI, Seagate Cheetah 15k Drive.
Gallery/Uploads Server: Dell Poweredge 1750, 2.4 Xeon, 1 gig of Ram, Dual Broadcom Gigabit Interface, LSI Ultra 320 SCSI, Seagate Cheetah 15k Drive.
Database Server: Dell Poweredge 1750, Dual 3.06 Xeons, 4 gigs of Ram, Dual Broadcom Gigabit Interface, LSI Ultra 320 Raid Controller, 2 Fujitsu 15k Drives - Raid 1.

He's probably renting out rack space and provides his own hardware.

Other people may know more than me about this, but renting the rack space is typically $15-30 a slot and then you're just paying for bandwidth.

JaJae · 03-29-2008, 01:17 PM

Here are some costs
ethr.net - Business Solutions : Colocation Servers

RMNIXON · 03-29-2008, 05:02 PM

I know somebody who has a paid and unpaid account on OT. The only real advantage is that his paid account can talk serious trash and not get kicked off the board.

JaJae · 03-29-2008, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

I know somebody who has a paid and unpaid account on OT. The only real advantage is that his paid account can talk serious trash and not get kicked off the board.

The main forum is turning into a joke. I never really liked it anyway. I used to just post on DIAC and the computer forum. But I've noticed the main forum has REALLY gone down hill lately, which I didn't think could happen. When you click a thread that looks good, you have to shift through 5 pages of "yea" and "rofl" crap before you get to read something funny or interesting. It's such a waste of time. I wouldn't pay for that crap. There's far better forums out there. The user base seems to keep getting younger as well. I really don't care about what the 15 year olds on OT talk about, nor do I find their take on things interesting or funny anymore. It's just immature and stupid now.

motivez · 03-29-2008, 07:34 PM

Yeah, OT became the place genmay (teenie bopper forum) went to when they started hitting puberty because they could paypal a few bucks to get access to porn illegally

So, you have a bunch of 13, 14, 15, 16 year olds running around the place now, who drag the maturity down a ton.

SoFlaJDM · 03-29-2008, 08:13 PM

i'm not fucking paying shit for access to the main forum

imind · 03-29-2008, 08:34 PM

genmay? what is this?

JaJae · 03-29-2008, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by SoFlaJDM

i'm not fucking paying shit for access to the main forum

He acts like he's the only big board around and has a monopoly on this kind of crap. I'm just surprised he did it with no warning. All I know is everyone who used to post there and got locked out, I bet the first thing they do is hit up another forum before deciding to ask mommy for her credit card. He's gonna lose a lot of users, I guess that's the idea though.

Scrum · 03-29-2008, 09:02 PM

Originally Posted by SoFlaJDM

i'm not fucking paying shit for access to the main forum

Fuck that place.

WickedLou9 · 03-30-2008, 09:52 AM

I still have access there because I was OG.

Stylerod · 03-30-2008, 12:45 PM

Yeah, I have access as well because of being OG. This place is ok, but I still get most of my laughs at OT. You do have to weed through the shit but there are some funny people over there and it moves quickly. It's still my favorite forum.

Publius · 03-30-2008, 01:59 PM

Originally Posted by JaJae

He acts like he's the only big board around and has a monopoly on this kind of crap. I'm just surprised he did it with no warning. All I know is everyone who used to post there and got locked out, I bet the first thing they do is hit up another forum before deciding to ask mommy for her credit card. He's gonna lose a lot of users, I guess that's the idea though.

He gave like 2 weeks warning.

JaJae · 03-30-2008, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by Publius

He gave like 2 weeks warning.

From reading the front desk I was under the impression that the day he was going to do it was a surprise to many users. He had been talking about doing it, but a lot of people were shocked to wake up and see he had done it when he did. I could be wrong, I don't really follow up on OffTopic drama.

RMNIXON · 03-30-2008, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by JaJae

It's just immature and stupid now.

It was immature and stupid then.

It got worse?

RMNIXON · 03-30-2008, 04:36 PM

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I still have access there because I was OG.

I got a permanent OT Ban and was later invited back!