Making Techrights Stronger in 2024
Financially fortifying the sites means they can become more active
THE peak season of winter (for the northern hemisphere) means holidays are due, not limited to Christmas, and the shortest day of the year (for the north) is just 9 days away.
It's apparently the perfect timing for appeals - a time for giving and, unfortunately, billing.
A couple of weeks ago we learned that our VPS host had decided to raise the cost by almost 25%, starting next month. But this month we can still get the old fare for the coming 12 months. It's not cheap. We've just been invoiced for over 1000 pounds for 2 Web sites, 2 Gemini capsules, IRC, and Git... (there are a few other services, but they're not as critical)
Thankfully we managed to consolidate them all into a single host and lower the RAM and CPU usage by going 100% static.
Running the sites isn't cheap and I always (since 2006) ran my sites at my own expense, i.e. paid by the salary I earned in my daytime/nighttime job. Just over a year ago both my wife and I resigned to better focus on our sites. This obviously had an impact on our ability to cover site-related costs.
We are perfectly aware of the perils of crowdfunding online (banks censor sometimes, but one has more legal protections when that happens). We've heard many stories like British banks censoring/banning political parties, Russian media accounts (years before the Ukraine invasion), and so on and so forth...
Then there are the perils inherent in all online payment processors, not only Paypal (some people recognise it as a notorious and censorious payment processor, with the same restrictions applying in some crowdfunding sites that get pressured into political censorship).
We've looked into about half a dozen options and reached the conclusion that those who can and are willing to help us with site (or Gemini, Git, IRC etc.) bills would be best off doing so via Paypal. It's not that we endorse Paypal or even tolerate its hostility towards Free software (there are well documented scandals and blunders to that effect).
Any donations (chipping in to help cover our hosting bills) is entirely voluntary. We have no plans of adding any ads or paywalls. We don't let people pay us conditionally, e.g. upon us changing our editorial standards or our focus. If you benefited from the sites, please consider helping them.
Tux Machines is almost 20 and Techrights turned 17 last month. We've run them at cost to ourselves, not just the 'cost' of time but the cost of actual money. It wasn't cheap.
If you want to donate to us, follow this page and we thank you in advance. █