Edit:
I'm simply blown away with you goats. I was expecting a somber farewell in this thread but instead you've done the exact opposite; pulled off a rally at the bottom of the 9th. On a personal note, and this may seem sentimental, but you have given me a new hope for Voat at very dark time for me.
All I can say now is: Let's do this! I think your message is clear. We have a ton of work to do, a short window in which to do it, and I fully understand I can't do it alone. We will need all hands on deck if Voat is to have any chance at survival.
I will post the plans I have for Voat as well as a status update on your contributions by Monday.
P.S. Old goats, be nice to the new kids. ;)
Original Post
As I sit here about to write one of the most difficult announcements yet, I was just reminded that my account is one month shy of three years old. Nearly three years ago I came here from Reddit when the vote counts disappeared and I felt I could no longer trust what I saw. Nearly three years ago I met @Atko and started contributing code because I believed in him, his mission, and what he was doing. So much has happened during these last three years.
I know a lot of you are new, but Voat has been through a wild ride, and never at any point was it an easy one. My memories are bittersweet when it comes to Voat. I’ve sacrificed the best years of my life for Voat, I’ve lost my business partner whom I miss a lot, I’ve lost people in my life, I’ve given up golf which was my passion, and even with all this I still believe in Voat. I still see the dire need for Free Speech in this world, I fear a world without it, and I still will do anything I can to continue providing it.
But alas, I am powerless to keep Voat running without financial support. As of right now Voat has no solid commitments. Voat has always needed a financial partner whom had balls of steel and backing deep enough to give Voat the capabilities to run as an actual business (being able to hire staff and set itself apart from its competitors), not just a one man show. Potential investors have one or the other of these traits, but we have yet to find one with both. In this day and age, this is Voat’s unicorn.
In the past Voat has been lucky enough to be part of special programs designed for startup companies which gave us free licensing on various products and significantly reduced hosting costs. These programs have since expired and we are now paying full costs. Last month was our first non-discounted month on Azure and the usage was $6,600.90 USD. Donations, ads, and merchandise only put a dent in this and this is the primary reason why we have not launched another merchandise run. And begging for donations was always something we hated doing.
I’m writing this announcement to prepare this community, and the Voat family, for the possibility of a closure. I’m not certain on timing and I have too much invested in this place to give up just yet, so I cannot provide any timelines. In the meantime, I will soon be scaling back all Voat’s servers by at least 50%. I will also turn off some features that are resource intensive.
Voat needs funding. Without it, Voat will be no more.
Voat needs an Angel
Canary
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806
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herewardwakes ago
I'm sorry but you guys seem to lack basic business skills and the ability to take decisive actions. Seriously, waiting for venture capital to materialise is ridiculous. Let me spell it out for you; YOU'RE NOT GETTING VENTURE CAPITAL FUNDING. You need to look at innovative methods for revenue generation beyond begging for money every time you're about to go bankrupt.
Why not look at some sort of community ownership and funding? You could set up a system in which users could own a percentage of voat and have to pay it's running costs in proportion to their ownership. So for example if a user owned 1/6000th of Voat, they'd have to pay $1 a month. Users that wanted a bigger share could buy more, so if they owned 1/1000th of Voat, they'd have to contribute $6 a month.
Shareholders would get to appoint a board, and each shareholder would get one vote per share they owned, so if they put in more money they'd get a larger say in the people who ran Voat.
You could keep say 10% of the company in regular shares for yourself. The only real argument against this idea is not wanting to give up your 100% ownership of Voat, but as you admit in this post, you will essentially soon own 100% of nothing, so why not try something different?