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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ghostintheshelob ago
Oh man, this sucks. I can probably donate some money but the problem is the brigading on here means I can only post 10 times every 24 hours, which would make it kind of pointless. I haven't even had any debates recently and it's been that way for weeks. Even Reddit doesn't punish me as much for having contrary opinions. I know this isn't the Dev's fault, but it does make me think twice. I'll think about it...
Good luck with the future and I hope you can think of something.
TAThatBoomerang ago
What on earth did you do to warrant a brigade? The only people I've seen be brigaded is people promoting pedophilia or those who copy+paste the same text about Atko being a fag or something to every thread.
ghostintheshelob ago
Pretty sure most of it came from FPH or people not liking comments about Jews, whatever. The problem is even a small brigade or mass of downvotes kicks in the 10 post limit. I'm at it now and I was considering donating today. Reaching it kinda puts me back again but I am encouraged to do it because the dev said he'd recieved a lot of donations.
My issue is that if I'm on Reddit and an sjw or anti-Trump subreddit downvotes me a lot I get restricted to posting once every 8 minutes after a few posts, but Voat outright stops me for 24 hours. It seems harsh and it perpetuates me being stuck with downvoats because I can't post anything.
TAThatBoomerang ago
I know the attitude of "if it hasn't happened for me, it can't have happened to anybody" is really stupid, but that's sort of what I'm thinking right now. I've been banned from FPH, I've called FPH out harshly in other subverses several times, and I've also said very unpopular things about jews on anti-globalist subverses. I've met resistance on those posts, but I've never experienced anything close to a brigade. But once again, that obviously doesn't mean you have never experienced it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you must have either acted like a complete dufus (or a ShareBlue shill), or just have been very unlucky to have experienced this.