As we grow we will need to accommodate more traffic to the site which will require more money. Nobody likes ads and relying solely on donations might cause problems down the road if we ever fall short.
So here's my idea: We create a subverse where users are voluntarily and intentionally advertised to in order to raise money for the site. Maybe v/buy4voat or something similar, and we can link to product pages and purchase things that we were going to buy anyway except Voat gets revenue from the companies for the link. Something like Amazon affilliated links or Google "sponsored" links except we put the funds toward Voats things. Like upgrading the server. Or whatever, we decide! But seriously the server is gonna be important.
We can have a stickied post of all the companies that participate and as participation grows add a sidebar with shopping categories like v/buy4voatGAMES or v/buy4voatCLOTHES. The mods can solicit companies at first so that we have some good options and hopefully companies will start coming to us in the future. We all buy things online anyway, so why not have a portion of the purchase go towards funding Voat? Maybe we can get more money by allowing companies to advertise in ONLY those subs as long as the ads aren't terrible (like autoplaying loud noises).
The neat thing about this is that as our user base grows there will be more people to buy things online through Voat, so this will scale up as we do. More users, more purchases, more money to keep Voat operational, more advertisers...and back to more users as the sub grows and has more to offer.
How can we make this work?
Edit: Okay, so far the concerns seem to be (1) Security and (2) Possibility of Manipulation
With regard to #2 we can make all the mod mail for those subs completely public after X days, that way everything is discussed out in the open but not in such a was that it interferes with the mod team's ability to get things done or speak to potential participants without brigading. Thoughts?
As far as the security concerns, what (if anything) can be done to mitigate these? Will these concerns be a problem with any and all advertising so does that mean no advertising ever? Donations only?
If that's the case I'd love to get an Admin's take on the future of this site cost-wise if they don't mind sharing that info. Where are we now and where would we be if we were to have another influx of say 10,000 new users? With all the drama and censorship being exposed on reddit I think it's a real possibility that this site will act as a new community for people who are just done with it all. I think we should be proactive and discuss becoming self-sufficient as soon as possible. Or we find a rich person to help Vote through the first year of substantial growth.
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[–] alphabeta [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I don't know exactly how their income breaks down but in 2013 Business Insider did an article where then-CEO Wong said that they were still in the red despite their 70 million monthly readers. And both ads and gold were a thing at the time. Article here.
I don't have exact figures but I think we need to get creative about supporting ourselves.
[–] boat 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
Well, simple and direct individual donations are pretty much the most ideal funding method from the economic perspective of perverse incentives. That is, I think they are the most stable, long-term way to fund a source of information without corrupting its objectivity.
When we look at something like Wikipedia, the donation model just works. Despite their being internal problems such as edit wars, the site has had quite a long lifespan, and has become one of the most valuable pieces of infrastructure in our information economy.
The problem with the Wikipedia donation model, is that the viewers are periodically subjected to an annoying banner of Jimmy Wales face. But suppose instead of intermittent fundraising, there was continual fundraising, continuously displayed in an un-obnoxious manner via multiple progress bars. Similar to the reddit Gold meter, but perhaps with multiple meters measuring the daily, monthly, and yearly funding progress. I'd have a tough time believing that the Voat would be unable to collect sufficient revenue to cover operating costs and their salaries via such a strategy.
That said, if the owners of Voat do not want to go the Wikipedia non-profit route and rely solely on donations, but instead wish to go the commercial venture capital route and attract investors for a big exit, that is certainly their right as owners.
[–] alphabeta [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I think that relying on individual donations would be ideal, but do you think the site can run only on donations if it has a huge year? Look at the statistics post from 12 days ago. I linked to it in my edit. Voat has experienced a substantial growth spurt in recent months and that's very likely to continue with all the reddit drama.
The admin who compiled those stats, @Atko actually mentioned the possibility of doing a kickstarter to boost donations, which I think would be a great idea to get the ball rolling and see where we're at!
I do like your idea too of different graphs for Voat gold. It would be a lot more motivational to see how going over in donations for one day would impact the month's or year's goals.
My one concern is that, while it is ideal for keeping things not corrupt, can the site survive a huge influx of new users with only gold & donations? Yishan seemed to say that reddit couldn't keep up and they have ads and sponsored posts.