[h=2]TR Emeritus is no longer self-sustainable[/h]
August 16th, 2014 |
Author: Editorial
Currently, TRE is about 12k short to renew its servers
for another year.
With more than 1/4 million page views and tens of thousand of visitors per
day , the team@TR Emeritus had thought that the website would be
self-sustainable in the long run, but unfortunately it was not to be.
When TR Emeritus (TRE) was revived approximately 3 years ago, it was hosted
on only 1 server and the advertising revenues generated plus goodwill donations
then was sufficient to offset the hosting charges, with extras for other
contingencies.
However, as time goes on and readership increases, TRE had to procure new
servers to meet the added demand on resources, resulting in TRE currently being
hosted on a cluster of 4 servers. While technically speaking, the current setup
is an overkill, it was necessary to guarantee uptime due to the now-and-then
attack.
Even with the current setup, it was not an issue then as the advertising
revenues, membership subscriptions and once-in-a-while donations from our
readers were sufficient to offset the running expenses. TRE was also able to
foot the bill for the re-coding of the outdated theme (due to the EOL of its
current operating system) and migration of its website to a DDoS-Protected
network.
Unfortunately, since the beginning of this year, for reasons unknown, our
advertising revenues and donations have seen a drastic drop of more than 50%,
made worse with 2 main advertisers leaving. Membership-wise, we currently have
approximately 100 paying members, mostly on a once-off monthly plan.
Since TRE is maintained by volunteers and funded by member’ subscriptions,
advertisements and goodwill donations from readers, it is
now no longer self-sustainable if the current trend remains status quo.
With its annual hosting renewal coming up, the Team@TRE is weighing the
feasibility and viability of continuing with the website and other options,
including but not limited to selling the website. The team would of course like
to keep the website alive, if possible.
In any case, updates will be made available once a decision has been made or
if there are new developments.
All suggestions are welcome.
TR Emeritus
Currently, TRE is about 12k short to renew its servers
for another year.
With more than 1/4 million page views and tens of thousand of visitors per
day , the team@TR Emeritus had thought that the website would be
self-sustainable in the long run, but unfortunately it was not to be.
When TR Emeritus (TRE) was revived approximately 3 years ago, it was hosted
on only 1 server and the advertising revenues generated plus goodwill donations
then was sufficient to offset the hosting charges, with extras for other
contingencies.
However, as time goes on and readership increases, TRE had to procure new
servers to meet the added demand on resources, resulting in TRE currently being
hosted on a cluster of 4 servers. While technically speaking, the current setup
is an overkill, it was necessary to guarantee uptime due to the now-and-then
attack.
Even with the current setup, it was not an issue then as the advertising
revenues, membership subscriptions and once-in-a-while donations from our
readers were sufficient to offset the running expenses. TRE was also able to
foot the bill for the re-coding of the outdated theme (due to the EOL of its
current operating system) and migration of its website to a DDoS-Protected
network.
Unfortunately, since the beginning of this year, for reasons unknown, our
advertising revenues and donations have seen a drastic drop of more than 50%,
made worse with 2 main advertisers leaving. Membership-wise, we currently have
approximately 100 paying members, mostly on a once-off monthly plan.
Since TRE is maintained by volunteers and funded by member’ subscriptions,
advertisements and goodwill donations from readers, it is
now no longer self-sustainable if the current trend remains status quo.
With its annual hosting renewal coming up, the Team@TRE is weighing the
feasibility and viability of continuing with the website and other options,
including but not limited to selling the website. The team would of course like
to keep the website alive, if possible.
In any case, updates will be made available once a decision has been made or
if there are new developments.
All suggestions are welcome.
TR Emeritus
