As some of you will know, I recently started working on OSAlert as my full-time job, and that means I sometimes need to be annoying and remind you all that I need your help in keeping the website going. Ad income has been going down the drain for years and years now, so your support is crucial in keeping OSAlert online. We’ve been providing you with the latest technology news for over 25 years now, and I’d really like to keep things going for another 25 years. So, how can you help?
You can become an OSAlert Patreon, which will remove ads from OSAlert, and give you a little bit of flair on every comment you post to show off that you support us. We offer three pricing tiers with an increasing level of prominence for your flair, with the highest tier giving you the option of choosing your own flair to really show off to your fellow readers and commenters that you are just a little bit more equal than everyone else.
You can also make individual donations through Ko-Fi. Since I really need to replace the monitor of my OSAlert workstation – after eight years of loyal use, the cheap monitor is started to show ghosting and flickering, and I feel like it could give out at any moment – I’ve set a goal on Ko-Fi for this very purpose. I don’t expect this goal to be met any time soon, but it’s a nice target to aim for and look forward to. I intend to replace the old 4K display with the cheapest 4K/144Hz panel I can find here in Sweden, but since that will most likely be unrealistic price-wise, the goal is rooted more in aspiration than reality.
There are other ways to support us too – you can make a donation through Liberapay, or go to our merch store and buy T-shirts, mugs, and other cool items.
The ultimate goal that I’m working towards is to eventually be able to offer ad-free by default, fully supported by you, our generous readers. This is a long-term goal and not something we’ll achieve overnight, but I want to maintain OSAlert’ independence at all costs. Virtually every other technology news site you visit is part of a major media empire, such as The Verge or Ars Technica, with huge amounts of staff and massive funds backing them – and all the questionable relationships between writers and the technology companies that entails. Add to it the rise of artificial intelligence and the negative consequences that’s going to have, and the need for independent, reader-funded technology websites is greater than ever.
That being said, we will not be gating content behind paywalls, so even if you cannot or are unwilling to support us, you will still get all the same content as everyone else. As such, supporting OSAlert financially is entirely optional, and will not degrade your experience in any way. Still, OSAlert’ continued existence is entirely dependent on me being able to generate enough income through it, so while you do not have to support us, it’s definitely needed.
I semi-recently became an OSAlert Patreon. I still have ads unless I enable uBlock Origin. Adam has not responded to my inquiry about that (about 3 weeks ago).
I did check up on your status and emailed you – I have no idea what’s going wrong, since everything in the backend is set up correctly for you. I’ll poke Adam some more to see if he knows what’s going on!
Hi Thom!
Just became a patron, posted in the patreon group too. How do I go about turning off ads on the home page?
Thanks,
Stefan
Same thing for me – I also got that email saying it was correctly configured on your side, but no response after that, and I still get ads
Thanks. Oddly enough I haven’t seen your response. Nothing in my spam filters. Will check again.
I’ll be honest… While I do enjoy the site, it has yet to make a transition from an interesting reading list with comments (which is the primary value add) to being a journalism site with unique content/articles/perspectives.
Can we have some kind of commitment to, say, a unique article every week or two?
Almost every item I post now is much longer, more detailed, and with more information than they used to have. On top of that, there has already been a lot more original content, as well, but I want to get that basis right, first. That being said, there’s several things in the writing process right now, so yeah, there’s definitely going to be more of that.
The distinction I’m making is between a link to someone else’s article, with your commentary on it, and a uniquely written article. So far, there haven’t been many of the latter. I look forward to seeing what’s in the pipeline.
Thom, are you still doing original submissions. I’d like to do a write-up on my RCA MS2000 development system at some point, which has a unique DOS that was largely forgotten
I think it is worth taking an inspiration from Phoronix website, Michael also have paid plan and I’m paying it since the beginning of it’s existance.
I read OSAlert since I think beginning and I thought that I will support you as well. Unfortunately for me the price of cheapest package is 75euro per year – I think it is a bit too much for the existing content. I understand the cost of living but there is a limit one can pay for single website – thats my view. Maybe consider reducing the price.
I have something of a difference of opinion with Patreon that rules that out. I’ve no particular interest in getting physical Merch and after costs I suspect OSAlert wouldn’t get much of the funds. The other two donation options though I’m not sure if I’d be donating to OSAlert as a site/organization or to you Thom directly as an individual? If you could clarify I’d appreciate it.
Patreon etc. actually have pretty decent fee structures, so I barely notice them.
Donations/Patreon go directly to me because otherwise they’d have to go through David, the owner, which would mean double taxation (first in the US, then in Sweden once he’d send the money to me). This is the best structure tax-wise, by a huge margin. If, for some reason, this doesn’t work out and I have to leave – I’ll take the Patreon behind the shed and shotgun it to the face instantly so nobody pays a dime too much.
What I meant was with the merch store you only get the margin, vs the whole payment. Liberapay did the job anyway, thanks!
Perhaps OSAlert isn’t meant to be someone’s full-time job? It was working just fine when it wasn’t someone’s full-time job.
If I leave, OSAlert dies instantly. There’s nobody else. There never has been after I took over. If I can’t make this work, I’ll have to find a different job, and OSAlert is over. You might not care, and that’s fine!
Luckily, it seems we have enough readers – the vast, vast majority of which are lurkers – who do care, and I’ve been able to make a good start going full-time. I’ve got more work to do, but so far, it’s been a solid start.
Lurkers Unite!
Even with my sponsorship, i really don’t care about the ads. This is probably the only website i visit with my adblocker disbled.
They are actually the least obtrusive I tend to encounter online.
I am sure many of us lurkers are enjoying the noticeable updates.
Keep up the good work, Thom.
Question: why have Ad revenue decreased so much? Is it because everybody read stuff on Facebook instead of websites? Facebook have eaten all Ad revenue, from the websites? So the total Ad revenue has not decreased, it has only been taken by the social media apps?
MrVain,
That’s an interesting question. I don’t follow the ad industry in detail, but a number of articles suggest that advertisers have been pulling back in recent years.
https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-economy-alphabet-inc-62dbd56caf4b5c814469837187e7ef02
A factors that could affect websites like osnews more specifically is our distinctly technical userbase, who are disproportionately far more likely to use ad and tracker blockers.
https://www.ghostery.com/blog/privacy-report-advertisers-and-adblockers
I’ve been a reader for a long time, and i appreciate everything you do. i’ll donate a few bucks
I would like to donate but through service which won’t store credit card data for good nor ask me for my phone and similar needless data.
I’ve kept my comments rather mild and not too far off-topic but know my comments get deleted from time to time and that means OSAlert does not support free speech. That is very problematic. Censorship is a favourite tool of the left. Should I pay to be censored?
Will this comment be deleted, I suspect it will.