This post is going to have a more somber attitude than posts in the past, and it’s not one I’ve ever really wanted to make, but as Catbox has expanded, so has its costs. The operational costs for running Catbox per month for the last year have looked like this:
Datacenter Colocation: $971/month
Offsite Storage: $140/month
Cloud Server Providers: $40/month
Administrative Costs: $60/month
The large datacenter colocation bill is due to the fact that Catbox pushes an extreme amount of traffic. On average, Catbox pushes about 4 gbps, spiking up to 6 gbps.
This means I’ve had to acquire a 10gig internet uplink, which is not the cheapest thing to get. Additionally, Catbox is now hosting approximately 54 TB of content. As I’m sure many of you have encountered Lain, which is a project to basically offload inactive files to offsite storage, which can then be pulled back when a user requests. Catbox also utilizes various Cloud Server Providers (CSPs) to host external monitoring services and other servers. Finally, there are various administrative costs related to running Catbox, including email, legal paperwork, legal residences, and other small fees.
All of this has totaled into Catbox’s monthly expenses to come out to $1,211. As of posting this blog post, Catbox is bringing in $696 per month. This means I am personally footing the remaining $515. Additionally, all server/firewall upgrades and purchases have also come out of my pocket. When I totaled up all expenses for 2021, Catbox was $7,070 in the negative. This means I put $7000+ dollars of my own money to prop Catbox up. This is not tenable for the future of Catbox.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that Catbox needs additional funding to survive long term. Our patrons on Patreon have been wonderful, and without them there is no doubt that Catbox would have been forced to close. However, it is clear that Patreon by itself is not capable of supporting the current or future growth of Catbox. This leaves me with 4 options:
Monetize Catbox using traditional avenues (advertisements and sponsorships). This is not my first choice, and not something I’m entirely keen on. It would destroy the purpose and soul of Catbox.
Scale back on costs (primarily bandwidth). This would directly impact user experience, as cutting back to (for example) 5gbps would create a bottleneck and reduce speeds to a snail’s pace.
Open alternative avenues of income (paid accounts). This would involve a monthly plan that would give you additional features (existing features of Catbox would NOT change or be restricted). I am somewhat open to this.
Open alternative avenues of gift giving (cryptocurrencies).As of today, I have begun accepting gifts using Cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, and Ravencoin. I have had quite a few people request this, and I see that now would be the time to offer this as an option.
You will of course notice that “Closing Catbox” is not an option on that list, and that’s because it isn’t. I would rather exhaust all other avenues of incoming before doing that, including traditional monetization. There are many people who have been using Catbox for the whole 7 years it’s been around, and I know what it would mean to them to lose their files.
So this is my public begging post - I know the current economic climate isn’t the greatest, and that many people have had to cut back on various things, including Patreon subscriptions, but given the traffic Catbox receives, if just 10% of users gave $5, we would be funded until the end of the year. So please, gift via Patreon,crypto, or if you want something more tangible, buy some stickers! I’ve created a new “Supporting” page to track Catbox’s monthly expenses and income, as well as new ways to contribute. I look forward to another great year, and again, thank you not just to Patrons, but to everyone who has continued using Catbox.
So this just happened and I swear this is just plain bullshit. THIS ARTICLEstates that anyone who is LGBT or non christians can be bullied and the state is just cool with that because of “religious beliefs”
I NEED YOUR HELP TUMBLR
Even if you don’t live here please help make it a better place
We need 100,000 signatures by April 26, 2014 to stop this bullshit. Please spread this like wildfire because bullying is a MAJOR problem here and this is just encouraging it. What happened to FREEDOM of religion America?
I’d love for you guys to help out! And don’t just reblog if you have the capability to sign! <3
I even signed it…and I never sign anything.
Wow it took me like 3min. of my life :O
why sign this all it does is allow people to express their beliefs in manners that are not physical beating. Hell I’m not Christan and i feel this is all right.
Fueled by my anger at Kojima Productions’ MGSV Ground Zeroes for being one of the bigger misogynist fuck ups in gaming history, I came to terms with who the real bullies are now.
For note, I am a huge fucking fan of previous MGS installments. I let the rampant misogyny slide for the sake of having fun. But with this…I feel fucking betrayed.
“If you disagree with me YOU’RE A BULLY!"
SJWs never met an important word they didn’t trivialise
daily reminder that video games are dead
WHO WILL SAVE VIDEO GAMES
The Japanese obviously games like ground zeroes clearly show that some game developers wont allow the opinions of others keep them from writing the stories they want , the way they want
this is to educate my non-American followers. This really is how the US sees itself. (and yes, 95% of the time, Florida = WHAT?!)
In Florida the more North you go, the more “South” you get
In Florida the central part pretends to be the south, the western part pretends to be the northeast and the south pretends to be the west I’m not even fucking kidding you
… Please tell me you guys are kidding.
Never kidding about florida
I live in Florida and I can confirm this.
I’m fairly certain north and south remain that way because during the civil war those were pretty much the north and south. while the Midwest is the land from the Louisiana purchase. and the west being land America claimed from Mexico while i believe Washington and Oregon were acquired from another country but im too lazy to check it up. while Florida for a good part of us history was under Spanish rule so when the civil war occurred it wasn’t part of the south.
