I thought I would provide you with an update about the website since the denial of service attack was launched against the site on May 1.
Even though the site is up and running, the attacks continue. There have been 8 million attempted hits on the site in the last 24 hours. This is down from a peak of 50 million per day on May 4, but if I wasn’t paying CloudFlare and the Man With No Name to protect TBP, the site would not be functioning.
I’ve really done some excellent tax planning in the last few weeks. In the space of a couple days, I reduced my annual revenue by $3,000 per year when Media Nexus terminated my ad agreement because Google told them to. In order to get TBP back online I had to commit to an additional $9,000 per year of expense. So, the blood sucking Federal & State governments won’t have any TBP profits to tax in 2014. I sure screwed them, didn’t I?
Two years ago when the site was on BlueHost, my annual cost to run the site was about $300 per year. The occasional donation and a few dollars from Amazon covered my costs.
Last year when we switched to DreamHost, because BlueHost had become too slow, my annual cost rose to about $1,500. Again, the generosity of my readers, some Amazon commissions, and a few bucks from the ads were sufficient to cover my costs.
Now my annual costs will exceed $10,000 per year. I was overwhelmed by the generous response to the attack on the site. I received $2,300 in the week after the attack. This will go a long way towards covering my annual expenses. There are also 9 TBP regulars who make recurring donations every month. They have been supporting the site regularly for years. I really appreciate their consistent support. I’m eternally grateful for the financial support this site has received over the last few years.
I know the name of every person who has ever contributed to TBP and would love to thank them publicly on TBP, but based on our knowledge about the NSA and knowing that someone or something wants to silence TBP, it is probably prudent to keep your names secret.
There are many other truth telling sites, like Charles Hugh Smith’s and Automatic Earth, that depend on donations for support. Charles does name his contributors and puts them into categories depending upon how much they give. Automatic Earth and a few other sites set a goal and track it with a fund raising widget.
I would love for this site to pay for itself with just ads, then I wouldn’t have to ask people to donate, but we’ve passed that point. I don’t really have the financial resources to operate this site at a loss. Generally, the site will receive a short term surge of donations after a particularly popular article. Then nothing will come in for weeks. I would prefer not to waste your time with monthly posts asking for donations.
I thought that a donation widget like the one below, with a goal of $10,000 on the side of the page, would be the least intrusive way to encourage donations. Let me know what you think.
I’ll keep firing away at the establishment until I’m hauled away during a DHS domestic terrorist crackdown for daring to speak the truth to power.
