A Kickstarter was attempted on November 2022 to raise $700 for web host expansion. Although the goal was not reached, I want to thank you for those who pledged and attempted to make it a reality. A future Kickstarter will be in the works, but at a yet to be determined date. This page will be left as a legacy for the attempt and possibly be reused when a new one is launched.
The above image you see is not me at my desk. It is a very old image of a Korean / Japanese developer sitting at his desk taking a break after a long day. To make things even more surreal, that is his work desk at his place of employment. Everything is business as usual, and nothing is out of the ordinary. For him.
I’ve been running my website since December 2016. I’m proud to say that not once have I ever thought about running any type of advertisement, strange code injection, tracking analytic cookie, or random thing that interferes with the browsing experience on my site. Your data is yours to keep, I don’t care about it. More to the point, all I ever wanted to do is make a site where I can share my passion about various things and hopefully build a small community with like minded folks. Squarespace has now given me the opportunity to make this somewhat of a reality, by offering a video hosting service on their site. Not only that, it’s affordable and allows me to untether myself from the ever watching eyes of YouTube and their censorship bots and staff. This doesn’t mean I will end my YouTube channel, it just means I have a platform where I can upload what I want, when I want to. If I’m able to archive these videos on YouTube, I will. If I can’t, then they’ll just exist on the site. Simple as that.
To this end, I had a couple of approaches I could take. I could have decided on making a paywall to my site by the use of paid memberships. In other words, anyone could join the “members” area of my site and gain access to the material behind the paywall. I probably would of set the price low, and those who really wanted to enjoy the stuff could if they wanted to. But that idea quickly left my mind for a few reasons. First of all, I hate the idea of paywall content in general. I have a lot of visitors from all over the world, and I really want them to be able to see my site with little barrier to entry as possible. More importantly, I like the concept of people supporting me with what they feel my content is worth rather than me suggesting what my content is worth. And at the end of the day, I don’t want to deal with people’s data, information and money. Squarespace allows me to activate the commerce features of my site, but that’s a headache and a half to manage by myself. I rather focus on creating content, the stuff you’re all here for. So if I make the members area completely free of charge, no one has to enter anything other than whatever login credentials they wish to use. And at the end of the day every single person who wants to see the content, can see the content. I like the sound of that a lot better for what I’ve always wanted to achieve.
I spliced together the associated costs with running a site on Squarespace above. The top row is the cost of hosting the website per year. The bottom row is the cost of additional “members” area with extra benefits that includes video hosting. You can read all about these prices on these two pages here and here. As of right now, I pay $298 a year just to host the site as is. That’s the business plan plus $20 for domain registration. If I tack on the middle tier (core) plan for 20 hours of video hosting, that will cost $216 on top of my $298 for a grand total of $514 a year. You will notice on my Kickstarter goal that I set it for $700. That’s because Kickstarter themselves suggest a goal based on what you want plus their fees on top of it. So when I entered $514, their fees added up to about 5% of the total plus 3% + $0.20 for every pledge. I just wanted to show you the entire math behind my site and that I have nothing to hide. Feel free to calculate it yourself - the numbers all add up. Don’t forget up until this point, I have been paying everything out of pocket (almost $300 a year) since 2016 and will continue to do so even if the Kickstarter fails. That’s how much I love all you folks who visit.
I want to take this time to assure you that I have thought of (and tried) every single trick in the book to host my own videos for free. A lot of folks out there who don’t run websites or create content of their own don’t understand the minutia and limitations in place that make workarounds hard to implement. I’ll quickly go over a few of them and why they don’t work (or are terrible ideas).
Adult web site hosting and crosslinking
Google drive hosting
Using the “free” 30 minutes and archiving
Vimeo
Multiple YouTube accounts
Let’s start off with adult web site accounts and then crosslinking posts. Let me just explain as quickly as possible why this step is the worst idea of the bunch and why absolutely no one has used it who owns a website. Unless your web hosting service is specifically made to host adult content already, it is illegal in all TOS across the board to link directly to adult related material as well as aggregator sites that host adult related material. In other words, the moment you click a link on any website and it leads directly to adult orientated stuff, that’s against TOS. This includes the host of the domain. So for example if I updated a perfectly innocent movie that had zero adult content in it (like a royalty free movie of a waterfall) to an adult hosting platform; I still can not link this video from any standard website domain. Because the hosting site I’m linking to is flagged as “adult” and thus not allowed under any TOS (including Squarespace). If you’re looking for a one way ticket to get banned off the internet and blacklisted by domain providers, this is it.
Onto Google drive as a hosting platform. Google drive is meant for infrequent use of file sharing. It is a convenient service for folks to share large files with one another on a seldom basis. Google drive specifically states that it was never meant for frequent usage (which requires a business account called G suite) or video hosting (which they recommend just putting onto YouTube). They track the IP addresses on files that have large amounts of activity and will warn the user if they detect misuse. More to the point, violation of Google drive can lead to account closure across all Google services since using up bandwidth and potentially sharing content they deem “illicit” is a major violation. Making things worse, you have to share a Google drive link with someone and make it private so that anyone with the link can access. It’s a janky process and folks who aren’t use to the interface quickly get confused on what to do and how to download the file.
I could use the 30 minutes of free video hosting on my site and just change it out every time I have something new to upload. The obvious problem with this however is… where do I archive this stuff? If I post videos in the format I want them to be in, and not censor myself whatsoever in what I want to show and talk about; then I’m no better off directly uploading to YouTube currently. In other words, if I’m worried about making a video I know won’t make it past the bots to archive on YouTube, than the whole point of it is defeated. Also I like long winded, drawn out content. 30 minutes is very limiting to me even for a single video.
Vimeo is expensive as hell, but the only viable alternative to YouTube if you ever wanted to host your own videos on your own platform. Vimeo’s policy on content is good and allows “spicier” stuff to be posted. In other words, my stuff is perfectly ok with them. But their pricing plans are extremely unfriendly. If you click on the link I provided you, you’ll see that the $25 a month standard plan has a lot of limitations on both bandwidth per month and amount of videos you can upload. Keep in mind that to Vimeo’s eyes, a 5 minute video or a 5 hour video both count toward your upload limit per month / year. At the end of the day, Vimeo is a good choice for those who already have a successful website or venture that is making them money. I’m unfortunately not in that spot, but I will give credit where credit is due. If I was rich and making a lot of money as is, I would of gladly just went with Vimeo as my video host and be done with it.
Finally the last idea is one of complete desperation. If I simply made a bunch of dummy accounts and linked videos to them until they got banned, I think I would rather give up altogether if that’s the type of measure I have to use to get my content out there. There’s a fine line between desperation and necessity, and I’m not at the point of being desperate. If everyone who visits my site feels I’m not worth the investment for the Kickstarter, then I respect everyone’s decision and will simply move on or try again down the road. I rather focus on making stuff you all like to read and watch than juggling multiple accounts and playing a game of “grab ass” with YouTube and their ban banhammer.
The final thing I have to say about this entire project is that it’s my attempt to off-set the cost of running my website with the possibility of expanding it to host more content. If I’m able to get it off the ground, I can considerably do more content and upload a lot more frequently. My original intention with my YouTube channel was to upload a video every two weeks. If I’m able to hit my goal with Kickstarter, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It’s painful having a lot to say and wanting to say it, without the ability to share it with you all. But at the end of the day, I will always keep my site as user friendly as possible and never hide anything behind a paywall. Because I’ve been honored and flattered by the people who already visit and come back on a month to month basis. And if the Kickstarter completely falls on its ass and fails in spectacular fashion - that’s ok. I’ll try again 6 months down the road (or next year) and hope for the best. More importantly no hard feelings, and I’ll continue to operate my site as I have been doing up to this point. Either way, thank you for even considering backing me even if you ultimately don’t do so. Life is hard enough as it is with all the negative stuff happening around us. Just remember to have a good day, evening and night where ever you are, and maybe share with me something interesting to read or talk about. It’s all I ever wanted to do with this site anyway.