2023, Winter update!
We hope everyone's doing well!
Continuing the tradition, this news post arrives to the party later than planned. Truthfully, it's a little difficult to write.
We've always had obstacles in our way, whether they be software-related, funding, or building out the team properly and navigating through this can be tough for everyone, not just me so let's get started.
Software
We've been waiting patiently for a new Torrust release for quite a bit. We've had the option to use an alpha for the last few months but opted against it for two reasons. Upgrading to a new release is a big deal, we'd prefer to wait for a full release than bugtest an alpha and we'd also have to rewrite a bunch of our tools. The Torrust team are working hard and pushing a lot of new code so when it arrives, we'll adopt it immediately. We've waited a long time, we can wait a little bit longer.
Funding
Truthfully, we've been naive. We've relied on payment processors who can at any time, revoke anyone for any reason they want. Content notwithstanding, we've always had a great relationship with nearly every developer we have contact with so that wasn't a concern. Torrents though have a stigma attached which is nearly impossible to shake. There are options out there for "shadier" payment processors but it's not something we're going to do. We can complain about Patreon, Paypal, Stripe all day but while we mightn't agree with all their decisions - they are by and large responsible. Stripe isn't going to scam you. A random Payment Processor from the Seychelles might, and it's not a risk we're willing to take. So where does that leave us?
We don't have many options. Realistically, we don't have any. Cryptocurrencies are a thing, but the adoption rate is extremely low. At least for the time being, we're going to move ahead with Crypto and see what happens. The best option will always be Monero because it's actually private. We do have other options though, you can check them out here.
Ads have always been an option, however, two things. We stated early-on that we never wanted ads and we're still committed to this. Secondly, we're just not big enough to make it viable. If we did have more traffic to the point that we could earn €300-400 per month via ads, then it'd be very difficult to turn down. We know we're never going to make a profit but we're technerds and we always want to add more servers and flesh everything out to just make everything better and faster. At least for now, it's not something we're going to do but with all things considered, it may be an option in the future if only because there's no safe way to actually accept donations.
We've been taking measures to scale down our costs and within the month, we'll be in the position where we can run in "low power" for quite a while, if not indefinitely. I should point out too that this is mostly due to two very generous donators during our funding run in September & October along with help from both Cake and myself. Two developers in particular, Moonbox and Aphrodite have been longtime supporters and it's awesome to watch their projects flourish in tandem. They're wonderful people and deserve every bit of their success.
The Team
We've added a few new members lately and our team is closer to 10 people now which is crazy. We're very happy with this and it means a lot that people are willing and able to lend a hand. Big thanks to @youraccount, @_maou_ and @tute! One thing I'd like to draw attention to is the monumental effort put in by @volf3n and @devilkin the last few months. This hasn't been my project alone for a long time and without their help, it would have died a long, long time ago.
The future
It's not easy to write a post that touches upon failure. We're not going anywhere, but it does suck getting kicked in the balls and it's important to acknowledge our failures and try grow from them so at least there's that. 2023 has had a lot of ups and downs but that's life sometimes.
BeingADik is due to update in a few weeks, Eternum is already at 53%. Projekt Passion updated recently and in the last few weeks, big games like Ripples, Photohunt, X-Change Life, University of Problems, No More Money, Lust Theory and Away From Home all updated just off the top of my head. Get out there and check them out!