Free Republic says it needs $72,000 this quarter to operate. Sniff Test!!

Lets see if this makes any sense?

Some numbers;

I can get 2000 GB Bandwidth (That is 2 TB) on a 100 MBit line to a major backbone hub, served by Debian or Redhat or (yuck) Windows with two 80 GB drives, Dual-core Athlon 2600 processors and 2 GB of Ram for $300 per month.

He dumps (estimated) 98% text out of that site. Most graphics are hosted elsewhere by users.

Assume he has 20,000 users a day, each reading a LOT of text, say 100KB, that is just over 2GB Bandwidth a day, or 60 GB Bandwidth per month.

If he had 200,000 users per day, each reading 100KB of text, that is 20 GB Bandwidth per day, 600 GB Bandwidth per month.

If he had 600,000 users per day, each reading 100KB of text, that is 60 GB Bandwidth per day, 1800 GB Bandwidth per month.

And even at that extreme he would not need more than the $300 server solution I outlined elsewhere.

Now, about how many visits does he get per day?

Alexa puts his "reach" at 600 per million internet users. A good source puts the total number of internet users worldwide at 600 million.

So that means he gets 360,000 hits per day, well within the limits above.

Now how many unique users does he get?

Alexa puts unique FR users per million at about 62 (reading off the graph) so that means he gets a total of 37200 unique users per day.

All in all, my $300 solution covers this nicely!

And he dares tell his sheep that he needs $72,000 a quarter???

The extra goes towards his tab w/ JimmyJeff...duh!

Inquiring minds want to know. Really, they do. If that was indeed the case, then, by all means, he need the extra $$$ for the 8.........t

they have. :shrug: It's gotta be the cutting edge of software.

He's the worst kind of thief there is, a Republican.

:rofl:

it's fun to watch:

http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/5058/Swimming_with_Sharks

Republicans Learn Their Dirty Tricks By Practicing On One Another

same time.

members/readers. They listed some like DU, DailyKos and Huff Post with their averages. There were some R blogs listed but it said that FR refuses to give it's membership numbers. Why do you think they don't?

counteract project "X".

Yes, that info could indeed hinder "X". I hadn't thought of that. :hide:

Do you guys really think he pockets most of that money? Isn't this guy disabled?

What does he really do with the money? Only an audit can tell you, but he lives off something, and by all accounts lives well.

And yes, he is disabled. And I'm glad he has found some useful labor to perform, but he can stop pretending now that he isn't also getting rich off the proceeds.

Oral Roberts told his flock that God told him if he didn't raise a large amount of cash that he was a dead man? Maybe the freeper got a similar message from on high.

what if someone here tried to pull the same shit on them that they did to Andy Stephenson?

I'm just saying...

:cry:

I looked him up on a search engine. Any word on how Termite is doing?

I haven't talked to him since just after the Memorial.

He's doing okay, the dog has really been a comfort to him. He treasures
everything that people sent him about Andy. He made a display case for
it.

And I do know that little Ballot will ease the heartache and at the same time give him a good memory or Andy to cherish for the next 15 years or so.

If RimJob is skimming funds, that's one thing. But let's have enough evidence to convict RJ first.

Planting a false story is allowing lying and fraud to be just another way of getting ahead.

and you think he can get by with one??

does he really pay for "moderators?"

I'll sic my union on you!!!! ....uh.... I don't have a union. OK, I'll form a union and get back at ya!

ripped off.

$72K a quarter! Man, what you internet guru guys could do with that!

with relevant links to the pricing information provided, of course, and watch his fundraiser crash and burn.

If all of what you say his true, what he's doing is wrong, ought to be illegal, and certainly is Republican to the core.

Three reasons to out him to his members.

http://www.serverbeach.com/catalog/powerline.php?os=debian

BTW, White Rose Society uses ServerBeach, and they are great guys.

I have three of their servers because you eat a LOT of bandwidth doing live streaming and serving 32 MB sound files!!! Probably a need for a fourth one soon.

I tell ya, trying to figure out how that site operates is a full-time job! I couldn't imagine how confusing it is to actually RUN the damn thing...

:rofl:

I never have any sort of visual clue what I'm reading. Which I've done about three times that I can recall.

Ol' Jim is taking the greenbacks right out of your wranglers. He's stealing from you, you do understand that right? Jim is taking money from you and lying about how he spends it. He's the biggest 'welfare queen' ever and you dumb fucks are footing the bill.

Ignorant bastards.

just as long as you don't call it TAXES.

That's like one to three pages, including HTML overhead.

But the rest of your post still stands. $284K/year is obviously way more than any hosting solution would cost. Could be staff if he has payed mods, I suppose, but still... that's four full-time staff with full bennies. If that's what it takes to run a site of THAT caliber, then there is quite obviously deadwood.

figure 45 lines by 120 columns is 5.4 KB!!!

With a 20% html overhead that is 6.5 KB.

100 KB is ~ 16 page views.

And that is assuming there is no whitespace to the right of the text.

And 16 pages is a lot for most people to read at a sitting at the keyboard. (Not talking about data junkies like myself here.)

Load the front page of freerepublic. 93.17 KB (95405 bytes) when I did.

Load a few articles.

New article with only a couple of comments: 7.98 KB (8175 bytes)
Article still on front page with a good number of comments: 43.27 KB (44305 bytes)

Here is an analysis.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php

Web Page Speed Report
Announcement
This analyzer is now available at WebPageAnalyzer.com for your convenience.

Learn how to Speed Up Your Site.


URL: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse
Title: Free Republic | latest articles
Date: Report run on Sun Oct 2 01:43:20EDT2005

Diagnosis
Global Statistics
Total HTTP Requests: 1
Total Size: 95031 bytes

Object Size Totals
Object type Size (bytes)
HTML: 95031
HTML Images: 0
CSS Images: 0
Total Images: 0
illegal code 0
CSS: 0
Multimedia: 0
Other: 0

External Objects
External Object QTY
Total HTML: 1
Total HTML Images: 0
Total CSS Images: 0
Total Images: 0
Total Scripts: 0
Total CSS imports: 0
Total Frames: 0
Total Iframes: 0

Download Times*
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 73.65 seconds
28.8K 36.83 seconds
33.6K 31.57 seconds
56K 18.94 seconds
ISDN 128K 5.80 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 0.50 seconds

URL: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1485443/posts
Title: Bush vows 'biggest relief effort'
Date: Report run on Sun Oct 2 01:53:25EDT2005

Diagnosis
Global Statistics
Total HTTP Requests: 2
Total Size: 53905 bytes

Object Size Totals
Object type Size (bytes)
HTML: 45872
HTML Images: 8033
CSS Images: 0
Total Images: 8033
illegal code 0
CSS: 0
Multimedia: 0
Other: 0

External Objects
External Object QTY
Total HTML: 1
Total HTML Images: 1
Total CSS Images: 0
Total Images: 1
Total Scripts: 0
Total CSS imports: 0
Total Frames: 0
Total Iframes: 0

Download Times*
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 41.78 seconds
28.8K 20.89 seconds
33.6K 17.91 seconds
56K 10.74 seconds
ISDN 128K 3.29 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 0.29 seconds

*Note that these download times are based on the full connection rate for ISDN and T1 connections. Modem connections (56Kbps or less) are corrected by a packet loss factor of 0.7. All download times include delays due to round-trip latency with an average of 0.2 seconds per object. With 2 total objects for this page, that computes to a total lag time due to latency of 0.4 seconds. Note also that this download time calculation does not take into account delays due to XHTML parsing and rendering.

Page Objects
QTY SIZE# TYPE URL
1 45872 HTML http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1485443/posts
1 8033 IMG
2 ^ 53905* Total (^unique objects)

# This site is not using HTTP compression, otherwise called content encoding using gzip. Consider compressing your textual content (XHTML, JavaScript, etc.) with mod_gzip or similar products.

* CSS alternate stylesheets may be referenced in the HTML but are not actually downloaded until they are needed and are therefore not included in the total page size.

Analysis and Recommendations
TOTAL_HTML - Congratulations, the total number of HTML files on this page (including the main HTML file) is 1 which most browsers can multithread. Minimizing HTTP requests is key for web site optimization.
TOTAL_OBJECTS - Congratulations, the total objects on this page (including the HTML) is 2 which most browsers can multithread. Minimizing HTTP requests is key for web site optimization.
TOTAL_IMAGES - Congratulations, the total number of images on this page is 1 . Most browsers can send multiple requests, which can speed display of multiple images.
TOTAL_SIZE - Caution. The total size of this page is 53905 bytes, which will load in over 8 seconds on a 56Kbps modem - or 10.74 seconds. Consider reducing total page size to less than 30K to achieve sub eight second response times on 56K connections. Be sure to provide feedback for pages over 30K by layering your design to display useful content within the first two seconds. Consider optimizing your site with Speed Up Your Site or contacting us about our optimization services.
HTML_SIZE - Caution. The total size of this HTML file is 45872 bytes, which is above 20K but below 100K. With a 10K ad and a logo this means that your page will load in over 8.6 seconds. Consider optimizing your HTML and eliminating unnecessary features. To give your users feedback, consider layering your page or using positioning to display useful content within the first two seconds.
IMAGES_SIZE - Congratulations, the total size of all your images is 8033 bytes, which is less than 15K. Ideally each image should be less than 1160 bytes, to easily fit into one TCP-IP packet.
MULTIM_SIZE - Congratulations, the total size of all your external multimedia files is 0 bytes, which is less than 4K.

That's 459gb a month. That seems high. I'm not sure if that's right.

16 GB per day.

Not terabytes.

:dunce:

My site, White Rose, does about 80 GB on a slow day.

Robinson's got the stats onsite:

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/weekday-report

They're not up to date, and the cutoff date for each grouping is different, but they're homegrown, not 3rd-party (and presumably not handcranked fiction by Jimbo :)).

they served up +-35 gigs a day.

3500-4000 distinct posters per day.

115-160 signups per day.

Real meat here.

In April 2002 he was transferring about 34 GB a day.

34 * 31 = about 1 Terabyte

WELL within the bandwidth limits of that $300 server.

Heck, you wouldn't even need the 100 Mb optional upgrade.

Assume that has has about doubled now, and he STILL fits into that $300 server's 2 TB limit.

And if he went over... ADD a second server and do DNS load splittng! $600 a month is still a far cry from the $24000 he wants to fleece those poor sheeple for!!!

Those are usually not there.

I was estimating, and feel free to revise the estimates based on the above.

I think the point still stands, though, they no way need a quarter of a million dollars per year to run that hideously ugly BB system.

over the years. Fact is, Rimjob has his self a nice money making machine that extracts cash from the same droids that mindlessly follow Bush. Being mindless, they will also gladly finance Rimjob's scam.

They had a meltdown a year or two back wherein a large number of members left and formed a splinter site. The whole thing was over just how much money Jim took for himself out of the donations and much pressure was put on him to reveal that info, but he refused. As I recall he had/has a huge RV, the kind rock bands or pro golfers have, and that raised quite a few eyebrows.

Rush has got to cover the bills to all his lawyers, all of his doctors, his household staff to go get the stuff, etc. Not to mention that Rush needs to cover his own stash. $72K/quarter doesn't sound unreasonable when you look at the hidden costs.

stuff than I do. I'm glad this idiot is ripping them off! We can't control what the corps do with their money, but the dumb small fry only have so much money to spend. Let them give it to this nut, and it can't go to swist boaters or any of the other RW places they have.

At that same time reading something like this might make a Republican THINK for the first time in his life.

OK, so it won't.

But I still love basing them with it.

Squeeze them like a sponge until they morph into a turnip.

They site rank at 841
We site rank at 2229

I can't believe it! Isn't site rank the number of hits? How could DU be less than FR?

DU reach per million 180 (reading from the graph)

Times 600 million internet users, that is 108,000 daily hits.

Unique users per million, about 55 (reading from the graph)

Times 600 million internet users is 33,000 unique users per day compared to the 37,200 I computed above for FR.

So, in terms of unique users, not that much difference. They are a little bigger than we are on that score, but the trends show them dropping and DU expanding.

Their rankings mean little I am told. Don't remember the details though so I'm off to my local search engine.

*On Edit*

Yeah I remember now. Alexa doesn't have exact data, they extrapolate the numbers based upon tracking where the people that have their Alexa Toolbar installed visit. Thus, if you don't have the toolbar, you don't get counted. Furthermore FR linked directly to the Alexa Toolbar in an ad for awhile at lease, and may still do so. You'd have to think that'd drive up their numbers a bit.

It is interesting to note that the more tech savvy a surfer is, the less likely they are to have such a toolbar installed. I would bet that there are a few sites directed at very astute computer users that, while they have thousands of hits per day, are nowhere to be seen on Alexa because their users would rather be caught dead than have the thing on their computer. I couldn't have it even if I wanted to since it ONLY works on Internet Explorer, while I use Firefox. That also tends to skew the numbers towards sites frequented by net "noobs" as it were.

Freepers, y'all suck at the internet.

:beer:

And I have no doubt the number per thousand users of Alexa Toolbar users on DU is lower than the same number on FR for the reasons that you cite.

I bet that would be a good example of such a site as you mention. Highly technical geeky audience and also highly popular.

If you believe Alexa, FR is only 30% more popular than Free Republic, which you KNOW ain't true.

Yup, that can't be remotely true. The worst that comes from a freeping is a skewed poll, but the Slashdot Effect can buckle a server from hours to days.

Did you mean to say that slashdot is only 30% more popular than Free Republic?

Good catch. Beyond the editing period, sadly.

They have been around a lot longer than DU (which came to be with the installation of the misadministration after the Supremo's coup.)

there are more stupid people than smart ones. ;)

It should be easy to verify by visual inspection if Maison Robinson is beyond his apparent needs, all somebody needs to do is drive by and snap a pic.

$300 month for bandwidth alone? Who pays for the servers? How do you assume a site that big, that has been around as long as they have (at least 6 years) fits on two 80 gig drives? Also, have you ever heard of redundancy? I doubt they are running with no backup.

Please tell me where I can get a "100mbit line" for $300 month. Besides the fact that there is no such thing as a 100mbit line, you're numbers don't add up. 2 T3's would cost $7k on the cheap end for a month. An OC3 which is 155Mb would cost way more than that. Get me the info, I would love to sign my company up.

http://www.serverbeach.com/catalog/index.php?REF=NFAAKPUPAQ

Check it out.

100 Mb into their internal network. LOTS of bandwidth outbound from there. 2000 GB of monthly transfer. (10 Mb is standard, 100Mb is an option - You can also buy 10 Mb unlimited bandwidth for a reasonable sum.)

If you do decide to buy, use the above link and I'll get a kickback (and so will your company)

And yes, redundancy is nice, but if you can tolerate some downtime, as a BB system can, you can slide past on it.

Full redundancy is only double that $300, in any case.

80 GB is a LOT of room for text postings, even a library of text postings going back years.

{ELAD? Are you reading this? Am I far off?}

All of White Rose's AUDIO since 2002 fits on a 100 GB disk. And that is average of 12 hours of audio a day over that time.

anything else is being served from his servers? And what that might be?

Back when I worked downtown, we used to get 100mb Ethernet internet service over fiber from http://www.cogentco.com/htdocs/index.php for about $1000 a month, no bandwidth metering. Go with a co-lo and there is even more available. OC48 local loops, OC192 backbones really help! :) :) :)

But, what the heck! The more they piss away on Freak Republic, the less they have to buy air time!

i thank skinner for providing this site, and i feel i am just paying a cable bill or any other monthly entertainment expense.

just saying

But the topic was how FR users get fleeced... ;)

.

Non-thinking, easy to persuade the earth is flat, & would like to believe they're part of an elite club.

.. at bigotry, ignorance and spreading religious and racial hatred.

:hi:

televangelist, it's all the same, and all a waste.

Laughing my ass off...poor dumb Freeps.

They must secretly love taking it in the ass because Dumbya has been givin' it to 'em good for a while now.

You always make me laugh!

Who wants to suicide-post this link over at Freeperland?

com'on I get my site up and running for 90 round numbers, for six months...

Ok, ok I don't need his bandwith but worst case we are looking at ... yuo nailed it 300, worst case 350 at least with my service provider... WOW

Oh and gladly will nominted this for the fifth time

I agree with you to a point Ben. But don't over look the fact that a site like that (and DU likewise) should pay one or two people with technical experience to tune the server (SQL repairs/optimisations), make content decisions, edit the front page, etc.

I am not trying to defend Jimbob - he's a Repuke of the absolute lowest order - but there's more to operational costs then just renting a dedicated server. He may be running his own for all we know - and paying nothing, not even the $300.

DU has three staff running the site and I would hope they earn a good living from it - because they certainly deserve it.

Even White Rose has to pay a staff. I make a munificent salary of $500 a week (before taxes) and as you can see by my posting time here, I am often working in the middle of the bloody night making things work!

But I cannot for the life of me see what there is about RimJob's Whorehouse that takes more than two paid staff. So there we have $30,000 of the $72,000. I'll be charitable and assume that it really does cost him another $3000 to pay for bandwidth and colo.

That leaves $39,000 just this quarter of pure profit.

And remember! This $72,000 is OVER and ABOVE the amount they take in from regular monthly dues-payers! Which amount appears to be another $70,000 or so!!!

anyone on the payroll other than himself and his son. Jimbo's making out, no doubt about it. $72,000 quarterly, interim donations, Freerepublic schwag sales, consulting jobs... there's plenty of money in that woebegone website.

((((((((((((((((Ben and his math ability)))))))))))))))

I hear RimJob likes his Pizzas with Pineapple and Anchovies. No Pepperoni.

There really are some compulsions that beg to be forgiven.

:hug:

:pals:

.

That dinosaur of a web-site has not been updated or modernized in 8 years.

$72,000 per quarter!? For What?

I think it's fair for the Freeps to ask for an accounting. I just wonder why Rimjob refuses.

Even if FR spends $1,000 a month on bandwidth, and another $2,000 on legal fees and other expenses, he's still making $252,000. Does anyone know how many paid staff work at FR? I'd sure as hell like to make a quarter of a million dollars doing NOTHING.

..."Have the membership statistics been Freeped?"

http://clownposse.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5065

It make a compelling case that Jim Robinson and company have deliberately inflated membership stats and have been building Free Republic by lying about it's size, scope and influence.

It is a very lovingly done thread with a great deal of attention to detail. They have it stick to the top of the forum's flow at Clown Posse.

It is a must read.

who have not drunk the Koolaide.

They really seem to have a hate on for FR.

I would be happy to give them the ammunition.

but it is a fact that the Clown Posse people are good little repukes, and are firm apologists for the disgusting */Cheney regime.

Their photoshops of what I presume to be the leader of FR are pretty freakin funny, though. Check some of the other threads.

In spite of that, the Clown Posse people are still the rankest form of repukelican pigs and apologists for Chimp/Cheney.

But if they woke up about one ripoff, they might actually wake up about another.

Or I can hope so.

The only way I could think of to turn them away from * would be to convince them that he and Cheney were not good for the state of Israel.

I want to emphasize that I do not equate the state of Israel with Jewish people in general, especially American Jewish people.

I actually was on that board for a spell when I got an invite from r-u-n-n o-f-t after I taunted him how it would be nice to be able to defend myself when they tried to nuke me several times.

But alas, I called Boy George a war criminal and was menaced at by the newest moderator so naturally I had to joyously disregard her words. If they had been nice, I would have been a good guest and done as she asked.

But never, never, ever give in to a neo-con's militant demand. That only puts you at a disadvantage with them, and all they do is start looking down on you as if they were a dog that got you to roll over and bare your belly to their teeth.

I recommend them for an entertaining lurk. But be careful, they are far more formidable a group then FReepers will ever be.

on the kOokiness of the FReeper mentality. They have a small sign-up, but as far as talent goes, they bring allot of bang for the buck.

True, the majority of Clown Posse dinizens are conservative or even Neo-Con. But they loath the con that Jim Robber runs in Fresno, California.

Bless their evil little hearts.

Were RimJob asking for a reasonable amount, I'd never have posted this.

Mind you, I would have found something else to flay them for, but not this.

Hi Ferret, how's it going. I know you from LP. It's great to see you here!

disgruntled exfreeps?

Very interesting post/thread. Very interesting indeed.

but the gentleman who owns this form:http://www.wethepeopleforum.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=8 helped them get established where they are online now.

No Name does Anti Kooking too, but they aren't the merciless pirates Clownposse can be. Jim Rob has underestimated the tenacity and resolve of many of the people he has banned.

They are staging competition for the market Free Republic serves, and they could easily produce a far more toxic product then Jim Robber does - without the outright con job thievery we see going with the current Snookerthon now underway.

The more conventional exile forum is http://libertypost.org. It is an open forum where you are not banned outright for not sipping on the kool-aid and can speak your mind.

It always has been a favorite target of FReeper 'Flying Monkey' attacks in the days TLBSHOW and others turned the Biker Bar into a scathing anti-FReeper Blog.

It has the same pinging protocols as Free Republic and the software is owned by Neil McIver who used to co run it with the current owner who prefers not to openly identify herself with her real name and goes by Goldi-Lox.

She doesn't get greedy for a profit like JR does and is civil but does have the habit of giving "time outs" if she wants a break from having to listen to opinions she feels is too far to the left.

The growing post Jim Rob world should not be ignored and anyone keeping an eye on Free Republic should pay attention to new forums that are determined not to repeat the mistakes that have diminished the Free Republic.

Some pretty sharp folks were banned for being too independent minded, and the dumbing down of the FReeper herd reducing the number of articulate writers and thinkers eliminating the institutional memory they represent is one of Jim Robinson's largest self inflicted wounds.

this hate-mongering thing could really pay off!

https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/budget

Est. Recurring Monthly Contributions $10,876.00

Monthly Expenses
Bandwidth and Colocation $2,700
System Administation and Programming 4,000
Administrative and Taxes 9,500
Legal and Accounting 1,000
Bank Fees, Credit Card Fees, Processing Fees 800
Equip, Maintenance and Repairs 300
Office Expenses, Rents, Insurance, Telephone, ISP, Supplies, Misc. 2,500
Travel Expenses 800

Est. Monthly Shortfall ($10,724.00)

$4,000 for system administration and programming? Isn't Jim Rob the programmer?
If they're paying $1000 a month for accounting they're getting ripped off.

they are sheep.

the books! Just like Tom Delay's wife and daughter get.

:sarcasm:

Because they are now back to bashing the messenger!

They have hauled out the Trolls about my kinky sex life and my sexworker's rights activism!

Which, of course, they were not smart enough to find on their own, but had to rely on my homophobic "liberal" cyberstalker to unearth for them. (Really, they could have just asked! My cyberstalker thinks he is clever about outing me for things I have been out about for decades!)

To them; "Yep! I am kinky as hell and I work for the rights of Prostitutes! Get used to it, losers!"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

so lurking freepers could be enlighted to rimjob.

I think a pin would be superfluous.

your right.

estimate, the guy running FR is still pocketing money. It's apparent he's asking Freepers to pay him a salary.

But I think your estimate rings true. FR is even using simpler software than DU... FR looks like a bunch of plain text in comparison. I can't imagine that they would need much bandwidth to cover that.

My site pays me a very modest salary. DU pays Skinner, EarlG, and Elad. And should.

But obviously RimJob's salary is FAR more than modest.

I'm sure he uses every tax weasel in the book, but I'm sure he does pay and I'm sure does file a colorable tax return.

to buy his family some really nice gifts using those idiots money.

When the housing bubble pops, he probably wants to have ready cash to buy up the foreclosed homes of his sheeple enablers.

Based on the actual statistics somebody posted above it looks like my estimate of the total traffic transferred today was VERY close to the actual numbers.

From the trends in the Alexa results, FR's traffic has gone up since 2002, the last date they were honest enough to publish their numbers, and seems to have peaked at 4X the 2002 levels around election time last year, and to have declined significantly recently;

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=379&h=216&r=5y&y=r&u=freerepublic.com/&u=

This modifies my cost estimate, doubling it to $600, or if you are charitable to $900 per month.

How much does DU collect and what is the breakdown of those monies?

If someone could post a link that would be great especially for people lurking from that other site. }(

And I cannot argue that it shouldn't be! But DU are not the ones posting a bogus budget in hopes of justifying fundraising! Nor are they the ones who claim $4000 a month for "programming" when nothing has been done along those lines in years! (I think we can all see the regular and significant improvement's in DU's features!)

But from comments made by the Admins, we know that the site takes in about $25,000 per quarterly fund drive, from which three employees are paid.

A far cry from $72,000 a quarter and two employees...

Welcome to DU! :hi:

$300 a month is ridiculously low. No way can you run a reliable large site on $300 a month. The bandwidth alone will cost many times that far more than that. (Im talking about dedicated bandwidth vs port bandwidth)

On the other and $24k a month is pretty damn high.

If you built a custom, self hosted site, dual oc3s feeds with full BGP tables with the corresponding dual high end routers (i.e. 150k)to process it, and then multiple high end servers, you could proably spend that much (depending on how long you spread out the high capital costs)

But I don't see that is the case, and even if it were, theres better ways to get the *dedicated* bandwidth (as opposed to *port* bandwidth which is dirt cheap), by working with a hosting company, instead of building your own custome solution.

Personally, I estimate about $12k a month in real expenses, and $12k a month is personal profit.

And I absolutely move 80-120 GB of data per day, including live streaming that presently peaks out at about 500 users for three hours in the middle of the day. So, I am getting close to the advertised port bandwidth.

I look at it sort of the way I look at @mw*y -- and I work with some of the fundy-bots who are tied into this scam through their church, and truly believe this M L M scam will make them rich if they only buy next month's motivational tape... but I digress. I figure if they are spending their money on that (be it @mw*y or FR) then they can't donate it to a candidate, or whatever more socially negative use they could put it to.

Thats not the "why" of this.

This is only here because I love pissing off Freeptards and Pretend Liberals.

Thanks for posting this. This is the MO of most RWingers. It shows why they are Hell bent upon privatizing everything. It makes it easier for them to steal.

for the freeps

gotta it.

Websites do not grow on trees. A high-traffic website like FR wouldn't *ever* run on the system you are proposing. Trust me, I know. To be honest, I think the folks over on FR are getting a pretty good deal.