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05/30/22, 09:06 AM   #1
cyxui
AddOn Author - Click to view addons
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 61
TTC website issues thread

Please post any web site related issues here instead of using the addon section

To answer your question of why I have decided to force ads:

Feels like I need to explain the situation here a bit. So I started TTC 7 years ago, built an addon + website for everyone to use for FREE. I have quit the game for more than 4 years already but I am still maintaining the site using lots of my free time.

The business model is simple. People uses the addon to collect data and the website's ad revenue will keep the whole project going. From day 1 I already knew people are using ad blockers and the percentage is not low. But I wanted to believe in people, I wanted to believe people will help the project they really love so I did not force ads for the past 7 years.

I have tried like 5 different banners to explain the situation and the need for Ad revenue to keep the project alive. But 7 years past and the result was pretty disappointing. Percentage of ad block users went up significantly and the number of people who donated was less than 0.02% of the entire user base.

The donation I have collected over the course of the past 7 years was just barely able to pay for 2 years of the server's cost. If everyone was using adblocker it will mean that I would have paid 5 figures out of my own pocket in additional to all the free time I have spend to maintain and develop this project.

Based on the growth rate of adblock users I will probably have to shutdown the entire project in about 2 years from now. So there are only 2 options before me if I do not want that to happen

1. Force ads on everyone and allow people to sub for ad free content
2. I start selling the data by offering premium(paid) customers access to real time API when a cheap item is made available.

I do not like the level of P2W #2 brings even though it will probably yield me much higher revenue compared to #1

It was a hard decision but something has to be done. Prior to turning the anti-ad block wall on I further reduced the ad load (slider is dragged to about 20% mark) and made the change so that you will never see more than 2 ads on your screen (1 for smaller screen) and there are at most 3 ads per page (2 for small screen). Full page ads are set to about <1% chance of appearing. Regular users shouldn't see the full screen ad more than once per day.

So please. I am not asking for too much. Having some ads on your screen is not the end of world but no ads will be the end of TTC.
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ESOUI » General Discussion » Chit-Chat » TTC website issues thread

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