Hi everyone!
Many thanks to everyone that has supported DDNet Premium over the past year or so that it’s been in operation. It has been really, truly heartening to know that some people do value the kind of fiercely independent criticism, analysis, and writing that we do here. We know that you’re not always going to agree with everything we write and/or believe, but it’s truly valuable to us to know we can be controversial in the right manner, and respected for that.
A few months ago we were forced to go through a change of provider for the Premium paywall, which we had used for our more in-depth and and that was a painful process. Asking people to sign up to a different provider was an inconvenience that should never have been expected of people; after all, the whole point of a premium service is to get a better service.
Unfortunately our new provider has also gone the way of the dodo bird, and that leaves us with two options; 1) ask everyone to sign up, yet again, to a premium service when paywall service providers are clearly struggling to keep themselves profitable, or 2) scrap the idea altogether.
For the sake of our readers, we’ve opted to go with option #2. We’ve removed the paywall from all existing content (and if you haven’t read it yet I highly recommend you have a read of my piece about sex with Hatsune Miku. I’m especially proud of that one), and while we’re not going to guarantee that we’ll never go with a paywall again, I can’t see it happening any time for quite some time; at least until a reliable, sustainable paywall provider shows up that we can then provider guarantees on service level to our readers. With things in the industry the way they are now, that’s years down the track, if it ever happens.
This decision is, for obvious reasons, going to cost DDNet a great deal of money. The only revenue that DDNet is earning is again from the very limited advertising and Play-Asia affiliation that we run on the site. The costs of running the site weren’t covered by the money it was bringing in with the paywall, so now there’s a even bigger black hole that the site finds itself in, financially speaking.
If you would like to continue supporting the site, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! I have got a badly neglected Patreon which you can use to invest directly in what I’m doing. A small monthly donation there will help make the world of difference; I plug every big of money I get back into the site, and I’d love to do even more with it.
Otherwise, please do keep reading, and commenting, on the site! We do what we do for you, of course, and we hope to be able to continue doing so for many years into the future.
– Matt S.
Editor-in-Chief
Find me on Twitter: @digitallydownld
