Bandwidth Blues

[Club 33]

I've begun to notice a trend among sites - Disney sites, naturally, since they make up the bulk of the websites I visit - bandwidth problems.

1313 Harbor Blvd, which has been the discussion of a few threads, has been heavily effected by bandwidth issues. After major bandwidth issues, they were forced to remove muchof their great content, over 10 gigabytes worth.

The Disney Experience, which has grown in popularity imensly over the past year, is also facing a bandwidth crunch.

The Disneyland Source, which outright closed a few years ago due to bandwidth requirements. Has now been reencarnated as Visions Fantastic- though you must register in order to view most of their content.

Ideed, even this site, MiceChat, has exceeded its bandwidth a few times, which isn't suprising due to the thousands of visitors it gets. (Back in July, Monorail Man told me they were using between 50-60 gigs of bandwidth monthly; I'm sure thats increased quite a bit even since then.

So, the question becomes, whats the solution? Bandwidth is expensive, and all of these sites rely on donations and advertising to try and make ends meet. However, the content they offer becomes a bandwidth problem once they start getting popular. So, do they sacrifice their content to meet their limitations, or continue to buy more and more bandwidth.

It seems to me that there's some business opportunity here- high bandwidth sites in need of affordable hosting and/or dedicated servers.

Any ideas, thoughts, comments anyone? I would encourage you, by the way, to give those banner advertisements at the top of the MiceChat page a click every day or so- it helps this site and lets you donate your money to other needy causes such as the Red Cross.

[Hakuna Makarla]

I know mouseplanet charges for the use of avatars, 10.00 and its for a 1 year use. how about a donations box some where here where we could donate some cash thru paypal. ? I all for adding more bandwidth, this place rocks!!!

[Monorail Man]

Ads like Google ads are a total win-win situation for not only us, but for you, the members. Their not annoying (such as pop-ups), and it's easy to give us a few clicks, and (over a few days) a few bucks.

I despise the idea of 'subscriptions', and other gimmicks to make you pay. All they do is create 'classes' of users, and new users, who don't want to shell out money end up getting shunned out for not putting up their cash.

MiceChat is about having fun, and having a place where people can feel welcome. Not a venture to make money.

Just a few years ago, storage used to be expensive. However, now hard drives are cheap, and now with so many people on broadband, bandwidth is becoming an issue.

And there is a PayPal box, it's at the bottom of every page.

[SCUBAbe]

Originally Posted by Club 33

So, the question becomes, whats the solution? Bandwidth is expensive, and all of these sites rely on donations and advertising to try and make ends meet. However, the content they offer becomes a bandwidth problem once they start getting popular. So, do they sacrifice their content to meet their limitations, or continue to buy more and more bandwidth.

hmmmm I know 60gig of bandwidth is about $286.00 per year on my server. . Do they get money for having ads. on the site or just for the clicks? I know I have clicked on sephora a few times...LOL

[MiceMan]

Originally Posted by hakuna makarla

I know mouseplanet charges for the use of avatars, 10.00 and its for a 1 year use. how about a donations box some where here where we could donate some cash thru paypal. ? I all for adding more bandwidth, this place rocks!!!

There is a donation box at the very bottom of the page for the Amazon Honor system ... I have donated a few times and I think it is a VERY worthy cause!!!

[SCUBAbe]

Originally Posted by hakuna makarla

I know mouseplanet charges for the use of avatars, 10.00 and its for a 1 year use. how about a donations box some where here where we could donate some cash thru paypal. ? I all for adding more bandwidth, this place rocks!!!

I paid $20.00 on mp...I'm not sure what i got for that though....I guess ad free, but it already was ad free for me...*shrug*

[Club 33]

Originally Posted by Monorail Man

Ads like Google ads are a total win-win situation for not only us, but for you, the members. Their not annoying (such as pop-ups), and it's easy to give us a few clicks, and (over a few days) a few bucks.

I despise the idea of 'subscriptions', and other gimmicks to make you pay. All they do is create 'classes' of users, and new users, who don't want to shell out money end up getting shunned out for not putting up their cash.

MiceChat is about having fun, and having a place where people can feel welcome. Not a venture to make money.

Just a few years ago, storage used to be expensive. However, now hard drives are cheap, and now with so many people on broadband, bandwidth is becoming an issue.

And there is a PayPal box, it's at the bottom of every page.

Hear hear!

Buying from the MiceChat store is also a good way to earn money for MiceChat buy the way.

[Monorail Man]

Yes, and we love the donations.

You go out and pay $5-10 for a movie in a theater, and you get maybe 2 1/2 hours of entertainment. Click the boxes, and ads, and you get a very cheap entertainment for not much money at all (considering that most members spend several hours here a week).

Also, when you buy from the store, you get stuff too.

[Hakuna Makarla]

I will for sure be buying some things on micechat, also I agree with your thoughts on subscriptions, so tacky! Thank you I wanted to say that
I despise the idea of 'subscriptions', and other gimmicks to make you pay. All they do is create 'classes' of users, and new users, who don't want to shell out money end up getting shunned out for not putting up their cash.

well put!!! thank you

[Hakuna Makarla]

Originally Posted by SCUBAbe

I paid $20.00 on mp...I'm not sure what i got for that though....I guess ad free, but it already was ad free for me...*shrug*

Same here, I paid and I already had spam blocker and add blocker in my windows xp.

[Hakuna Makarla]

I have not used Amazon to pay befoe, can we do this thru Paypal? so much better for me

[Monorail Man]

Yes! Paypal is accepted. The button is to the right of the Amazon banner. If your Ad Blocker is blocking it (I sure hope not!), then here's a Link.

[figment1986]

wow... I sometimes forget how bad it can be...(I'm a small band site.. I am thinking of hosting half my stuff on since i pay for it and i never use all the bandwith anyway.. LOL)

clicky.. clicky...

[Club 33]

LET US ALL PREY TO THE BANDWIDTH BUDDA!!!

Er, I think I need to get more sleep...

[Monorail Man]

This graph says it all:


See those spikes? That's on wednesdays.