MangaDex Two Year Anniversary

[Hounder]

@pip3 At the rate things are going, marijuana purchases won't be a legal issue within a few more years.

 

[Holo]

Taxes are only an issue if you obtain crypto and then convert it back into fiat, if the crypto has gained value. (only applicable in countries with capital gains tax)

If you acquire crypto and send it off to someone else, you don't incur and tax liabilities.

 

[JulesMFinWinnfield]

If only there were a way to pin the reasons why PayPal, Patreon, etc. aren't viable to the top of the thread. I just waded through 16 pages where a good quarter of each page had people suggesting the very solutions you just said were off the table, no matter who's named as the recipient of the funds. Pretty clear a lot of folks haven't dealt with online transactions before, much less The Law.

Crypto is about the most viable way to donate anonymously, so that's all I can manage (unless someone wants to PM me about funding a server directly for a month or six). I'd hate for ads to come into the picture as I've personally advocated for MD as being far less morally ambiguous than any of the other aggregate sites out there. If that's what's needed to keep me up to date on muh Chinese comics though, then so be it.

Also: love the haters but fuck drama.

 

[RonBWL]

@JulesMFinWinnfield Because saying that would make haters come flying "oh MD's operating illegally they can't afford to let the cops find them". They have no choice but to be vague, given the size of MD nowadays.

 

[e89f0b291121364caf8c6be62b2333c3]

Option 1-3 sounds good. But from what i've seen ads usually bring trouble for website that serve content that isn't legal

 

[Scarlet_Evans]

[deleted]

 

[Scarlet_Evans]

[deleted]

 

[P3n]

@Scarlet_Evans Bank account transfer? Are you serious? How long have you been on the Interweb?

 

[Teasday]

Why not just doxx ourselves and get it over with it

 

[dancingoncrocodiles]

@Scarlet_Evans do u like reddit so much that you added that deleted message yourself?

 

[Stradheil]

Ok, quick question: why not just establish a patreon page so that those who want to donate, but don't want to go through the hassle of cryptocurrency can do just that?


I really appreciate the mangadex staff for all their hard work and the way they help our community as a whole. There's really barely any other place out there where you can read non-lisensed or obscure titles and not be tracked/trojaned/annoyed to oblivion with ads. I personally abhor ads and would rather donate what I can, but if there's no other choice- then there's no other choice.
Mangadex will always be amazing in my eyes for staying true to it's values and keeping things non-profit. The temptation is real, I'm sure.

 

[RonBWL]

@Stradheil Two reason. One, Patreon is infamous for shutting down creator on their own whim and they're heavily into censoring political stuff, so a site that hosts tons of political-themed manga will get shut down very fast. Two, using Patreon / PayPal / ANY convenience payment portal out there requires MD staff to give up their real info, and should any publishers decided to file a lawsuit, it wouldn't be long before they'll be hunted down.

TL,DR: MD heavily in grey legal area so it's impossible to set up a convenience donation box.

 

[Hootanic]

I think most of the public accepts a certain level of advertisement as a way to defray an upfront cost. It's much preferable to some alternatives.

Though maybe Wikipedia style donation drives could be good too.

 

[pip25]

There has been a question earlier in the thread which I did not see an answer to: Instead of requiring servers costing $50-$90 a month, would it be possible to use more servers with less capacity and cost? Not a fraction of the cost of course, but let's say, half as much. $25-$45 per month would be more doable for a lot of people.

 

[e89f0b291121364caf8c6be62b2333c3]

I was thinking for a while & i wonder if there's possibility to share affliate/referral link for product/service that more user people would use (such as VPN, VPS and Amazon referral program)? Also, looks like someone gave decent amount of money through Bitcoin just now.

 

[uym]

Bit late to the party (Happy 2nd Birthday !!! btw)

My personal view is discrete adds for guests and non-paying members, then have a subscription membership level (or levels) for who adds are disabled. I'm on another (non scans/manga/anime) forum where this is done, except there they are not discrete and place too many adds on the site to try and max revenue and force people to pay for a subscription level. With the present attitude of the admins I can't see that happening there so I'm happy with this route if it were to be taken.

As to those who say they would stop coming to the site or give up on scans if adds were to appear - I would expect to see the visitor stats return to the norm within 1-2 months.

 

[kiero13]

I think mangadex is known to be "the free manga site without ads". To resort to using ads will make that image fade and it may have a negative impact with users. It'd be easier if it were thru paypal, patreon or some other site. But I guess with the costs and some laws, being an affiliate or having ads really is the solution.

I don't think the "no ads for donators" will work since a.) We can't even donate thru paypal/patreon. If we can then I guess resorting to ads won't be the solution at all. b.) There are mangas that aren't uploaded here due to licensing and tl groups issues. Most users won't probably pay for something limited. They'll just use adblock.

 

[sUxToBeU]

Whatever gets the rocks off.

 

[ksooreign]

Happy Anniversary, MangaDex! Best site ever! Hope y'all continue to serve us ad-free. God bless everyone.

 

[RonBWL]

@pip25 Two problems. One, cheap servers still need unlimited bandwidth option, and most service only include this with expensive tier. Two, too many servers mean the database will be highly fragmented and greatly reduce performance and reliability.