MangaDex Two Year Anniversary

[Niisama]

I'm not completely against ads as long as it's moderated properly, though I read using Tachiyomi frequently so it's probably pointless. I'm willing to donate via crypto too, but I don't have any experience with that so a guide would be appreciated.

Besides that, what about selling more stuff at the shop? Too much of a PITA?

 

[kevinmul]

Once more... why don't you make an agreement with someone to sell your logo as merchandises.

 

[Kitsunebi]

Congratulations! I know you guys started out to fill Batoto's shoes, but you've done so much more than that. Looking forward to all the things you'll bring with the new update ♡

 

[iniidahero]

in agreement with @giosann
im willing to donate using cryptocurrency if i can find info on how to convert lol but its reasonable to think not everyone will so if you have to implement a number of ads to ensure financial security on top of donations and willing patrons purchasing servers, i think its a good move

 

[realcaze]

Nah I don't care if I see ads as long as it doesn't change my reading experience

 

[bosswoman]

I proud to be a member of mangadex. Keep up the great work guys and girls.

 

[BoringTea]

As a broke person the only way I can help is probably with ads

Now I know people will disagree with ads, so I think getting a toggle to enable or disable ads would be great, so for people who wants to help with another way can have an option to not see it

 

[beanbug]

How would we know that the ads will be nonobstrusive? Asking because I'm part of another site that uses an ad network that tries to implement nonobtrusive ads. Key word is tries--every other week there's some site-wide ad that automatically redirects you to a scam website or plays java or what have you. I'd only be in favor of ads if it was guaranteed nothing bad slipped through, and if MD was extremely open with how much it's making and what its operating costs are.

Somebody early on mentioned AO3, which is a fanfiction website. I highly doubt that they'd do some sort of co-sponsorship thing, but their business model is worth looking into. They're entirely funded via donations, with no ads, and their annual operating costs are something to the tune of $350k a year---and they regularly raise more than that just by putting a small banner at the top of their pages for 2 weeks out of the year saying that they have a donation drive going on.

 

[beperov]

I think you guys should see other Patreon-like options before using ads.

 

[Searia]

I believe a lot of us are not against the idea of ADs due to how trusting we are with MD in general.
Donations--whether they're crypto or server--aren't something I can do right now, it's fair to say that most of us can't commit to regular donations.

If I had kept my high $$ salary job, I would've definitely been down for that.
From the way the polls are looking, I'd say server donations look to be the best option.

I mean.. "($50-$90/mo) for MangaDex to use (Note: MD only needs 7 servers)" and "(575 votes, 9.3%)" so there looks to be quite a few people ready to commit.
Though the percentile is low in comparison to the 6,178‬ current votes and the fact that MD has 11 million visitors per month, it's still viable as long as people noted it was per month and not a one time donation.

So even though I cannot contribute to that option, I'd go with server donations and a badge or some special title notation for the whales who will keep us leeches all afloat.

I feel that keeping a nest egg by having non-intrusive ads limited to the front-page would be good--have the ads be mandatory for guests, and allow users the choice of opting in/out.

Affiliate sponsorship would be amazing, I honestly think that combined with the two aforementioned options would be fine.
There's no need to limit and cut it down to any single poll option.

Have you thought more about going "legit" yet?
Because with the amount of small authors, I feel that there's a lot that could be gained.
If we did all three options and there was a surplus amount, that profit could go directly towards small authors.

For example, authors strictly bound by their mother-tongue, if translation groups were willing to partner up with them and for them to partner up with MD--could MD not provide a small amount of revenue based on the amount of views/follows?
It would be very similar in practice to Web-coughyeahIknow-Toons and Web-cough-Toons Translate.

I'm unsure how that would fly with authors partnered online specifically already, I feel this would be an issue with those who used to specifically upload to KR.Toons.
The Daum accounts and rigorous registration already make me feel like there are policies in place that make authors and their works exclusive.

idk, those are my thoughts.
kkthx.

 

[sttv]

"($ 50- $ 90 / mo) for MangaDex"

This is really a lot to me. But I would not mind sometimes donating a bit or having ads.

 

[littleoni]

I will sound radical, but here I come:
If there are any ads, in any form, I'm out of here. There are many reasons for this: No matter if they are intrusive or not, they generate traffic to url's known to trackers, so browsing MD at work becomes a no-go. It may not be a lot, but the traffic generated by the ad request and the ad itself is an aditional data transfer weight that I just don't have to handle. The script needed to load the ads and to track them is aditional load time, maybe insignificant, that I don't need (and this load time increase will be felt with each reload, I know, cache and stuff, doesn't matter). It's against my principles: I'm willing to pay for a job well done, and for a service served well; I'm not willing to accept a worse service just because I didn't pay for it. And it's bad for you guys from a legal perspective aswell: as long as you operate on a donation basis, no one can actually bring you to court over copyright issues if you heed their cease and dessist letter becuase you are not making money on someone's IP; you getting paid is not directly related to you offering someone's IP. Now if you run ads, even if you justify it as being not for profit but for self sustain, the money you make is directly related to the amount of people that have consumed a product you don't have rights over. And also, from a reader's perspective, you would just become another aggregator.
I may be misjudging the comunity by a lot. But if you only need about $1000 a month to run I don't see how a donation system would not suffice. You can set it up with Paypal, Patreon, SubscribeStar, there are a lot of middlemen that could help. And even if you opt not to go for a middleman and talk it out with your bank you could probably make something work. From a taxing perspective it may, or may not be a pain, I don't know how it works over there.

 

[eli]

Very much do not feel comfortable seeing ads on a site hosting scanlations, or having my releases be on a site like that, really. Even if they're opt-in or whatever. @littleoni's comment right above mine makes some good points regarding this, too.

A progress bar showing the status of a monthly donation goal (for server and/or crypto donations) would be nice, as some others have mentioned. This is how a lot of private trackers operate as well where they need to break even to host their service. I guess the affiliate route would also be good, if possible?

 

[AcceptableDiner]

Compared to the huge amount of volumes I read per month, $90 is a low price I'm willing to pay for. I'm for server donating all the way.

 

[moderateTrouble]

I really enjoy mangadex and am glad you guys are growing to the point where long-term sustainability is something that needs to be seriously considered. I'm not in a financial position to donate myself, otherwise I'd choose that as an option.

My big concern with ads is curating them. I wouldn't be wholly against ads on the site if there was some sort of transparency/community input as to what's advertised. I don't know enough about online advertisements to know if this would be feasible, to be honest. But my (and I think many other people's) concern is that the site may end up with junky, spammy, or malicious ads depending on what kind of ad sponsor is chosen. The fact that I don't have to worry about shit that might muck up my computer on MD is a huge part of what makes MD appealing to me and the handful of friends who I know also use it.

I'd also be concerned about planning long-term with advertiser support, which is why I think community input would be really great. Having a place for the community to give feedback on the advertisements shown could help mitigate some of the frustrations that come with introducing advertisements on the site. I could see a worst-case scenario where an ad sponsor accidentally displays a shitty/malicious ad (I think I remember this happening once to the video game website Giant Bomb), or an ad partner goes bust and MD has to find a quick replacement that could result in lower-quality ads. Knowing that the MD team has a plan for how to implement Ads could help reduce the apprehension towards them.

Sorry if this is rambling. Still working through my first cup of coffee. Again, I know practically nothing about hosting ads so I apologize if any of the suggestions I've presented are not feasible or an issue. But above all, congrats on 2 years of MD!

 

[Shin_968]

Lol I just did some calculations and realize this:
The cost of the site is 565$/month ~ 7000$/year
Suppose all users donated just 1$ each (and there're more than 760k users), ceteris paribus, we'd have enough to sustain the site for more than 100 years with just that one-time donation!
It's like you give up a meal but get to read manga without ads for laifu. How about that?

 

[dankdevice]

for real though, if it comes down to it i will put cold hard cash in a damn envelope and mail it to holo

 

[FireWyvern98]

Put ad below miku, I'll click it regularly to support MD! 😊

 

[Heck493]

I don't use CryptoCurrency and i have no interest of going through the hoops and bullshit to use it, so for me donations are completely off the table if it's not through paypal, patreon or other such services.

But non-intrusive AD's seem fine to me or possibly even a membership option for a couple $ a month for no AD's.

 

[Rygdar]

All the people saying they leave when ads, even non intrusive ones, become a thing, are you forgetting that MD is the first manga aggregate that has no ads?
Back in the day OneManga and the old Batoto also had ads, and things were fine. You guys got spoiled way too much by MD.

I myself would of course prefer that enough people are willing to commit to donations once a an easy to follow guide is made, and to not have ads. But if ads are the only way to keep the site alive, so be it.