Steve I don't see the site abruptly going away anytime soon. My wife has her hobbies and I have mine. Her hobbies cost a lot more than mine and this is my hobby, so I can't see her taking that away from me, especially when she uses the servers resources for her hobbies as well.
I have been quiet because I have had way too much going on in the background. With my mom passing away a few months ago it has required me to start interfacing and helping out my step dad. Before my mom died we have never really interfaced before other than saying hello when we visited for the holidays. Now with my mom gone he is totally lost and I have found myself in having to help him with everything, I am trying to work with him as like my mom he has no will. And he has no other family they are all gone... I am it. I am trying to help him through the probate issues with my moms stuff which has been fun since I knew nothing about probate. I forced him to get, carry and keep charged a cell phone so if something happens to him and he falls or has an emergency he can call for help, or I can track to where he is. He was a doctor for 40+ years and never carried a cell phone... hated them. Only carried a beeper. And I am trying to get his stuff in order for when something does happen to him. This is a new responsibility for me that I didn't want or ask for, but for my mom I am doing it with him. In addition he is now talking about moving down south and if he wants to do it we need to figure out how to clear out his estate. He said he wanted to have a tag sale... and I almost killed him when he said that. Him and my mom were personal friends with Thomas Kincade and their house is full of his art. Some of it original never released. Some of it he modified and added things to when he stopped by the house. I need to find him someone that can get rid of those for him at a fair price. He is in his mid 70's now... and I feel like I am working with a 12 year old kid at times. This has taken a lot of time away from here.
Financially the past 2 months has been a bear, and we spent all our cash reserves we had, as you may have seen in the Pub Members area. Our hearing and cooling system went and that cost me over $16 grand in cash. (If I didn't pay in cash the cost went up greatly.) Then we had the issue with one of the dogs that ultimately cost us $8,000. When we first took her to the vet we didn't want to spend that much, and the first cost was only $2000. then other visits and surgery got us up there. But now she is a heathy happy part of our family again. For us now our dogs are our kids.
To make matters worse when my mom passed away my step dad spent all his savings on her funeral, plot etc... He was upset that he had no money for her headstone so Eva and I offered to pay for it. Of course with all that happened with trying to get heat and with the dog our free cash is gone. We saved it for a rainy day and were hit with a monsoon. (And I forgot to mention here for some of the costs above I had to borrow from my 401k to get some of the cash.) I can not take out another loan from my 401k until this one is paid off. I have a year of payments. I am trying to figure out ways of paying it back early so I can borrow again and get my mom her headstone.
Remember I DO NOT get paid for this site. While there was a time I did make money on the site, we have made money in many... many years. I love this technology, and I love many of you guys who I have interfaced with over the years. Many of you I have met while many of you I haven't yet many of you feel more like family then you know. This place is a place me to come and learn, teach, and relax at. I enjoy it.
Then we have guys like Claude who keep threatening to sue us because we banned him many years ago. (While the moron forgets he banned me from DishRetailer years ago so shouldn't I be able to sue him using his logic?) My lawyer keeps waiting for his baseless lawsuit so he could go after him and sue him for all kinds of things. Claude forgets I work at a law firm, and for my attorneys here this would be a fun game for them that they would enjoy taking on. Honestly I don't have a problem with Claude we at one time were almost like brothers. He had his issues and falling out with DISH and because of that I had to separate myself and this site from him. I have not taken a side if he was right or wrong or if DISH was right or wrong with what happened to him, but I had to look out for the best interests of this site. I find it amazing and am humbled that there is a great deal of trust, so much so that this site hosts the beta testing forums for both DISH and DIRECTV. I know Claude has had some major health issues and his dad just passed. I wish him nothing but the best.
Ok now on to advertising...
Since we have been with Advally we have made $93.57, however we have NOT been paid by them. Since we discontinued the other ad networks all revenue has also stopped coming in. This is a problem. However part of the problem is mine, as I didn't upload a W9 form to them, which I just did.. so now they can pay me. Over the past few days revenue from them has been going up... which is a positive. Of course up means we are earning about $3 a day. But thats better than the $1.20 we were getting.
I have lots of ideas in my head and still haven't pulled the trigger on any of them.
One is to go ad free. And see if we can get a sponsor of at least $250 a month. That amount may or may not cover all the costs each month, but I think I could manage that. If we did it it would be something like "SatelliteGuys is brought to you ad free in December by..." and have a link to that company or person on each page. I would even consider giving them own forum here to advertise their specials in.
To be 100% honest, I have wanted to go ad free and pay all the costs myself... however the wife is against that. And with the issues at the moment don't have the spare money.
Another idea is having a monthly pledge drive. I can get software, showing our goal and how much we have taken in and show all the donors (they can be anonymous if they want) a few of you have messaged me in the past telling me you have the money and would help out... my problem is I DON'T LIKE ASKING.
So there are ways we can do it.
Now on to points by Bruce, he is not wrong in what he says. Yes Satellite is dying although I do see it stabilizing as people are learning that IPTV is just like cable or satellite and in some cases worse. And many are seeing that Satellite is more stable and easier to watch on and offers more features.
But I know SatelliteGuys is a bad name... and I have wanted to change it but in changing it it causes issue with the site and its plugins as they are registered to SatelliteGuys... some plugin authors let you change that registered domain no problem. Others wont let you change it and make you buy it again and the worst thing (and the thing that will hurt this site most) is many of the add ons are not available anymore. So if we change our name many of our features may not work. I am still not sure what to do here.
Now with that said I have a bunch of new forum ideas to expand discussions here, I have a list of them at home. I just haven't had the time to put them in.
I have said it before but will say it again, we have lots of power here. We have the software, we have this amazing server which is faster than any other forum I visit. We have great people here who enjoy the site many who have been here since day one. We just need ideas on how to harness and expand things to get people here. I believe people are getting sick of Facebook and Reddit and for many of you guys this is home and we are always here. With all we go... lets use it which is why I have been asking for ideas using what we have.
As I said I don't get paid for this. I have thought about doing what Leo Laporte did years ago and setup a fund for users to donate to me so I get paid. And then I thought against that as I will admit... I am selfish... I run this place as much for me as I do you guys.
I have always been honest with you guys and I wear my heart on my sleave. So I hope you accept everything I said above to explain what's going on and why. Real life sometimes sucks... I have always told myself, I don't want to grow up, I wanna be a Toy's R Us kid... and that feeling still holds true.
Thanks for being here guys.
) and new threads for upcoming EVs, charging / chargers, etc shunted elsewhere.
).
" — Kids these days…
