[littl3chocobo]

unless you are gaia XD then you roll around in cash and the tears of parents all day

[Tohopekaliga]

Actually, given how many users they have, and the infrastructure you need for that...Gaia is likely not especially profitable. That's why they have such absurd cash grabs. They'll lose money big time otherwise.

I mean, I'm sure they make money, and they certainly have enough income to have an actual full time staff, but, yeah.

[littl3chocobo]

with what they sell in a day(that i can see with my own eyes) and with the crazy ads they do i am sure gaia is doing pretty damn well >x>

[Coda]

Gaia is profitable, but only because of sponsorships. The wellspring of user funds dried up years ago and they had to turn to ads and corporate sponsors to get by, and to whale-milking techniques to maximize revenue from the small percentage of users who DO spend a lot of money.

[Ireland]

I don't think people realize how much work it is to keep a site like this going. =/

I have a new found appreciation for you all.

[Coda]

Heh. It's both harder and easier than you might imagine.

The fact that we're still around is a tribute to it being easier than it sounds in some ways -- it's nice to have users who are actually human, because as long as there's a community the site will keep itself going even if it doesn't have enough staffing to keep it going.

On the other hand, creating content is HARD.

People who have watched Galla's stream will have a basic idea, but she's got a lot of experience and doesn't stream the bad parts.

And artwork isn't the only part of the content... getting someone to write code for the site AND stick around for any amount of time AND being willing to work for cheap/free/negative AND have time to do so because they've also got full-time jobs because Trisphee isn't one... it's hard. Toho is the first coder besides me to even TRY to stay active for more than a month after getting the job -- and I got the job in the first place because the ORIGINAL coder bailed out on a half-finished site and didn't even give the passwords to the owner. (I actually had to hack into the site the hard way to recover everything out of it.) And even I'm not innocent there because I haven't had consistent enough free time to get things done for like three years now.

And then there's writers... It's not too terribly hard to find people interested in writing. It's hard to find people who can write in a way that doesn't require heavy editing afterwards. A bad writer can cause a lot of damage. We're lucky to have the ones we have.

[Gallagher]

Coda, I stream a lot of the bad parts.

Like that feeling when you finally have a nice color set picked out to finish off an item, then have to spend 10 minutes saving it and another 40 making previews. I stream that and it's pretty awful.

Or the 5 minutes of making a single-colored common, followed by 20+ minutes uploading it. I stream that, too.

Or the sitting there for 10 minutes going "UGH I'M SO BAD AT ITEM NAMES!". I definitely stream that.

A more recent one, spending 2 hours working on an item only for the pixelist come in and be all, "lol oh yeah did you want this edit that'll make you resave 75% of the poses?" And you know what? YES I WANTED IT BECAUSE IT WAS COOL, DAMN IT! UGH WHAT IS MY LIFE!!

[Coda]

Oh, you do? >.> I... kinda didn't want the uploader to be seen by users. ^^() I mean, there's enough security on the page that I'm not TOO worried, but... y'know. Oh well. Too late now.

Well, then, maybe people have a better idea about how hard it is after all, although you do still have a lot of experience.

[Ireland]

See, I would guess most people don't even stop to think how many people it takes to keep a place like Gaia and Trisphee alive.

I know I didn't give it a second thought before Ernya shut down. =/

Like I mentioned, my appreciation for your hard work has skyrocketed. You guys do a lot...and put up with a lot.

Thank you for all that you do. I hope you hear that more than I think you do. ^^;

[Gallagher]

Whoops. I mean, to be fair though, if someone sneaks control of the uploader and makes perfect item files from their time watching me without clogging the uploader in the process and we magically have a new item in the shops or something... I can't even be mad. That's just impressive.

[Coda]

XD Excellent point!

I'm more worried about being able to clobber existing data. I mean, I THINK I've got enough safeguards in there to keep that from happening (enough that you can't update items yourself) but defense in depth is a thing.

[Ireland]

I'm sure you guys have it all under control. I'm just hoping to continue living here.

*curls up in corner*

[Coda]

It's totally under control. :) I'm just paranoid because it's my job to be paranoid. :P

[Tohopekaliga]

See, I'm the "let's do incredible things!" programmer, Coda's the "Hold on now, that's insane" programmer.

You need both for a system to work, really.

[Gallagher]

I mostly sit around and roll my eyes at both of them while playing with pretty colors and making the site run right now in the present. Not the mysterious future time they like to plan for.

I'm also not a programmer.

[Ireland]

You guys make me laugh. XD


I think I'm going to like it here. ^__^;