Ernest recently posted a site update, which included this note:

When Kbin suddenly gained popularity, the project’s maintenance costs far exceeded my initial estimates. While community support still allows for the cluster’s maintenance, I also need to take care of my own livelihood and commitments.

You may not know (or may have forgotten) that you can directly support kbin and Ernest financially via the following:

As he wrote back in July:

Many of you asked me about the possibility of recurring support. I wasn’t entirely convinced, especially since the current account balance should maintain the instance. However, I think it would be irresponsible of me not to consider it. /kbin has grown to a level where I can’t foresee everything that will happen. It would be great if we could cover monthly costs with Patreon / Liberapay. All funds from Buy Me a Coffee will be transferred to this pool, but from now on, I’ll treat it as buying me a coffee… or a beer… literally ;)

It would be nice if he got a few more messages like this: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kbin/c/6876421

edit: fixed typo

  • tea@artemis.camp
    17·
    1 year ago

    Just because I was curious which platform takes the smallest cut:

    • Patreon takes 8%, plus payment processing (I assume another 3-5%). Let’s call it 11%.

    • Buy Me a Coffee seems to take 5%, and Stripe takes 2.9%. Basically 8%.

    • Liberapay apparently takes 0% themselves, but 3-5% goes to payment processing through Stripe or Paypal. The site is funded by people who directly support the Liberapay account itself lmao. So 3% puts them in the clear lead.

    I know Patreon is basically a household name at this point, but if you’re open to a bit of change I’d encourage folks to use Liberapay!

    • MHLoppy@fedia.io
      5·
      1 year ago

      Just re: Liberapay’s fees, 2.9% is their recorded average when using Stripe and 4.9% the average when using PayPal. YMMV based on e.g. donation size (where a small donation will have a higher % fee due to the processing fees being a combination of flat and %), currency / country, etc.

      It’s still almost always the lowest-fee option when available, but just wanted to be clear that you can’t just jump in and expect to see ~3% regardless of circumstance.

  • cthonctic@artemis.camp
    4·
    1 year ago

    I did like 7 or 8 coffees for Ernest about two months ago when he was still very much visible and /kbin development felt like it was moving forward with big strides.

    Feels like things have slowed down from the initial breakneck speed into something more “boring” and sustainable since then. But when the API is fully released another round of coffees or two is sure to follow - for Harriette as well when Artemis is usable for kbin.social.

    Edit: I only saw Ernest’s latest update now and appreciate his effort for openness. Here’s hoping his private situation improves quickly and he doesn’t feel like he is letting us (and himself) down somehow. He’s doing good but a small heads up every now and then is much appreciated.