Originally posted by Majic
Crass Struggle

Originally posted by iori_komei
I realize that, I'm not saying it's never done any good, I just would like
to see a world with democratic socialism where people work to beter
themselves and humanity, not to get money and buy gaudy jewelery
and flashy cars.

Alas, an idyllic agrarian collectivist utopia is even more impossible to attain on the Internet than in the "real world".

To achieve it requires violently forcing people to be what they are not, which is why it will always remain impossible.

Unfortunately so, well actually, is using global psychology
manipulation an act of force?

This is the first time in a while that I have been absolutely furious after reading through a thread.

Not because of what S.O. said. No. Because of pain in the you-know-what members. We get a million and one things from ATS (literally), and I think FREE is a reasonably small price to pay for all we get. It has absolutely nothing to do with ANYONE how much money the owners of the site makes. Read my lips: NOTHING. Why are you even thinking about how much money S.O., Springer or Simon makes?! Do you want strangers asking you how much money you make in your ventures? I paint for a hobby. It's fun and relaxing. Do I like selling my paintings? Hell yeah! Am I selling out? No. I have expenses. And the supply and demand factor gives me an idea of how good a painter I am. The same scenario applies to the ATS situation. I wish the 3 Amigos would get rich beyond their wildest dreams (in such manner that they can buy majority shares at Microsoft and do a complete makeover to Microsoft. We'd like to see more aliens. )

Anyway... Let's say they announced that from now on we all get paid 1 cent for an ATS post - Would that change the reason why you are at ATS? No. The amount of money is too small to make it worth the effort. You are after all here for the conspiracies and the community, not for the possibility of a pay.

OK. Enough of that. We need a post/thread like this from time to time from at least one of the 3 Amigos. It's like a pep talk a general gives the army before going into battle. Maybe we could have one of these at least once a month? (Or maybe even get the monthly newsletter back )

Finally, I'm excited to see what the future holds. The (possible) increase in members and/or visitors will have both its pro's and con's. It depends on what you get out of ATS and how you look at things. I can however see a lot of recurring topics which may serve as a deterrent for some of the ancient members...

Well. I've rambled enough for today.

*** Push soapbox back under the chair ***

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Some members will undoubtedly see that as "selling out" or "going mainstream".

Whats wrong with that!? Sell out while ya still can!

springer
Go read my post... We will NEVER "sell out" HOW many times must we say it?!

Thats unamerican man.

[edit on 17-11-2006 by Nygdan]

Kudos to the efforts done so far to make this place as accessible, enlightening, and robust as it's been. Anything that can be done to keep it up to those standards is more than welcome in my eyes.

There is nothing wrong with full scale advertising in basically any legal form to bring new users to this site. Nor is there anything wrong with the amigos making a profit, or wanting to make a profit with this site. As mentioned over and over, if it wasn't for them there would be nothing to discuss here.

However I will just reiterate something that someone mentioned earlier, a play on the cliche "with great power comes great responsibility."

With an increased user bases comes a lot of good. Greater exchange of ideas. More perspectives. More knowledge. But it also increases the chance of riff raff coming through. Increases the number of hackers trying to take the site down. Increases the number of people that do not follow the T&C. Increases the amount of work the moderators need to do in order to keep conversations on track. Increases the number of posts, period.

As long as these things can be handled by personnel and the infrastructure, I say go for it. I've seen many a good site go awry because they tried to grow huge ... not too soon, but before they have all future problems considered and solutions readied.

Cheers gentlemen!

Wow... 10 years of an endeavor, 10 yrs of blood, sweat and tears, not to mention the thousands and thousands in server and bandwidth money and thousands of manhours devoted. I, for one, am behind you 3 in whatever direction you take this site. It was free when i joined and its still free to this day. I trust your 3's decision making to do whatever you feel is needed to do to help ATS move forward. I stand behind you guys waving a flag that says ROCK ON. Ive only been here 2 of those 10yrs and i feel i am a better person because of it. And without ATS, most of us would wander aimlessly around the net, bouncing from forum to blog in search of a place just like this, never finding it. Thank you 3 and all mods and members for the Best Dam site on the web.

Do what you wanna do guys. You always make this site better and better. No reason to think you 3 would go any other direction with it than UP.

a point that the amigos might wish to clarify , regards the current " profitability " of ATS . as i read it the current profit [ above and beyond ops cost and the warchest ] is not going into the amigos pockest as " profit " and income from ats , the amigos personally bankrolled ATS when it was not big enough to generate the ad reveneue to even support itself . ammounting to " interest free loans " over the years , are the current " excess profits " not paying those back first ?

just my 0.02 groats on the topic

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Nothing would give me greater professional joy than to be fortunate enough to derive enough income from this outstanding community such that I could devote 100% of my efforts to it, and you the members. And I believe I can say the same for Simon and Springer. Right now, ATS is very far from that kind of revenue... but with some new effort... who knows.

I totally understand.

I'm close to someone going through the same thing right now, a labor of love that may bear some financial fruit, and I get it. Like they say, love won't pay the bills.

I'm not sure if this part should be addressed to Springer but, like Semper, I'm interested in a few lots of ATS stock. Will you let us know if that becomes a possibility?

Also, I think it would be cool if you created funds so that people could finance specific areas of interest. For example, you could have an 'Aliens & Ufo's Fund,' and, instead of a quarterly report, the researchers could produce a Research Report, like an update on their findings that quarter.

It's late here, so I might not be making a lot of sense. I'll check back to see if people are like, What was she talking about?

Originally posted by Springer

I'll say it again...

ATS WILL NEVER BE A "PAY SITE" THAT REQUIRES A MEMBERSHIP FEE.

Excellent to hear! At the moment there are two types of people on these boards, guests and members... why dont you make a third? A membership that requires a fee and has extras that a normal membership does not. When I say extra, it must be something that is not already here, ie. nothing to be taken away from normal membership. Like... I dunno, more upload space or some other funky cool service.

Give us, the members, a chance to help out financially. A fee based membership that has extra bells and whistles but still makes you (ATS) a tidy profit. Truly, people will pay $5 a month to play a web based game, and I can see people paying to help ATS - especially if ATS can spearhead actual research or involve more technology into this site.

Now, I want to say this too, a few people's posts mention stock and shares... THAT is selling out, if ATS become a corporate entity who is bound by law to make profits then... *shudders* PLEASE please never become this, never have stocks N shares.

Business opportunities, yes, Im all for that. Want members to dig in their pockets to fund something that has monetary gain? Fine, maybe ATS can do that one day! Members pile into a fund for a specific research project, which gets recorded and displayed in ATS (online and TV ), and some members may even make a profit too!

Anyway, my point is this, there are many creative ways to make money and make ATS great, whilst gaining more knowledge and 'benefiting mankind'. Good luck!

Ya'll want to make some money by running ATS??? GOOD!

I am more than happy to see people provide a service AND get money for doing so. If only we had more enterprising people on this planet then we would have less people on welfare.

Changes to ATS? Fine. Just don't go officially endorsing specific political candidates. That would be

HEY .. any chance that one change could be to get our old chat room back????
Pretty PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE with sugar on top??

Originally posted by Dae
*shudders* PLEASE please never become this, never have stocks N shares.

hey - I want ats stock to be availible - then i can say " i have shares in THE conspiracy "

First of all I really enjoy this site. While I may not agree with many of the posters they are always thought provoking and for the most part well thought out and insightful. I appreciate the hard work of the Three Amigos and indeed all the staff this site would not be as great as it without your hard work. If finally after 10 long years of work you make some money for your efforts well it's about time.

To those who would critize you or detract I say phooey it's just sour grapes.

Right on SO and power to you all



I wear this symbol with dignity, so do we all

The real truth:
Denying our limit, to show the true ignorance that we all have an will surpass, and in that we truly all can an will honor the meaning or Altruism, Trust an Sincerity the Real ATS


party up ATS

[edit on 17-11-2006 by ragster]

I joined ATS first in 2004 with a different account and before I had this account I had an NWObringer account and I love the site. I wouldnt see what's wrong with the three amigo's, springer, skeptic, and simon making money, they are the sites owners after all. I dont see what's wring with paying a little price to keep our site free!



The site definately made me smarter. The more research you do the more responsible you learn to become and you eventually learn the truth and whether you are a sociopath or an american I think this site is awesome. I really like the work most of the members do. I give ATS a high five! I hope that it keeps this way and I hope that it continues to be a great community discussion site!

Hey ! I've grown more smarter too! Even though some of the ex members of the site have been complaining an awefully lot there are still plenty of people who have joined ats and have been having fun ever since they joined!

Hey, I think you should make a board that discusses what you're going to spend your profits on so that the site can contribute to make the overall community better.

I dont understand why you say ATS doesnt stand for above top secret.com but I find the site fun nontheless.

BTW, who's the sociopath?

I love this site and event hoe Ive been banned and my ip address was blocked (I regret having brought that on myself) I still support this site and all the Admins.
P.S. my other user name was UNREAL REALITY and I would really like to be unabashed and have my ip unblocked.I think I'm able to come on here now because the server problems but I'm not sure. I really hated doing the google mobile hack to read posts on here for the last few months. So please consider my reinstatement

But back on topic. I hope the 3 wise men make money because I'm a network admin and webmaster and I know all the endless hard work involved in running a site as large as this. To say the least it can be very trying at times.

Skeptic, when I first came in and saw the hugeness of ATS I was astonished.
As a programmer my first thought was "How they did that? They've must spent a lot of time and headaches to make this real" and later on, I started to wonder about the resources issues, like bandwidth, data storage, maintenance periods, etc.
As a 100% free, hold this together must be a pain in the ass.

In my opinion you should accept donations. Even MMORPG Private servers accept donations so why wouldn't you? I know, it's embarrassing but I for example would donate without problem.
After all, there are plenty of good services here like, Blog, Chat, Image upload and of course the forums.

Think about it! Good luck to your new investments
Hugs from Brazil!

I think donations wouldn't be a bad idea.

But by the same token I think those big flashing ads in the top right and the Google ads below them would provide an income good enough to maintain the site. That's speaking with limited experience though. I may be totally wrong.

Be careful though, if we get too many hits Google will buy us out Which basically means ATS will be in Beta stage for 20 years hehe.

Over the years I have spent countless hours on my own sites trying to eek a living off the Internet.
I have strived for the type of popularity the three amigos have attained here. I have used the goggle ads Done the paid banner thing sold permanent ads.
I have tried every conceivable form of advertising to get traffic to my sites. Guess what folks the success that ATS has experienced is actually rare.
For anybody to set there and say that the amigos don't deserve compensation aren't thinking it thru. Just from a business sense it makes sense, I.E. more money = more time. More time = more services. So I put it to the detractors to use your heads.
As for the three amigos Keep going guys. Maybe if you Try the so called main stream advertising you can show the corrupt corps how to advertise with integrity.
integrity is what needs to be brought back into the world.

Originally posted by tunin
In my opinion you should accept donations. Even MMORPG Private servers accept donations so why wouldn't you? I know, it's embarrassing but I for example would donate without problem.

Years ago ATS did have a Donation option, but we found through experience that the best way to keep things running smoothly and the bills payed on time was for members to take part in discussions and enjoy their time here looking around.

That in itself is the absolute best way for us to operate (by serving ads to members and guests on the pages they are looking at) and above all, it's free!

Originally posted by SimonGray
Years ago ATS did have a Donation option, but we found through experience that the best way to keep things running smoothly and the bills payed on time was for members to take part in discussions and enjoy their time here looking around.

That in itself is the absolute best way for us to operate (by serving ads to members and guests on the pages they are looking at) and above all, it's free!

I see.
Well, I'm not much into website administration, so I really have no idea what's more effective.
Another option would be finding sponsors to help, but I'm pretty sure that, with your new plans, they will "pop-up" real soon.

Anyway, good luck, you guys deserve it, for real!
Hugs!

Originally posted by iori_komei
I realize that, I'm not saying it's never done any god, I just would like
to see a world with democratic socialism where people work to beter
themselves and humanity, not to get money and buy gaudy jewelery
and flashy cars.

Must be done willingly, thats why freedom is the best way to go. If you force em, it will only break the system.

If enough people choose not to help, then the country deserve to collapse when it does.


ANYWAY, I want some stock too.