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4chan Is Running Out of Money and Martin Shkreli Wants To Buy It (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The infamous message board 4chan is struggling to stay afloat and will have to make changes to reduce costs, the site's owner wrote in a post on Sunday. "4chan can't afford infrastructure costs, network fee, servers cost, CDN and etc, now," writes Hiroyuki Nisimura, who bought the site from its founder last year. Nisimura says ads haven't been effective enough to support the site, nor have subscriptions offering additional features. "We had tried to keep 4chan as is. But I failed," Nisimura writes. "I am sincerely sorry." There are three options for 4chan to survive going forward, as far as Nisimura sees it: sell more subscriptions, include "much more" -- and potentially even malicious -- ads, or cut traffic to the site in half. That might be done by closing message boards, slowing down the site, or reducing the size of images that can be posted. Nisimura makes it sound bad (his post is titled "Winter is coming"), but he also proposes changes to save the site. Meanwhile, another infamous name -- Martin Shkreli -- says he's interested in buying 4chan; he's in touch with Nisimura, so maybe we'll see how that remarkably bad combination turns out. Martin Shkreli tweeted: "I'm open to joining the Board of Directors of 4Chan. @4chan." Not too long after, Hiroyuki Nisimura replied: "I have replied your DM. Thank you for supporting 4chan @MartinShkreli twitter.com/MartinShkreli/...."
4chan could go from being cancer, to selling cancer drugs. How about that.
The internet will be better for it.
Altavista shuts down, does not think there is money to be made in search, "eyeballs are worth less than the cost of servers!"
Nisimura just needs to find better advertising.
It's run its course, just close it up already.
8chan seems to be getting by and they have twice as many chans.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Is that the site where people post pictures of cats with clever captions? This is a critical piece of Internet infrastructure and must be kept afloat at all costs.
All you have to do is CHANGE the ad structure. Static ads (not flash based, no moving gifs, NO AUTPLAY VIDEOS) that are correctly targeted to your demographic. That will increase the ad click-through and revenue rate.
That means extra work on vetting ads and approving them on a daily basis before they go to the masses. It also means asking your customers what type of ads they would like to see, and going out to get the companies to advertise on your website. Or, you know, throw in the towel. Your call.
1 post = $700
Notch now looking into buying 4chan Anonymous 10/03/16(Mon)19:51:42 No.56909338â->>56909384 >>56909411 >>56909683 >>56909721 >>56910005 >>56910058 >>56910195 >>56910297 >>56910483 >>56910593 >>56910655 >>56910945 /b/ got quads, summoning Notch to look into buying 4chan.
A lucky anon on
"Assuming it's not too expensive, and assuming I don't have to do any actual work myself, I'm in."
Who here would work for notch maintaining the 4chan codebase ?
Anonymous 10/03/16(Mon)19:56:06 No.56909384â- .jar
>>56909338 (OP)
>entire website will be Java based
>everything inside one
--
BMO
If that arsehole buys the site, it will be dead to me.
So does this mean site owners like that of forbes are willful in the malicious ads that are shown on their sites, rather that "unable to vet" ads served? And that it presumably pays more than standard ads? And that aiding criminals' efforts to blatantly attack their own readership (as opposed to simply selling their data and browsing habits which is still not okay) is a more pleasing solution than pulling in less, but cleaner, ad revenue? Disgusting.
So, murder Skrelli and also kill 4chan?
I thought most of the userbase of 4chan had long ago migrated to 8chan after moots administration behaviour changed and people thought 4chan had been sold out to SJW values.
How is the health of 8chan looking?
Hi everyone, 4chan here. His name is Hiroyuki Nishimura, not Hiroyuki Nisimura. I will now prove the authenticity of my post by sharing a beloved 4chan meme.
EDIT
Wow, thanks for the gold! I can't believe my most-upvoted post ever is about the owner of a bankrupt Vietnamese goat-herding newsgroup!
Hell, I would.
A match forged in the deepest levels of Hell I guess?
4chan board of directors: Martin Shkreli, Palmer Luckey, ...
I like how they didn't just link to the thread where Hiroyuki posted this, they linked directly to a *reply* asking him to delete /pol/, a center of strong pro-Trump activism.
(Why yes, everything does need to be about politics.)
Good shit.
Their moms made them buy their own cheetos?
http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...
a fark theme, too, of course.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I can't imagine a more perfect match for 4chan than Martin Shkreli. They absolutely and completely deserve each other forever.
Audibly laughed at >>56909384
Let some other goons deal with these questionably non-existent cultural resources and responsibilities.
Maybe they'll remain anonymous and/or not exploit the limelight this time.
I read "Skillrex" when I was skimming message title. Very odd.
But, at least he has more money than Shkreli to fund 4chan.
It's the beginning of October, not April.
And can the fine structure of spacetime even withstand Martin Shkreli and 4chan being in the same place simultaneously?
Then everyone can exit the site for the exciting new 4.1chan.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I guess you didn't get the memo: April Fools popularity is at an all-time high, so a lot of companies celebrate it as a biannual event, with "second April Fools" occurring on October 1st at midnight UTC.
It's actually been this way a while, some observers like Australia celebrate early, and a lot of observers celebrate late; e.g. Slash "one week late is early" Dot and most notably the Ubuntu YY.04/YY.10 release schedule.
If you want to help keep 4chan the way it is and not have it all crapped up with ads, a crowdfunding campaign has been set up here.
so when the fuck does she shove it up her kunt?
What did 4chan do for money before? I mean, it's been up for 13 years... and only just now it can't afford it's bandwidth?
Here's the thing: 4chan (actually /b/) is full of smart people who pretend to be assholes for fun. Shkreli is a moderately smart person who actually is an asshole. At face value it may be a good fit but 4chan would hate it.
If someone behaves like an asshole, online or offline, he is an asshole. Any further distinction is irrelevant.
Martin isn't buying it, neither is Notch. Both of them were just trolling.
Nobody really knows what is going on. Hiroshamoot isn't really explaining, and even when he does post his English is lacking, at best. He refuses to take donations as well.
Either way, I don't see any reason to be worried. I doubt it will shut down, and even if it does it won't change anything (Though it has died a few times in the past).
Whenever a popular website shuts down, something rises to take its place. &TotSE died from it because the community was already dwindling, but 4chan is still fuckhuge. The bigger issue is increased shitposting and lack of janitors.
4chan died years ago when Christopher Poole started censoring and collecting data for the FBI. SJW's donned its skin and have been dancing around in it ever since. And fuck the Verge for repeating lies.
no kidding ive been watching for 5 min waiting for something to happen...
He is about as useful in the world as smallpox or Ebola. He should be permanently eliminated for the good of all mankind.
Why is Snark Required?
People behave like assholes on 4chan to drive away the overly-sensitive. Many are refugees from other forums, where you get banned for diverging from the groupthink/using the wrong pronoun/supporting the wrong presidential candidate. They created an environment where people who complain about their feelings getting hurt by words on the internet get laughed out the door. Personally, I find its honest abrasiveness more refreshing than the passive-aggressive politeness of other forums.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Just get rid of the porn boards. They're just for image sharing, and honestly don't give rise to any real discussion. /gif/ is also a massive pile of reposts, and /b/ was never good. It would be a great benefit to the bandwidth if 4chan just focused on discussing media and hobbies.
If someone behaves like an asshole, online or offline, he is an asshole. Any further distinction is irrelevant.
I agree, but that opinion is incredibly rare. Not only that it seems to go both ways. I've been a member of a forum which had a significant AFK presence. An awful lot of people appeared to consider the online and offline personas as completely different people. You'd get people saying things approaching "oh yes, I mean sure he is a known thief, a vandal, has a toothbrush moustache and is actually literally Hitler in person but he posts nice cat pictures".
WTF?!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
4chan is an internet plague. It deserves to die, and then to have a parade of it's users shit and piss on the grave.
And then a few years later when some people complain about what he's done, he'll sell it to microsoft which will then require Windows 10 to post.
On a slightly more serious note, if 4chan still has that super spammy /b/ forum, they could always get rid of THAT. That'd probably drop their bandwidth in half alone. :P
I think there is a much better financial model that no website or newswebsite is using. I've recommended it and suggested it and even advocated it to the point of offending people, but as far as I know, it remains untested. I'd even put some of my own money behind it if the opportunity existed, but as things stand, I feel entitled to sit back and laugh. Doubtless it's unjustified, but I guess we'll never know, will we?
Fortunately, I don't care about 4chan and won't miss it.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
jew
fast
goyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Many are refugees from other forums, where you get banned for diverging from the groupthink/using the wrong pronoun/supporting the wrong presidential candidate. ...
They created an environment where people who complain about their feelings getting hurt by words on the internet get laughed out the door.
[insert something about pots and kettles here]
I predict- this will fix the internet!!
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
That's exactly what would make it hilarious. Can you imagine the 4chan crowd doing their worst to destroy their own "home" out of spite?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's obviously complete bollocks, just look at boards like r9000. Lots of extremely emotional and sensitive people coming to 4chan to wallow in their collective misery and self-pity. They have even found ways to deal with the trolls.
Also note how 4chan banned GamerGate and related harassment, forcing it to move to 8chan.
4chan is the way it is because it's mostly frequented by the same kids who scream abuse at you on XBox Live, then rage quit when you kick their ass.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
no kidding ive been watching for 5 min waiting for something to happen...
And there you have it.
Many are refugees from other forums, where you get banned for diverging from the groupthink/using the wrong pronoun/supporting the wrong presidential candidate.
Where the hell do you find forums like these? People keep claiming they exist but they sound like mythical creatures to me ...
I mean, I once ran across a thread on a game publisher's forum, where the OP was asking for technical help with the game and off-handedly mentioned that he was using a NoCD crack (four or five paragraphs in), and apparently that was grounds for a ban, but that's the most (only?) egregious case I've seen.
Well, donations and crowdfunding would work if the site didn't congregate juvenile, self-centered, narcissistic, psychopathic kinds of people.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. They just need to make sure they hold out for enough punches in Shkreli's face to make it worth it.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
And they will release an edu version that only runs on Windows 10
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
People behave like assholes on 4chan to drive away the overly-sensitive.
That doesn't make them not assholes. If the only way you can come up with to stop people from complaining about what you're saying constantly is to ante up on being a fuckhead... you're an asshole.
Personally, I find its honest abrasiveness more refreshing than the passive-aggressive politeness of other forums.
And personally, you like assholes. That's OK, but don't pretend something else is true.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A site full of self-entitled brats that block everything remotely close to an advertisement and are against any kind of subscription can't find a way to even cover maintenance costs?
This is what all websites will face eventually.
Jesus, how do you read that?
Threaded forums were invented for a reason. Flat threads don't scare well to a lot of users. Fark ran into the issue. Usenet ran into the issue. E-mail lists ran into the issue.
Cutting traffic means cutting ad revenue. Is this guy retarded? trolling? What is going on?
also server cost? Are they running on node.js or something?
>network fees
>or reducing the size of images that can be posted
why the hell are you self hosting images then? let imgur or other cancer take care of that (and the money from ads they inject because apparently you are incompetent).
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
You don't act like an asshole to drive away the overly sensitive, you ignore them. Eventually they get fed up that no one is listening to them whine and move on. This is the tactic we use on the boards I moderate and it works really well. Being an asshole drives away regular people too.
the posters are as nasty as they are because 4chan not only allows but encourages it. Notice how the Hot Grit & Greased Yoda Doll posts are 99% gone? It's not perfectly possible to filter out the trolls. Heck, I don't even see the GNAA "frosty piss" posts anymore. If anything lossing 4 chan will probably mean they don't have a place to organize their (admittedly harmless) large scale troll operations (like when they made Donald Trump win the last debate in the online polls).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Ad revenues have plummeted in the last few years as everyone has ad blockers. From what I understand it was a pretty steep, sudden drop. When he talks about more intrusive ads he's talking about ones that make it past ad blockers whether you like it not. Google, Yahoo, and all the major ad networks can easily bypass an ad blocker. They choose not to.
He probably bought 4chan expecting ad revenues to match viewership/bandwidth usage without realizing it. Honestly ad blockers had been around ages so he probably wasn't expecting the sudden uptick in their usage.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This feels like just another nail in the coffin. Sorry Tim, we tried. That a bonafide psycho like Shkreli isn't behind bars is evidence enough of how things work in America these days. Pretty pathetic.
The RPG.net forums list in its guidelines a set of banned topics, including Westboro Baptist Church, homosexuality, transgender people, spanking children and male circumcision. That's probably the most ban-happy place I've frequented, but there's plenty of others.
I was banned from Facebook for three days, for mentioning "Ten Little Niggers", in a thread about old books that had their title changed for political correctness.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I think it makes perfect sense for a business troll to own a board that spawns online trolls. They can synergize their core competencies and raise trolling to new, unheard of, levels.
I used to think the same thing. Maybe it works for you, but on boards I've been on, the overly sensitive band together and force out everyone else. Often by manipulating whatever moderation exists. One board I enjoyed around the turn of the millennium got to the point where a user who mentioned doing something that could have been illegal if you interpret it just right was stalked in an attempt to report him to the FBI (he mentioned having a girlfriend in Thailand and they were accusing him of child sex tourism).
I've pretty much given up on any useful debate on the the internet, and just use it for entertainment. So I don't bother logging in to Slashdot, and screw around on 4chan and other anonymous boards. I don't troll, but I am bluntly honest when I think somebody said something stupid and shitpost with sage in shitty threads.
>line eater food
There are extensions that do threading and all sorts of stuff. For chrome and Firefox.
>Usenet
>Threaded
Only if you turn it on in your newsreader.
--
BMO
/ b/ and /pol/ are containment boards. Moot tried getting rid of /pol/ and the results were less than optimal. You don't want them to go away.
--
BMO
Hey, Whipslash, maybe you guys should get in on this one!
I don't really disagree with that set of topics. Many of them lead to flamewars at worst, and a lot of empty discussion with nobody ending up the wiser at the best. I can understand why the moderators would want to avoid them.
http://neogaf.com/
http://forums.somethingawful.c...
And so on.
We've been trying for 13 years now.
Threaded forums were invented for a reason.
Threaded forums are a poor clone of Usenet.
Sadly, Usenet has two issues:
Usenet was a one-stop location for every kind of threaded discussion imaginable; no need to visit a different forum for a different subject, and the interface was always the same from one group to the next.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
4chan is an imageboard, not a forum. It centers around sharing images and short video, which are the main point of the site. The discussion is merely incidental.
commit suicide like great yapanese warrior-vassal! For the honor!
Whats the fix? Allow non commercial site owners to host their own hardware/servers/website cutting costs alot. Why should non commercial sites be punished for becoming popular? Their has to be a way to cut out the for profit middlemen in web hosting.
Jack of all trades,master of none
facebook ban people for no reason: it's written in the Bible!
Yeap It's written on the Bible...
moar boar wants mooooaaaaarrrrrr!
That doesn't work. The few overly sensitive just continue to talk amongst each other and drown everyone else out. This also brings more overly sensitive losers to the site. You have to force them out.
It wasn't intended that way, but /r9k/ ended up being the overly-sensitive containment board. /pol/ ended up being the racist fuck containment board.
It works surprisingly well.
> Being an asshole drives away regular people too.
They're called 'normies' and are most decidedly not welcome.
I'm not saying the place is great, but I've been lurking there nearly as long as /. - over ten years. Most of the time they're fishing for outrage, trolling, just spreading porn or shitposting. But there are - admittedly rare - moments of genius.
You have to wade through a ton of sewage to get these pearls, but there's been a few moments where some anon will post something thought-provoking, or warm and honest, or just laugh-till-you-throw-up funny. These are the things I value the place for. That and, in this age of social networking shite, you can just blow off steam and not worry about who's listening in.
a/c just because.
Captcha: scissor. Things like this remind me of /u/.
I saw a screencap of a reddit post made by notch (account since deleted, just like his tweets) saying that he made an offer and 4chan wasn't for sale, and Martin was just trolling for attention.
Ignoring doesn't work. I've seen what happens if you do that on several other fora: it causes them to increase in number until they reach a critical mass and then the fascist moderation starts. There are things you just need to nip in the bud.
to serve the ads from your site. It's also just not that hard to change domains faster than the adblockers can keep up. And if google stops letting you block their ads what will you do, block google? That's fine, you're not using their service anymore (and not costing them money in bandwidth/server capacity).
Google doesn't bypass adblockers for the same reason Nigerian scammers write such dumb emails. Good leads are worth more than bad ones. Anyone with an adblocker is likely to be a bad lead.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That's fine. But other people want the ability to discuss whatever the hell they want without being shut down. For these people, there's 4chan. For people like you, there's forums with ban-happy moderators ensuring any topics that may upset people are removed.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
"People like me"?
You're drawing pretty heavy conclusions based on a post with many maybes in it.
That is bullshit.
People behave like assholes on 4chan because THEY ARE assholes. You always attract those to you whom you agree with, why would you ever want to hang out with liberals when you're a conservative, or hang out with mormons if you're a catholic, etc. That's what the boards divisions are on 4chan, reddit, and so forth.
4chan could save themselves a fortune by shutting down /b and the piracy boards. Nobody wants to advertise on a site that has that content, but many are more than willing to advertise on most of the non-piracy content.
That said, my client has advertised on 4chan before and said was rubbish. Too many kiddies block the ads, and the ones that do see the ads don't buy anything. That's the problem. 4chan is essentially the "homeless bums underneath the bridge" section of the internet if not the sewer itself.
And you know they are really overly sensitive and not acting that way to get those who support X banned? You know that is exactly what happened to digg?