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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/...."

16 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    8chan seems to be getting by and they have twice as many chans.

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    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  2. For your amusement. From /g/. by bmo · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
    A lucky anon on /b/ got quads, summoning Notch to look into buying 4chan.

    "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-
    >>56909338 (OP)
    >entire website will be Java based
    >everything inside one .jar

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    BMO

  3. Re:Just let it fold and be done with it by sinij · · Score: 5, Insightful

    why should we help them stay afloat?

    Lets hope 4chan stays afloat, because otherwise 4chan posters will be dispersed throughout other sites and communities. Like a cyst bursting into bloodstream.

  4. o_O by XSportSeeker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A match forged in the deepest levels of Hell I guess?

    4chan board of directors: Martin Shkreli, Palmer Luckey, ...

  5. Re:Altavista by malditaenvidia · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He's somehow not telling the whole story, he shut down the site's ads without warning, complaining about ad serving costs and urging people to buy 4chan passes. My guess is that he wants to be done with the site, causing a surge of subscriptions before claiming it's unsustainable and closing the servers. Moot was very clear about leaving the site with a solid foundation so this wouldn't happen, yet a year later the site is apparently on the verge of collapse. With Hiroyuki's track record, this seems highly suspicious and there might be something shadier going on.

  6. the most punchable face (as its know) by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...

    a fark theme, too, of course.

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    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  7. Re:And nothing of value was lost... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    4chan is kill, RIP 4chan.

    I can't think of a more perfect person than Martin Shkreli to buy 4chan. It's ideal, really.

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    You are welcome on my lawn.
  8. Re:Just let it fold and be done with it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    what about /r/blacklivesmatter? was that also shut down? of course not.

  9. Crowdfunding campaign to save 4chan by Shane_Optima · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Crowdfunding campaign to save 4chan by Shane_Optima · · Score: 4, Informative

      *sigh*. 4chan is what started and popularized that meme. Don't mod down a joke just because you don't get it. (and don't mod this up informative, either.)

    2. Re:Crowdfunding campaign to save 4chan by wvmarle · · Score: 4, Informative

      OP is actually one of the very very few posts that deserves to end up with a "Score:5, Troll" distinction.

  10. Re:Perfect. Do it now. by jeti · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If someone behaves like an asshole, online or offline, he is an asshole. Any further distinction is irrelevant.

  11. Re:Perfect. Do it now. by LordLucless · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
  12. Re: inb4 by silentcoder · · Score: 5, Funny

    So Shkrelli wants to have one company that causes cancer, so his other company have more people to sell overpriced cancer drugs to.

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    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  13. Re:inb4 by rudy_wayne · · Score: 4, Funny

    I was ignoring 4chan before it was cool.

  14. Re:Just let it fold and be done with it by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lets hope 4chan stays afloat, because otherwise 4chan posters will be dispersed throughout other sites and communities. Like a cyst bursting into bloodstream.

    Do you really think 4channers aren't already at sites like Slashdot? When I see the odious behavior of some ACs here, I generally assume it's another bored kid with no social skills.

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    #DeleteChrome