Google and the open web... round #2

[Bonsai Nut]

I guess this whole situation is the result of what a world with developing AI can give us, definitely a double-edged sword.

In this case, it is startling to see that even Google concedes "the open web is already in rapid decline". What makes it startling, in my mind, is that there is no acknowledgement that Google isn't a content creator. It provides search results and sells ads. And their AI search results are based on content that doesn't belong to them. They would argue it is "public domain", but many content creators are saying "thanks but no thanks" and locking their content behind walls so that it will be interesting to see what starts to happen when AI relies more and more on "stale" content. AI, at least today, cannot see the future, it can only look backwards... and project forwards based on the past.

I am confident that at least 50% of the visits to this site are here for something AI can't provide - whether that be human interaction, human styling advice, etc. Even today I find basic AI care information lacking... since so much depends on where you live, time of year, age of tree, etc.

As I think about this more and more there are some themes here:
(1) Continue to allow access to content that we want broadcast publicly - exhibition dates, industry news, etc
(2) Continue to provide "free" advice for beginners
(3) Offer examples of content that is provided to paid members

 

[baldone]

How do we donate to this site?

 

[Ruddigger]

If it was me I would eliminate all ads and make a premium yearly subscription to try to make it up. As a perk these members could get some small incentives such as slightly larger avatars, or the ability to edit posts after the fact, and a “premium member” tag, or special sales area or something.

That way there’s no pay wall to pay to see the site. This doesn’t solve the AI issue, but it does eliminate the ad problem. I bet there are enough willing people to support it, on other forums I used to frequent the cost was 50 per year, and that was 10 years ago.

 

[Wife of Nut]

Mrs. Nut here. Never posted before and I may be banned when Mr. Nut sees this.

Mr. Nut cares deeply about the community that you have all built together. Every day he shares anecdotes about a new or long-time member's post, amazing trees you have created, or hilarious exchanges. These are the positives that off-set the time he spends on site maintenance, tracking down and blocking Russian hackers, responding to technical questions from members, undertaking laborious tech updates, and unfortunately on occasion moderating squabbles. I have seen your posts and see that you understand and appreciate the investment he makes. Your comments and support keep him going.

Mr. Nut's operating principle has always been that as long as ad revenue covers the cost of hosting, technology, etc.. he is good. There is zero intent to monetize this site. If money were being made, the Nut family would be vacationing in Europe this fall. We are happy to break even.

When Mr. Nut realized a few days ago just how severely the ad revenue stream was declining and the questionable ad shenanigans Google is foisting upon the site and all of you - he realized he needed to quickly come up with a solution. Your input and suggestions are very helpful. My ask....please consider the time that any solution would require of Mr. Nut to implement and manage on a go-forward basis as you noodle through solutions.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Nut

 

[KateM]

How do we donate to this site?

On mobile App on the home page scroll down until you see:

 

[JoeWilson]

Would requiring an account, even a free one, just to view all posts prevent an AI’s ability to scrape content going forward? Genuinely asking because I don’t know what AIs’ abilities are to make accounts or if they could circumvent that simple (free) hurdle.

A few people have asked this question or suggested that paywalling the site will solve the AI issue. It's important to understand that it will not. Here are the salient points:

• All of this website's content has already been scraped. That means downloaded and stored for later use. As LLMs (large language models) are improved, they are retrained on these archives of data.
• Putting some or all of the content behind a wall does not remove it from the archives at Google et al. They have our data and are not going to delete it.
• Scraping a website with a paywall is a trivial task. All someone needs to do is create a dummy account and pay the membership fee. These companies have billions of dollars in funding and are scraping the entire internet, including unthinkable quantities of content that are procured illegally (pirated books, movies, music, etc). We can't assume they will act in good faith.
• The best case for paywalling is limiting or making the scraping of new content somewhat more difficult for AI companies. In other words, if they didn't bother to work around the paywall, they would have an out-of-date version of the site. But there are many years' worth of archived content, which they have already processed. Most bonsai information is not time sensitive, so this wouldn't affect the output of these AI models very much.

I completely understand and agree with the desire to try to opt out or prevent AI companies from training their models on this content, but realistically, it's many years too late to attempt this.

What paywalling would do is make it much more difficult for the average person to find any of the great resources on this website, which would be a shame.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

What paywalling would do is make it much more difficult for the average person to find any of the great resources on this website, which would be a shame.

I think the part you are missing is "for free"

more difficult for the average person to find any of the great resources on this website "for free"

Though I work for free, our server host certainly doesn't. The people who write our software don't. The people who provide our bandwidth don't work for free. Back when ads were covering the costs of the site, people could come here "for free" because their site traffic was paying for the visit - because they put up with being shown ads. Now that Google has broken the adsense model, and ad revenues have disappeared, we have to come up with a plan "B".

 

[BrightsideB]

In this economy I think hybrid/diversifying income streams or funding is safest and can produce a surplus. Members offering donations for auction to donate proceeds to site sustainability and functions. A paid member alternative for perks. A way for those of us making money in the bonsai market to advertise more formally (creating a positive feedback loop). Plus the donate button, maybe with a target each month so people know what is needed. Giving people ways to sustain it in the way they can and feel comfortable doing and can achieve. I think a page dedicated to the site sustainability with the ideas in practice that I listed plus more could be valuable. Obviously more collaboration is needed. Just my thoughts.

 

[Rivian]

What is the niche of this site?

 

[Paradox]

I would gladly pay a yearly subscription of $25 to help with the site. I'd prefer yearly billing to monthy if possible to keep it easier for me to track renewal and charging $2 a month on the card just seems low.

I like the idea of a higher membership tier and paid membership eliminating the ads. I don't know if closing off the entire forum to unpaid members is a good idea. I think it might put people off from joining if they can't see at least something.

If you do go with a subscription model, make it very clear why you need to do this so people understand why. Mention both the cost of the server/upkeep/bandwidth as the main reason. Anyone that can't understand that you need to at least break even and shouldn't have to offer this resource at a cost to you...should have their head examined

 

[Paradox]

To put my money where my mouth is so to speak, I just made a donation to the site to help

 

[JudyB]

I would be more than happy to pay for a membership to this forum, clubs aren’t free, and this is an online club that’s been way better than my local. I would not like to see the site closed to new members, it’s kind of what makes this place great is being able to get help if you are new, and giving help back when you figure it out. I would be interested to see if most current members could cover the cost of what you need to keep it open to everyone. Perhaps after a new person has a certain amount of posts, a suggestion could be sent to them to become a paying member. Maybe there could be perks for paying members such as entry into the buying and selling forums which could be paying members only (which could solve the issue talked about previously with unknown posters selling here). Hope this can still work as an open to the public site. @Wife of Nut thanks to you for putting up with our little obsessive hobby!

 

[Ruddigger]

I would be more than happy to pay for a membership to this forum, clubs aren’t free, and this is an online club that’s been way better than my local. I would not like to see the site closed to new members, it’s kind of what makes this place great is being able to get help if you are new, and giving help back when you figure it out. I would be interested to see if most current members could cover the cost of what you need to keep it open to everyone. Perhaps after a new person has a certain amount of posts, a suggestion could be sent to them to become a paying member. Maybe there could be perks for paying members such as entry into the buying and selling forums which could be paying members only (which could solve the issue talked about previously with unknown posters selling here). Hope this can still work as an open to the public site. @Wife of Nut thanks to you for putting up with our little obsessive hobby!

Well said.

 

[JoeWilson]

I think the part you are missing is "for free"

I was speaking specifically to the AI concerns there. Anywho, I apologize if my tone is coming off as disrespectful. Tone on the internet sucks, and I'm naturally a blunt person, so people sometimes think I'm angry or being rude when I'm not or don't intend to be. In case it wasn't clear, I very much understand and empathize with your situation. I have helped manage forum-based communities like this, and watching them decline or have to shut down because there's no revenue stream to keep the lights on is no fun at all. I know this is probably giving you a good deal of anxiety, and having someone random dude jump in and mansplain this stuff to you probably doesn't feel great, but I'm going to this level of detail because I care about the site and want it to continue to be healthy.

Let's start over. Hi, I'm Joe, a software developer. My primary day-job responsibilities are software design, UX (user experience, user flow, etc), and marketing. I have some experience designing and rolling out subscription-based revenue models. I'm happy to give suggestions, even do some mockups, if that's something you're open to.

When it comes to funding, let me try to summarize or better organize what I've already suggested:

I would start by making a voluntary recurring donation subscription plan that is easy to sign up for. I see there is a yearly donation option, but it's somewhat hidden away. I have ideas for improving the usability/visibility of the current click-to-action area (donate button) on the home page. It would help to present a CTA block on more pages of the site, too. I can work on these ideas more and send them your way if you would find that helpful.

You've got a great core user base that would donate without any additional perks, so sprucing up the donation system would probably be the easiest and least disruptive option to try. I'm not sure what your costs are like, but this might cover it, especially if the funding goals are clearly outlined.

Perks for donating members would be the next step, to give more incentive to the group of users who are active but need persuasion to commit or get more involved. You can go in a lot of directions here, some more disruptive than others.

Identifying and paywalling premium parts of the site, as we've both suggested, would be my step 3. Step 3.1 would be working to develop these sections further.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, so I won't say much more about the complete paywall route, other than I would only consider this after exhausting other options.

 

[rutulus]

I would definitely pay an annual fee.

 

[baldone]

On mobile App on the home page scroll down until you see:
View attachment 615524

I usually view on computer and do not see it at bottom of home page.

 

[baldone]

Found it top right on this home page.
Thanks

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

So, my two cents probably isn't worth a penny, but as much as I have benefitted from this forum and the advice from so many brilliant bonsai minds found here, I would gladly pay a reasonable membership fee to continue learning and interacting here. As @JudyB mentioned, this is a bonsai club. Voluntary donations are a great start, but how many clubs allow non-members to continue receiving the benefits without membership? Perhaps an annual or semi-annual membership drive would encourage basic users to subscribe. Perhaps current members could donate incentives for new members (seeds, seedlings, old pots, tools, etc.). As soon as I have anything resembling pre-bonsai, I'll gladly offer extra trees to bring in new members.

As far as the tech side? I'm typing this out on my phone. I don't have a laptop, I'm not too familiar with how ads work, so I'm useless for any suggestions there. But I need to say that I have a lot of respect for the work that goes into a project like this, and I leave such things to those who know how.

 

[Jrmcmich]

While I have never donated myself and would have been reluctant to do so in beginning, as others have stated would be willing to. What if you allowed certain number of posts before having to “subscribe or become member” so early users could see benefits of site before deciding to join. Difficult part is knowing how many posts before requiring membership. Just another idea

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and support! Give me a little time to make some site changes and I will get our new "super member" group going. I think one of the huge benefits will simply be "join the 'name to be figured out' member level and you will never see another ad".

Thank you for everyone who has donated to the site!