this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
198 points (94.2% liked)
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
53843 readers
589 users here now
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
Rules • Full Version
1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy
2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote
3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs
4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others
Loot, Pillage, & Plunder
💰 Please help cover server costs.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Recognizing their hard work, it would have been helpful if they had occasionally issued public appeals for donations, similar to FitGirl. Numerous sailors are eager to assist such a great site and would be prepared to donate or advocate for their continuity.
Their main issue is prematurely assuming negative outcomes without providing the community with an opportunity to extend meaningful support. Additionally, their communication has been somewhat ambiguous and mysterious (and still is), causing confusion among users.
They do occasionally ask for money, but their messaging was always a bit weird.
While I agree their communications could be vague in some respects, I feel like the actual issue was that they were too specific in one way. They've been clear for a long time that further donations go to buying games from GOG so they can put them on the site (they were clear that they have enough recurring donations to cover the site itself.) The fact that they do this is why they update so much faster than everyone else, since other sites have to wait for games to appear elsewhere and few people bother to distribute updates outside of major ones.
But I think that this meant that there was a lack of urgency that deterred people from donating. If they just said "give us money if you want us to keep doing this" I suspect people would have donated more.
I wonder what happened, though? Something made them change course over just a few days - as recently as March 11th, they were posting updates on their Mastodon account.
Even weirder, the site now has a link to a changlog, listing games they've uploaded but which are not available to anyone except people who were invited.