moot

Basically this. I thought it was an interesting side benefit that came at no additional cost to the main benefit of greatly reducing request overhead for static resources.

The example below isn't the most scientific, but should give you a rough idea.

  Test index page with different static URLs:
  URLs as 4cdn.org -- 23261 bytes compressed
  URLs as 4chan-cdn.org -- 23311 bytes compressed
  URLs as 4chan.org (control) -- 23278 bytes compressed

> On the other hand, if saving single bytes was significant, there would be a lot more potential in the source by shortening CSS class names etc. rather than picking a short domain name.

Also spot on, but the point I was trying to make is I was given the choice of choosing a longer domain and a shorter one, and the shorter one resulted in smaller page size, which does result in some (though as you put it, negligible) savings in terms of transfer. CSS/JS refactoring/pruning would definitely be a better bang for your buck if your goal was solely to reduce page weight, but my primary goal was to decrease request overhead and this was just a side benefit at no additional cost to me.

As an aside, I would say the non-technical benefit of the longer domain (4chan-cdn.org) would have been avoiding user confusion, but I feel this is mitigated since visiting 4cdn.org directly bounces you to www.4chan.org and our custom error pages make 4cdn.org clearly 4chan related.

What the thread OP is talking about is the decrease in page size from the URLs included in the page source. Choosing a shorter URL for the static domain versus a longer one resulted in a rough savings of 50 bytes per page (size), compressed.

You're referring to request cookie size, which was also decreased significantly (CloudFlare still sets a single cookie, unfortunately), which results in the big savings of ~100 KB upstream per page load.

You should absolutely do this.

I disagree. Wikipedia is one of the best examples of sustenance-by-ongoing-donations, but it's an extreme edge case. They rely on their non-profit status and support from companies in the form of free hardware/bandwidth/etc, in addition to donations from end users. There are few examples of large websites successfully sustaining themselves long-term via donations, whereas the web is littered with plenty of dead websites that attempted the same (or transitioned away from relying on donations).

Perhaps I should have specified donations as your "primary/sole funding model" as unsustainable.

> That depends on the implementation. Reddit did an awesome job of rolling out Reddit Gold, it most definitely did not fragment the community.

I would agree Reddit has done a good job with Gold, but wanted to emphasize the contrast between the two. Gold offers tons of great features, whereas 4chan's Pass only offers one, because its more in line with the ethos of the site (that everyone shares an equal voice, etc).

> I don't know moot. Who's to say 4chan would've gotten as big if you were more involved in getting money out of it? Seems to me, that considering the userbase of 4chan, another place like 4chan but without the ads would've been the go to place for them. User-experience matters in getting the users -- that's why Reddit won, that's why Imgur won, etc. etc.

I can't tell if you misinterpreted my response, or if I'm misinterpreting yours, but I didn't intend to take credit for 4chan's success, but think it's important to point out (in the context of OP's comment) that I've deliberately forgone the opportunity to monetize 4chan to its full potential throughout its existence. At almost every fork of "making a quick buck" and "staying the course," I've chosen the latter. It's only when we've been in truly dire straits that I've chosen the former.

I was in fact puzzled by this getting upvoted and not receiving any comments, so I refreshed the page a few times.

Let's look at 4chan's growth over the years, taken from my post commemorating our billionth post: https://www.4chan.org/news?all#106

  In 2008, 4chan was accessed by 30 million unique visitors, and served 2.4 billion pageviews.
  In 2009, 4chan was accessed by 60 million unique visitors, and served 4.4 billion pageviews.
  In 2010, 4chan was accessed by 130 million unique visitors, and served 7.5 billion pageviews.
  In 2011, 4chan was accessed by 190 million unique visitors, and served 7 billion pageviews.

  In 2012, 4chan was accessed by 229 million unique visitors, and served 7.2 billion pageviews.
  In 2013 YTD, 4chan has been accessed by 222 million unique visitors, and served 5.8 billion pageviews. (Note that pageviews have gone down considerably due to us migrating a lot of page refreshes over to our read-only JSON API.)

4chan's ad inventory consists of three ad units per page. All three unit sizes are deprecated by IAB standards (728x90 and 468x60 have been phased out by most every major publisher, and are no longer recommended), and none appear in the content. They're at the top and bottom of the page, where users spend little time. Adding them inside of threads would probably increase click-thrus and thus command a higher price, but I don't like the idea of scrolling through ads while I browse.

Not only is 4chan's inventory not lucrative from a technical standpoint, but it's primarily not lucrative to 99% of advertisers due to the site being the epitome of "not brand safe." It's both all user-generated content, and has tons of adult content, which means we've always struggled to find companies willing to advertise (our longest running advertiser is a Japanese import toy company -- hardly a Unilever or Macy's). We can't use ad networks or exchanges, and what little direct inbound we get comes from small advertisers with low ad spend. Which is precisely why we introduced the self-serve advertisements you mentioned, but only back in July 2013. If you take a look at the CPMs we sell ads at, you'll find we charge well below market, and in fact most of the ads you see on the site were sold at a fraction of a cent CPM (or sometimes for free!). Not to mention the novelty factor wore off quickly and self-serve sales plummeted, but I digress...

You also mention 4chan "heavily relies on the freemium model," and reference our 4chan Passes. 4chan Passes were introduced in September 2012, a little more than a year ago. They've certainly helped right the ship, but haven't exactly sold like gangbusters. This is for a few reasons, but primarily because they do very little -- their sole purpose is to remove CAPTCHA. Why? Because as explained in their announcement (https://www.4chan.org/news?all#109) and subsequent posts, I have an intense distaste in the idea of fragmenting the community into "those who pay," and "those who don't" (a la Reddit Gold), and so 4chan Passes do one very specific thing, and nothing more. Which is reflected in their modest sales numbers.

Which leads us to what probably the main reason 4chan is a shitty business: because I choose for it to be one. If I'd decided to rape 4chan for all it was worth, as many would have, I'd probably be sitting on a pretty pile money from now, but as someone who has browsed the site daily for the past 10 years, the thought of seeing it littered with ads and other garbage makes my stomach sick. If that means scraping by for another 10 years, so be it.

I wrote this more for myself than you, but I appreciate your skepticism (and I find it extremely amusing).

Fuck the iWatch and iTV -- I want an AppleCrate II.

"The Hacker News is a Work of Art"

Indeed it is.

I think this was my "We've made it!" moment with 4chan. When people are writing viruses tailored to your service, you've clearly done something right.

...Or wrong.

Then again, I'm biased.

I've always taken pleasure in pointing out that 4chan doesn't have the worst comments, and that title belongs to YouTube.

I'm glad the world agrees.

4chan is only one month older. It's like we're cousins.

*Dicks can be substituted for Goatse.

They essentially suspended 4chan's original .net domain without warning, didn't notify me, then sent me in circles trying to get it back. At the time you couldn't e-mail or call the abuse department. You would leave a message, and they would [never] return your call. The domain was expired/released early, requiring I attempt to get it at auction, and instead a squatter got it.

So if you've ever wondered why 4chan is a .org, that's why. (And we were a .net originally because the site is based on 2chan.net.)

Godspeed to the MediaTemple guys!

It was almost the worst day of my life.

More info, in case you're curious: http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/8/3942110/drawquest-for-ipad-...

Same company, different product.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that when I'm introduced to someone and they say they know of 4chan, my immediate response is "I'm sorry."