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Hosting & Bandwidth 70% of your £7 membership fee is used to cover the costs of hosting the site and the bandwidth it uses every day. At present, visitors to PlasmaDesign.co.uk pull around 4GB per day from the sites server! As the site becomes more popular, more bandwidth is required. I estimate that by the end of 2004, about 6GB will be being pulled every 24 hours; a 50% increase. |
Software Upgrades About 16% of your cash is spent on software upgrades. Digitally created art is a fast-moving hobby with new software packages being released every couple of months. Your money helps me keep up to date with the latest software innovations and in turn allows me to create new and (hopefully) interesting artwork for you. |
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Hardware Upgrades As new software packages are released, so the minimum hardware specs required to run it are increased. About 9% of the membership fee is put aside for hardware upgrade purchases. I tend to upgrade or replace my system about once every 18 months. |
Administration The remaining 5% of your seven bucks is used to cover various administration costs. The vast majority of admin charges originate from the fees I have to pay to be able to process credit card transactions. Also covered is the cost of re-registering the sites domain names every year. |
Where Does Your £7 Go?
Running a popular web site can be an expensive and time consuming process. It is thanks to the support of people willing to pay for membership that PlasmaDesign.co.uk continues to exist. It is 3 years since I bought the domain name. Back then I never dreamt my site would welcome tens of thousands of visitors every single day from every single continent (including Antarctica believe it or not!). But with success comes expense. Below is a breakdown of the costs involved.
