3 ms·

Holy hell that's an expensive project. Do donations cover all this, or are the operators independently wealthy and generous?

by nly 6y ago

YetAnotherNick 6y ago
That's a cheap project. I have seen a single developer's salary to be more than that. Considering that around a billion games were played last year in lichess.
- ishiz 6y ago
  What I find interesting is the part at the bottom that shows how much a donation helps: a $5 donation is enough to cover the company's budget for 6 minutes. This sounds really good for a few reasons: 1) since I play Lichess for several hours a month, I feel that I'm really getting my money's worth; 2) Lichess only needs a few thousand people to contribute $5/mo to stay net positive and I feel like it's easier to convince a few thousand people in a supportive community to part ways with $5 than it is for other companies to get a million people to donate $1; 3) I remember Reddit used to show on your profile how many server minutes your Gold purchase was worth and it would display something like 200 minutes for every $5 purchase, but this is only a single server out of hundreds and doesn't account for any other expenses, so Lichess is unsurprisingly very cheap to operate in comparison.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  Uh, $55k a year is not cheap! What world... Ok, it's late, I'll hold back the rest of my words. :) I think you were saying it's cheap relative to the impact it has. I agree. But "holy hell that's expensive" is an entirely accurate reaction for someone who wants to fund it out of pocket. (Gwern covers our TPU/ML infrastructure costs for around $350/mo, and I wince that I wasn't able to optimize it cheaper.)
  - jpeter 6y ago
    55k is just the cost of the server. The total cost is 400k
    - sillysaurusx 6y ago
      Holy guacamole, I didn't scroll down far enough. Thank you for pointing this out. "French taxes" is $53k, which is nearly equal to their server fees. Wow. Props to them for however they manage to get $400k/yr for a free project with no business model, and no intended business model. (I'm serious; it's a wonderful thing for the world, and a tremendous example of what people can achieve without having a monetary focus.)

Holy hell that's an expensive project. Do donations cover all this, or are the operators independently wealthy and generous?

by nly 6y ago

Holy hell that's an expensive project. Do donations cover all this, or are the operators independently wealthy and generous?

YetAnotherNick 6y ago

That's a cheap project. I have seen a single developer's salary to be more than that. Considering that around a billion games were played last year in lichess.

ishiz 6y ago
What I find interesting is the part at the bottom that shows how much a donation helps: a $5 donation is enough to cover the company's budget for 6 minutes. This sounds really good for a few reasons: 1) since I play Lichess for several hours a month, I feel that I'm really getting my money's worth; 2) Lichess only needs a few thousand people to contribute $5/mo to stay net positive and I feel like it's easier to convince a few thousand people in a supportive community to part ways with $5 than it is for other companies to get a million people to donate $1; 3) I remember Reddit used to show on your profile how many server minutes your Gold purchase was worth and it would display something like 200 minutes for every $5 purchase, but this is only a single server out of hundreds and doesn't account for any other expenses, so Lichess is unsurprisingly very cheap to operate in comparison.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
Uh, $55k a year is not cheap! What world... Ok, it's late, I'll hold back the rest of my words. :) I think you were saying it's cheap relative to the impact it has. I agree. But "holy hell that's expensive" is an entirely accurate reaction for someone who wants to fund it out of pocket. (Gwern covers our TPU/ML infrastructure costs for around $350/mo, and I wince that I wasn't able to optimize it cheaper.)
- jpeter 6y ago
  55k is just the cost of the server. The total cost is 400k
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    Holy guacamole, I didn't scroll down far enough. Thank you for pointing this out. "French taxes" is $53k, which is nearly equal to their server fees. Wow. Props to them for however they manage to get $400k/yr for a free project with no business model, and no intended business model. (I'm serious; it's a wonderful thing for the world, and a tremendous example of what people can achieve without having a monetary focus.)