thereâs lots of great info here but i just want to add, for anyone who missed it or isnât thinking about it, that itâs incredible that ao3 doesnât have ads.
they arenât even requiring that anyone pay to use the site. itâs optional. you donât want to donate, donât donate, itâs fine. youâre probably capable of ignoring the donation request banner on other sites (wiki??) just fine.
itâs true that running and maintaining servers and also holding a fund for legal expenses costs actual moneyâ you can request their actual budget and expenses explanation iirc but iâm not going to leave tumblr mobile to hunt for it.
but also? do you realize how incredible no ads is? like, really? almost every single other non-commercial website (and even some of those now) depend on ads to survive. that means theyâre selling your data to pitch their target demographics and traffic to advertisers. so not only is ao3 letting you read fic without annoying banner ads, but they arenât selling your info to justify the advertising expense to potential advertisers/investors. imagine how horribly THAT info could be used if it was being sold or leaked as a commodity.
like bruh iâm sorry if it sucks that you think you should get to make money off someone elseâs IPâ depending on the IP in question you might be entirely justified in wanting to! but youâre welcome to go use patreon or ko-fi. you could take commissions somewhere. i could go off and write original fiction. yeah, itâs unfair that fanart is a loophole left alone more than writing, or that people feel like they shouldnât have to pay as much for words. that all sucks. and none of that is ao3âs problem or a problem ao3 was created (by us, by fandom) to solve.
not only have we watched FFN go down the advertising and yielding to legal pressure drain, but if youâve always had ao3, you donât know what it was like to have fanworks hosted on little private hubs or groups on sites not entirely intended for it. one of my fandoms was a privately managed server and when the host moved on, they waited a few years, and then stopped paying to maintain it. itâs all just goneâ any work i didnât back up from when i was a teen, any stories i didnât think to save for when i wanted to revisit them two decades later. i posted my first ao3 story seven years ago and even THAT is a wild amount of time to still be like âoh yeah iâm not at all worried about the site vanishingâ to me.
they arenât making money off us, nobody is vacationing on ao3 donations, but even if someone was for a site that doesnât sell my data to advertisers, doesnât require a fee to use, and lets me register pretty much anonymously, i would probably think an optional occasional donation was worth it. maybe iâd have criticisms but thatâs still a whole fucking lot that thousands of fandoms are being offered for FREE.
and if it still really bothers you, then instead of complaining about your conspiracy theories every donation season, maybe just go donate to your local rescue or food pantry and do some good with the money you werenât going to give anyway, instead of trying to trash a siteâs reputation based on misunderstandings and rumors. some of us are really grateful for ao3 and donât want it ruined.
