Important News!!

And yet you can’t keep away yourself. Strange that

Getting the word out by posting on socials. Created the post last night, but have recreated the record this morning so it gets bumped in an Ireland feed my account is on.

Note: - Profile name masked out, don't want to be accused of self promotion. Also a recreated record and not a repost so it gets bumped in the feed.

Looking forward to changing my avatar @Boards.ie: Mike when ye fix that perk for paid subscribers.

"A years hosting is €500"

I don't even know where to start with this ridiculous statement.

I think, the €50, for me is a nostalgia and legacy payment for recognition of the time I’ve spent here, whether posting or not. Post count doesn’t add up all my browsing time and I’d imagine many don’t consider that when professing how little they will miss boards. This is kind of like how I wish xtravision had somehow managed to remain (even though it was finished after netflix etx).

Preserving cultural icons/facilities or things that are no longer viable is part of most society on some level. So people feeling some element of familiarity here and wanting to keep it, really is quite great. In fact I feel that we are witnessing in here is the very definition of community.

What we lose when a place like Boards.ie disappears isn’t just a forum , it’s a space for reflection in a world that’s forgotten how to slow down. I know the audience has changed and people mostly show little capacity for self reflection anyways , but maybe a bit like a library, it’s a familiar place for some to remember the feel of a less chaotic and frantic world.

In today’s culture of instant gratification and endless churn , where new platforms, opinions, and trends are replaced before they’ve even had time to settle , something vital is being lost. The pace of modern capitalism encourages shallow interaction and disposable thinking. The next clickbait article, the next hot take, the next dopamine hit… it all pushes us forward without ever asking us to understand.

Boards wasn’t perfect, but it allowed for depth even if many didn’t and don’t use this option. . For heated debates that sometimes led to mutual understanding or at least to sitting with another view for more than five seconds. It gave people space to talk rather than react but it’s no coincidence in the divided world political landscape that this would poison discussion in the most heated forums.

What replaces it will likely be quicker, flashier, and more addictive but not necessarily better. And that, to me, feels like a quiet symptom of something bigger. A culture drifting, not evolving.

And before anybody says “look at this sucker getting all sentimental and romanticising about boards”, I am not remotely sentimental. Rather than attacking a poster with a differing view I reflected on my own motives for donating the funds and why I want boards to survive.

I spent more bringing one of my children to superman. People as usual were talking during the movie. It’s so annoying but I don’t want to see cinemas die so I continue to go but I try to avoid the obnoxious and clueless punters who have no common sense cinema etiquette. I certainly don’t ask the cinema to show me their accounts and make promises to me that it won’t happen in the future as I don’t see that as reasonable to hold a company entirely responsible for a changing culture that means they are barely hanging on.

So, I don’t see €50 as a huge gamble so don’t feel emotionally on the hook. It’s gone and even if the owner takes my money and run , I’ve spent way more relative time here (that’s my most valuable commodity) relative to the €50.

I think the point is that Adverts started as part of Boards and was spun off to help support the overall company at the time. Now it's been separated completely so the fact that it may be profitable is no help to Boards.

It's like a new owner buying a football club and then selling the stadium to developers, suddenly the club's no longer viable.

That's just business I guess...

Problem solved so. Stop the count!

And the salaries of those working to upkeep the site? Unless you're expecting someone to work for free...

That of course doesn't bring it to the full cost quoted but you're only looking at one small part so saying it could be run from a bedroom is a bit disingenuous.