Thread: S*N Policy - Sponsorships

There is a new announcement on S*N about how they plan to cover their costs going forward. Basically, they will have a ratio-free model and will require financial sponsorships. Here is an excerpt from the site:





The S*N Egalitarian Ethos

Now although this has never been tried before, S*N effective immediately is implementing an “Egalitarian Ethos” wherein each member can become an equal sponsor of S*N. This is going to be implemented from the top down with no exceptions for the founder/s, staff to the regular user.

The plan is to offer a limited number of sponsorship slots with the potential for each member to adopt a single sponsorship. The more sponsors we have the cheaper it becomes for each sponsor!

The target we have in mind to start is 1700 sponsorships. This means that each sponsor only has to contribute Euro 3 for a 6 month period. (Euro 850 per month.. x 6 months divided by 1700 sponsors). This equals a total of Euro 0.50 per month!

Let’s face it you probably spend more than Euro 3 on a coffee and lunch! And who can’t afford Euro 3 for 6 month sponsorship of *** to ensure the survivability of this ratio-free tracker for the long-term. And best of all, it’s equitable and fair!

As these small amounts are considered micro-payments, we have decided to implement a minimum sponsorship of Euro 3 to avoid issues with paypal, and we will place no limitation on the initial round of sponsorships.

For example: if 3000 sponsors adopt a slot @ Euro 3 at the initial signup offering then everyone would get 10.58 months (Euro 0.28 per month!) And conversely if we get below 1700 then the duration of the sponsorship will lessen. E.g. If only 800 people signup then everyone will get 2.8 months. Still that’s only about E1/month!

So what do you get for being a sponsor? Well the concept behind this is an egalitarian ethos, so you get access to everything. There’s no discrimination based on feature sets belonging to different user classes! Every Sponsor gets…

• Access to Requests
  
• No dl slot restrictions
  
• Upload ability
  
• And most importantly each sponsor gets to be part of a unique “ratio-free” private community.
  

Now isn’t that egalitarian?

Of course, we’re going to still have some user classes but these are just descriptive and merely demonstrate who is a more active member, and to provide some incentive for everyone to continue to seed!
As mentioned there are no feature set differences between these user classes everybody gets the same equal access to features. I.e. there is no discrimination or special treatment. The egalitarian ethos is the basis of this system.

So how’s this all going to be implemented?

To start, we’re going to give you all 14 days to think it all over and reflect on it. At the end of 14 days every user will be placed into the Trial Sponsor user class and from there you have 14 days to consider adopting a sponsorship slot.

Following this 14 days i.e. Trial expiry any accounts that have not adopted a sponsorship slot will be disabled.. and finally 7 days after this the accounts will be pruned permanently if the user has opted not to make a sponsorship adoption of Euro 3.

If we’re oversubscribed i.e. 3000 sponsorships, as mentioned, we’ll leave the subscription slots as-is. In other words no existing registered user will be refused an option to sponsor *** and be part of this unique ratio-free private community.

If we reach our target or over subscribe then the open registrations are closed for good or until such time as they fall below our target of 1700. We thereafter become, as many have requested, a closed private community, so the opportunity to be part of this unique ratio free tracker is LIMITED!

If on the other hand, we have less sponsors than the target 1700 ie open adoption slots we will allow invites and/or open signups to the Trial Sponsor class until we reach a total of 1700 sponsorship adoptions.

The objective is to maintain 1700 adoption slots and become a closed tight-knit community.

The dreaded dirty word, HnR!

In the past donors have had an exemption from Hit n Runs, but there is going to be a new rule. No one is exempt from HnR!

So everyone must seed for 48hrs within the first 7days following a completed snatch. However the 48 hours doesn't need to be done in one session, it can be in several shorter sessions over the week. E.g. 8 hrs per day for 6 days = 48hrs.

This is fair for all users and better suits the average user that may not be able to have a PC on 24x7 and has an objection to a continuous single session 48hr seed policy.

It's very cheap though, compared with their costs for the seedbox, auto pre, etc.
Even public toilet fee is more than that, lol.

I doubt S*N will survive this. I certainly doubt 1700 people in the userbase will sign up for 3 euros every 6 months - bumping the price higher - pushing more people out. Good luck to S*N but I think either this price scheme or the tracker will not survive.

I'm all for donating to trackers, but this, even though it's a small amount doesn't impress me. Don't force users into either donating or GTFO of the tracker.
They would've known what the costs were going to be each month beforehand...

IMO, store.t.n is a potential site, what it lacks was good member. Most of their torrents has zero-download. They have great seedboxes to seed but nobody seems interested in their torrents.
I think a possible cure for this is to require its member to download certain amount monthly, else he or she will be consider inactive and banned. In the mean time, open some recruitments here inviting good members to join. Of course, this is the most difficult part to do. How do you "convert" great uploaders who are enjoying their peaceful lives over there to join you, starting from scratch?
One possible solution for that is store.t.n admin will promise to double "ratio-match" for the uploader from other sites, meaning, if you have up 100 GB at IPT, you will have 200 GB up credit to you if you join store.t.n and join its uploaders' forces. etc...

I am against the P2L model, being forced to pay to pirate, two ideas do not sync in my book. I don't mind donating but that is out of will.
I'm not seeing any that special about the tracker that justifies P2L, and expect greater legal attention, making money from torrents sure as hell is going to attract attention and busts....

Anyone know how many people have signed up? If it works good for them.

Not a great move. They will lose out with this. Donating for sites should be encouraged not forced. People will generally donate when they feel part of the community and can earn somthing in return for there money. These are the reasons sites like SCC and SCT flourish because of their offers and specials for people when donating.
This P2L model is not good for the torrent community. Personally I would find another site to use if I was a member of ***. Encourage people to engage in a community first. Build a base of members and work on that. In my opinon, no one should have to pay to gain access to scene releases.

storethe.net, S*N for short, is a good site, pre-times are pretty impressive but hey there is no leecher. for today;
» Sponsor Meter
Total Spots: 1700
Spots Taken: 92
Spots Left: 1608
Cost: 3.00
Duration: 6 Months

apparently people are not willing to be a part of P2L system at all. i guess, unfortunately they wont survive :(

I have some doubts about this..

It's possible to do ddl requests in their irc channel yet? I can't find how..