“why are pillowfort/ao3 asking for money?? Tumblr and LJ are free!!!”
y’all really don’t get how this works, huh?
Look y’all. Bottom line is large websites/web apps are fucking expensive
It’s not like a personal or small business site where you pay $25/mo for a shared hosting package and knock yourself out
You need multiple, dedicated, high-performance servers to handle a service like Tumblr or AO3, or Facebook, or what have you, to keep up with the insane amount of bandwidth and unfathomable amount of data.
Shit cost thousands of dollars a month. And those costs only go up the more users you have. Into the tens of thousands of dollars a month. Someone has to foot the bill for it. And that doesn’t include the salaries of the developers who pour hours of their time into making things function the way they need to.
“but Tumblr used to not have ads!!” you say! “They just got greedy!”
No, they didn’t “just get greedy”. This is how free services work. They aren’t magically able to sustain themselves. At any point. Ever.
Investors see proof of concept during the infancy of a project, and they pour their money– hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars– to 1) help fund the project into maturity. (Maturity = stable performance and a large, growing userbase) and 2) have a seat at the table when big decisions are made
Until that point, you won’t see ads, or be nagged to donate, or forced to pay a fee to access your content. That’s no accident.
Investors eat the cost of running and developing the service, because they know that once that userbase has been established, they can– you guessed it– SELL YOUR DATA TO ADVERTISERS.
They can’t do that until after they have users for advertisers to sell their shit to!
That’s how the investors make their money back, that’s how the service becomes profitable instead of being a giant cash pit.
So for the love of God, can we PLEASE stop slandering sites like AO3, Wikipedia, and now Pillowfort for having the audacity to ask for donations, or for having tiered/paid membership options for additional, non-essential features??
If you’re not paying, you’re the product
If you’re not paying, you’re the product
Me@ every ao3 anti on my dash that’s moved on to bashing pillowfort.
Audrey is so underrated. How can you not love her?
I have a love-hate relationship with this movie. On one hand it’s got awesome PoC characters who defy racial and gender stereotypes. It also discusses colonialism and how people tend to destroy indigenous cultures to obtain land and resources (which is why the crew ultimately decided a to pretend they never found Atlantis because they don’t want anyone else to try and destroy the culture). But on the other hand, the whole plot is that Atlantis needs a white, cishet man to save it from extinction and for some reason he understand their culture and language better than they do.
hEY FUCK YOU OKAY MILO WAS THE ANTITHESIS OF WHITE SAVIOR HE WAS A NERDY USELESS LITTLE SHIT WHO WAS COWARDLY UNTIL OTHERS FORCED HIM TO ACT HIS ONLY STRENGTHS WERE HIS MIND AND HIS ETHICS HE WAS THE PERFECT DUDE FOR THE JOB AND THE REASON HE KNEW BETTER WAS BECAUSE HE RIGOROUSLY STUDIED TEXTS THAT HAD BEEN LOST OR DESTROYED IN ATLANTIS BECAUSE KIDA’S FATHER INTENTIONALLY LET HIS KINGDOM LAPSE INTO DECAY AND OBSCURITY
DO NOT PULL THAT WHITE SAVIOUR BULLSHIT BECAUSE MILO WAS A DAMN GOOD DUDE
I’ve been trying to tell people this for years. Also, what differentiates Milo’s experience from the white savior complex is his expectation and his attitude. When looking for Atlantis, the last thing Milo expects to find are people. He says the most they thought that they would find are carvings and pottery. And he would have been happy with just that.
And even when he finds the Atlanteans, he treats the culture and people with the utmost respect (peek the scene where the crew has their audience with the king). He never tries to interfere in the people’s way of life nor change them. He’s merely an observer fascinated with the culture/people and just wants to know more about them.
In most movies, the white savior comes into the situation with an attitude of superiority and only through his interactions with the native people (and a lot of times a beautiful native woman) is he humbled and then eventually brought in as an honorary member of the people. Milo never asks for thanks or wants to make a name for himself. He does what he does because he loves it and it’s a way to keep his grandfather’s legacy alive.
Yeah. Milo was a damn good dude.
And another thing about Milo that’s made evidenced by this scene in particular? He’s got respect for women. He doesn’t ask why it’s a GIRL mechanic on the expedition, only why it’s a TEENAGER. Doesn’t question Kida’s leadership and knowledge when he meets her. (I can’t think of more examples off the top of my head but I’m sure they’re there).
Milo is a wonderful Disney protagonist, and this movie deserves the underground love it receives.
Someone told my ex-dad (not a sex thing; he just disowned me) that I’m trans and now he’s threatening to come to work and make a scene, and I know I should be upset, but like. What’s he gonna say exactly? And to whom? Because imagining a haggard and likely shitfaced Pennsylvania construction worker barging through the grocery store like, “HEY!!! THAT BROAD-HIPPED 5’3” EFFEMINATE KID WITH THE CONSPICUOUSLY BIZARRE NAME WHO SPEAKS IN A CARTOONISHLY AFFECTED CARICATURE OF MASCULINITY AIN’T GOT NO DICK!!! YOU GONNA BUY SCRATCH OFF TICKETS FROM SOME KINDA DICKLESS ABOMINATION??“ is wild. What’s it going to accomplish? Or is he gonna call my manager? “HELLO, I’D LIKE TO REPORT A FRAUD IN YOUR DELI DEPARTMENT. THERE IS NOT SAUSAGE AS ADVERTISED.” What the fuck.
Odds are he’s more embarrassed of having a trans ex-kid than I am of being outed at work, so what if I go to his job and tell everyone I’m trans first? What then, coward?
That’s such a power move.
This is exactly the struggle I’m having with my own mother right now and honestly? i sort of did that, but at the church i grew up in. my mom was like “oh so what if i tell the whole church youre trans” as if she had forgotten that nearly everyone who goes to my church is actually gay, like elderly retired gay couples, so i was like “haha okay,” and told everyone.
And lemme just say, watching a 5’2", 87 year old gay man stop my mother mid-sentance to say “Actually, I think he prefers to go by Aiden now.” was the BIGGEST dick energy ive ever seen.
Tayla's photography 