(10-04-2018, 01:18 AM)Arceus Wrote: Did it really cost them so much more to let people post than to leave the thing online though? It's what, a few more lines of text encoded in an already massive database?
Benefits of a static website over a live forum site:
- Low resource usage. Server costs can drop from (for example) $70/month to $2/month. You don't need regular backups (which consume space and use up CPU time).
- Low man-power requirement. You don't need a "Community Manager" person or attention from server admins. The site requires zero human attention.
- Faster loading site. The site is static, so it can be fully cached and served fast without database queries and code execution. With browser-cache enabled and more aggressive CDN caching, the speed of the site and hosting costs can drop further.
- No need to pay software license fees. IP.Board requires license payments every year. A static site requires none.
- High security. With a truly static site, it is nearly impossible to hack.
- No downtime for maintenance such as upgrading forum software or upgrading/optimizing/repairing database.
- Great for hosting together with other static sites on the same server. One site doesn't jeopardize the other site's security or functionality.
- Nearly all the traffic comes from clicks on search engines or old links from other sites. No regular visitors. This means higher click-thru-rate on the site ads, but lower overall traffic. So, although money from ads may seem artificially stable at first, it will dwindle quickly as time goes on.
- No new content. The site gets more and more stale every day.
- No interactivity between users.
- No hope of new site features.