Steve 'Flash' JuonAs always, thank you to our generous supporters on Patreon. Your monthly pledges cover our overhead for webhosting, bandwidth, and server maintenance. In return for keeping the lights on, access to our archive of over 11,000 album reviews and articles remains as free as it ever was. Nothing is hidden behind a paywall at RapReviews and if you have an ad blocker you don’t have to turn it off first. In fact we have no banners or pop up ads of any kind thanks to your support.
One of the downsides of being community funded though is that the income can be highly variable. People do need to suspend or discontinue their membership from time to time due to personal hardship. I’ve been in that position myself as a patron of other creators and it’s never easy to do. It really hits home if you do it to a smaller Patreon like ours. If you’re one of a thousand members and you drop out, that one membership isn’t a big piece of the pie, and many more will join in your place. If you’re part of a much smaller group, it results in the kind of big fluctuations seen below.
May 1, 2024 $107.68 Apr 1, 2024 $118.58 Mar 1, 2024 $121.13 Feb 1, 2024 $125.28 Jan 1, 2024 $116.35
Consider those numbers both a full disclosure to our current members as well as a message to those sitting on the fence considering whether or not to support RapReviews. We understand and respect that people need to depart due to the circumstances of their lives, but we also need new people to join to make the overall monthly numbers more stable and not jump up or down 10-15%. A stable pool of Patreon support makes it possible to make server upgrades when needed, and unfortunately we do run out of storage now and then due to the sheer size of the archive we host.
Ironically it was much easier before we upgraded the site to WordPress because not every article had full artwork and many were solely text unless they were “the feature of the week.” Every new review and article has art now and each one has multiple versions of that artwork scaled to display properly whether you are on a mobile device (cell phone, iPad, et cetera) or desktop computer. It makes RR more accessible but it also makes it more costly to run as a result. Please consider joining the Patreon to help us continue to bring you new content. Your monthly pledge not only tangibly shows your support for this resource but helps keep it free for everybody else.
Sincerely,
Steve ‘Flash’ Juon, RR EIC