I guess we've come a long, long way since Kagane started - from months of being deep in the red to at least showing some semblance of breaking even now. Since we don't have any major upgrades that urgently need funding anymore, we're hoping we'll cross that line as traffic keeps growing. Once we do get comfortably in the green, more funds can finally go towards adding more content rather than simply keeping everything running.
I still regularly receive mails with requests for titles, say, on Tappytoon, I rarely reply to title requests via email, but if growth stays consistent, or especially if it balloons, a complete dump should be possible in the next couple of years or earlier - not a guarantee. Unless, of course, we shut down first :)
Either way, a year has gone by, and what started as a joke over lunch seems to have turned into something concrete - not without its flaws, certainly, but tangible enough, I'd say.
For Kagane lore this anniversary, that's pretty much exactly how the site started. Someone asked, "Wanna make a website?" followed by a simple "OK. Why not." Probably took about 30 seconds. Pretty underwhelming, really.
A huge thank you to everyone who has donated, uploaded, moderated, or supported the site in any shape or form over the past year.
We've also tried to find a reasonable middle ground with ads. It is what it is, and unfortunately there's only so much we can do on that front while we're still not properly breaking even, much less being profitable. We simply don't have the scale yet to make that work particularly well.
Kagane also relies on you to grow.
While we do add internal uploads ourselves, it would be impossible for us to upload everything. Since we don't blindly scrape everything we can find, we also rely on people to use their own judgment and discern what's actually worth uploading. That human element is important for keeping the quality of the site where we want it to be.
If you have a title that isn't already on Kagane and can spare the time, we encourage you to upload it. We'd love to see even more uploads from the community in the days and months ahead.
And please, spread the word. Share the site with anyone who might find it useful, or simply mention Kagane when you see people looking for a place to share or find content. There are plenty of people who may simply not know we exist yet.
We don't care where you talk about or post about Kagane. If public posts were enough to attract attention and shut us down, we wouldn't have started the site in the first place.
A massive thanks to everyone who already has.
The modified uploader system hasn't been formally announced or documented yet, since the uploading rules and guidelines are due for a fairly major overhaul. That has been pending for… a while now, and I honestly don't know when we'll finally get around to it.|
For now the uploader role is directly tied to your uploads:
10 uploads in the last 30 days
1,000 uploads or 1M views in the last 365 days
10,000 total uploads or 10M views
Satisfying any of the above will grant you the uploader role.
There are no checks for 45 days after receiving the role, which serves as a grace period.
The above are still very rudimentary and may be subject to further modification as the site grows.
Everyone with the uploader role also gets ad-free access for as long as they retain the role.
Regarding the Cloudflare issues some people have been running into: try switching to a different network, or do a hard reload with Ctrl + Shift + R (or the equivalent on Mac). On mobile, you'll probably need to clear the browser cache or try a different browser. Unfortunately, I won't be able to respond to individual emails regarding these issues.
There isn't some extra special super secret fancy Cloudflare feature enabled that's blocking you. There isn't much else we can do from our side in those cases.
A year ago, Kagane was basically a "sure, why not?" project - that we launched with the absolute barebones of features, just for the sake of it.
Now it's a real site with a community behind it, and that's entirely because you have chosen to contribute to it. Feel free to pass Kagane along if you know someone who might find it useful.
So, thank you for the first year.
Here's to the next one, and maybe 13 others.
I guess we've come a long, long way since Kagane started - from months of being deep in the red to at least showing some semblance of breaking even now. Since we don't have any major upgrades that urgently need funding anymore, we're hoping we'll cross that line as traffic keeps growing. Once we do get comfortably in the green, more funds can finally go towards adding more content rather than simply keeping everything running.
I still regularly receive mails with requests for titles, say, on Tappytoon, I rarely reply to title requests via email, but if growth stays consistent, or especially if it balloons, a complete dump should be possible in the next couple of years or earlier - not a guarantee. Unless, of course, we shut down first :)
Either way, a year has gone by, and what started as a joke over lunch seems to have turned into something concrete - not without its flaws, certainly, but tangible enough, I'd say.
For Kagane lore this anniversary, that's pretty much exactly how the site started. Someone asked, "Wanna make a website?" followed by a simple "OK. Why not." Probably took about 30 seconds. Pretty underwhelming, really.
A huge thank you to everyone who has donated, uploaded, moderated, or supported the site in any shape or form over the past year.
We've also tried to find a reasonable middle ground with ads. It is what it is, and unfortunately there's only so much we can do on that front while we're still not properly breaking even, much less being profitable. We simply don't have the scale yet to make that work particularly well.
Kagane also relies on you to grow.
While we do add internal uploads ourselves, it would be impossible for us to upload everything. Since we don't blindly scrape everything we can find, we also rely on people to use their own judgment and discern what's actually worth uploading. That human element is important for keeping the quality of the site where we want it to be.
If you have a title that isn't already on Kagane and can spare the time, we encourage you to upload it. We'd love to see even more uploads from the community in the days and months ahead.
And please, spread the word. Share the site with anyone who might find it useful, or simply mention Kagane when you see people looking for a place to share or find content. There are plenty of people who may simply not know we exist yet.
We don't care where you talk about or post about Kagane. If public posts were enough to attract attention and shut us down, we wouldn't have started the site in the first place.
A massive thanks to everyone who already has.
The modified uploader system hasn't been formally announced or documented yet, since the uploading rules and guidelines are due for a fairly major overhaul. That has been pending for… a while now, and I honestly don't know when we'll finally get around to it.|
For now the uploader role is directly tied to your uploads:
Satisfying any of the above will grant you the uploader role.
There are no checks for 45 days after receiving the role, which serves as a grace period.
The above are still very rudimentary and may be subject to further modification as the site grows.
Everyone with the uploader role also gets ad-free access for as long as they retain the role.
Regarding the Cloudflare issues some people have been running into: try switching to a different network, or do a hard reload with Ctrl + Shift + R (or the equivalent on Mac). On mobile, you'll probably need to clear the browser cache or try a different browser. Unfortunately, I won't be able to respond to individual emails regarding these issues.
There isn't some extra special super secret fancy Cloudflare feature enabled that's blocking you. There isn't much else we can do from our side in those cases.
A year ago, Kagane was basically a "sure, why not?" project - that we launched with the absolute barebones of features, just for the sake of it.
Now it's a real site with a community behind it, and that's entirely because you have chosen to contribute to it. Feel free to pass Kagane along if you know someone who might find it useful.
So, thank you for the first year.
Here's to the next one, and maybe 13 others.