InflateVids

Happy new year! And transparency about due invoices

Added 2023-01-02 20:31:02 +0000 UTC

For starters: Happy New Year! I hope you've had a wonderful NYE and that the entire year will be good for you.

My new year so far has been turbulent, to say the least. Skipping a big thing in my private/family life, I have also just submitted a ticket to DigitalOcean for an extension on past due balance. Let me explain.

Back in September/October I experimented with a new (seemingly) more stable version of InflateVids. It had multiple load balanced servers, more lightweight web server software and a completely reworked website interface (and an updated back-end). A problem I didn't think about in my excitement: cost.

Obviously multiple servers cost more money, and in the beginning this seemed fine. A week or two for some testing and tweaking and it can go live. This however took a couple months to get right and thus costs were higher for some months. No worry I thought, I can take that hit.

Then comes the 2.0 launch and more then that, the month after. Turns out: it wasn't more stable. It was quicker most of the time, but also down a lot. Worst: it was more expensive then the previous structure.

Back to the drawing board, and I think right now I have the more cost efficient version running. Problem is that it took me all November and December to figure that out and the damage has now been done. The most expensive time of the year came around the corner and so did it for InflateVids. And I couldn't pay it out of pocket this time.

Now, don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I only wanted to let you guys know since you deserve to know. There is also a chance I'll be changing some things around very soon to spare on costs, which most likely means locking 720p for non-patrons and some awful menacing countdown timer... but I'll try to think of different solutions.

Cheers,
Rick