swfx, Stoli40, ....
My 2cents on the issue.
I became a member of MyMPxPlayer.org approx 7 months ago. Binh was running the thing on his own trying to answer as many questions as he could, maintain the web site, a full time job and raise a family with young kids. He originally started the site to support an on-line store he had and because he had a love for these players and saw a need for a site to provide support, tools etc.
When I joined I do not even think their were 2000 members.
As the players became more popular membership grew, the community grew and a lot of good stuff was being posted, the firmware and software library grew thanks to member uploads.
Around about August of this year MyMPxPlayers.com went over it's bandwidth allocation and Binh was smacked with a whopping bill of over $1600 (NZD) by GoDaddy.com and the site was taken off-line. For 2 weeks us addicts went into withdrawal and were saved when Binh forked out more money and the site came back on-line as MyMPxPlayer.org with a faster dedicated server at Webair.
I dont know about you but in the same position I would most likely have pulled the plug on it but Binh was committed to the site and the fact that it had grown proved that there was a need but if it was to continue he was going to need a bit of help paying the costs.
The PayPal donation system was setup and a handful of dedicated members donated what they could but membership was again on the up and once again bandwidth usage and costs were on the rise, from memory I think it was costing $200+ (USD) about $300- $350 (NZD) per month. In an attempt to bring the bandwidth down most of the downloads were moved off site to filesharing web sites. More money was invested to improve the site ram was doubled on the server to speed it up and membership continued to grow.
As more and more people were being ripped off with hacked players the Blacklist was set up to help warn buyers and the site had taken on a new direction. The savings made by moving downloads off site soon became insignificant as bandwidth continued to rise. Sponsers were added to the site, To encourage donors a player was given to the site for a donors draw which bought in a few more dollars and thankyou to all those that did donate you made a difference. The sad fact is people are not quick to donate thats life. Charities actually spend millions encouraging people to donate to their causes.
I agree with you the ebay ads on site are not my favourite and I cringe when I see 4 & 8 GB players listed but the couple of bucks they bring in per day make the difference between the community having what I believe is an invaluable resource for MP4 Player owners. The community now has a voice where they can speak out against these theives, people are banding together, knowledge is being shared. Although it is hard to gauge what is being accomplished I see posts by members who are getting most of their money back, others are finding out the truth before they buy their 4GB players.
This is only going to grow and personally I hope that eBay is eventually held accountable for it's lack of interest in protecting it's members.
Binh is trying to filter out all the hacked players from the sponser ads but it is inevitable that some will slip through and I can understand the frustration that members feel when they see players advertised by the very sellers that ripped them off.
Whilst like you I would rather see them gone how about coming up with some alternate ideas on how to help offset the running costs of the site instead of slamming Binh for doing what he can to keep the site running.
Personally I kind of like the irony that eBay is contributing to the running of a web site that will hopefully help hold them accountable for their lack of moral conscience and greed.
I also note with interest that most of the names I see bagging Binh, the site and the ads are not on the donors list
I don't want to turn this into a debate because you are very right that Binh is doing what he can to keep the site up. I know this expense first hand as I have been involved in many similar ventures throughout my career in IT. For the record, I wasn't 'bagging' on anyone and like Stoli, I am just a guest here. I just think maybe we should find some better sponsors. IMO, it would make better sense for mympxplayer.org to be a 'safe' place to buy mpx players. I also stated in my other post that it would be great to have a 'whitelist' of safe eBay sellers to get mpx players from. After being burned by a scammer, it would be nice to have some 'friends' to tell you where you can buy from and not get scammed. That's all I have to add.
