Wednesday, January 29th 2020
Support TechPowerUp on Patreon, Unlock New Features
People have often asked how to thank us through donations, to show their appreciation for our PC enthusiast content, free software and databases, but we could never find a good mechanism for that. Today we're officially launching our Patreon page, which gives you an easy method to financially support us in a simple way, and get some nifty site-wide features as our own way of saying thank you.
Over the past weeks I've worked on site engine changes to include additional benefits with Patreon membership, so you can actually enjoy tangible returns for your contribution. If you've never heard of Patreon before, it's a platform that lets creators receive voluntary payments for their work directly from the audience — a virtual tip jar. This does not mean TPU is in financial trouble, quite the opposite, we're doing better than ever, and our readership keeps growing — we're not going away. Some forum members have already discovered our Patreon campaign in the test phase and have contributed to it, and we greatly appreciate all the feedback they provided in the past few months that has helped shape this platform.
You can help us do what we do best, by supporting TechPowerUp on Patreon.
I've created three pledge levels that each unlock incremental features, so you may choose according to your financial situation. As always, we appreciate your time and consideration here, even if you are not able to sign up at this time.
Over the past weeks I've worked on site engine changes to include additional benefits with Patreon membership, so you can actually enjoy tangible returns for your contribution. If you've never heard of Patreon before, it's a platform that lets creators receive voluntary payments for their work directly from the audience — a virtual tip jar. This does not mean TPU is in financial trouble, quite the opposite, we're doing better than ever, and our readership keeps growing — we're not going away. Some forum members have already discovered our Patreon campaign in the test phase and have contributed to it, and we greatly appreciate all the feedback they provided in the past few months that has helped shape this platform.
You can help us do what we do best, by supporting TechPowerUp on Patreon.
I've created three pledge levels that each unlock incremental features, so you may choose according to your financial situation. As always, we appreciate your time and consideration here, even if you are not able to sign up at this time.
- Bronze: For as little as $4 a month, the entry-level tier, all ads on TechPowerUp are removed, including banners and sponsored content. You also receive a shiny new "Supporter" badge for our forums, and can access the otherwise hidden Patron-only forum where you're free to discuss anything.
- Silver: Take it up a notch for $7 per month. In addition to all the features of the "Bronze" tier, you get the "single page view" feature in our reviews and articles. You can now read them seamlessly, by simply scrolling down, no more clicking "next page." We also let you pick a custom user title on TechPowerUp Forums.
- Gold: This $9 per month tier brings with it early access to most of our unpublished reviews. Read coverage of products to help make your purchase decisions before others! You also get all the features of the "Bronze" and "Silver" tier.
206 Comments on Support TechPowerUp on Patreon, Unlock New Features
Personally I come to TPU because there tends to be more news and articles about lesser talked about products/accessories, etc instead of just more typical info on the 99999th iteration of the same GPU. I'd found so many cool / interesting things to buy because of TPU. I really don't mind the non-review posts.
So thanks a lot to the TPU team, really.
Does TPU accept BAT (basic attention coin)?
Wise saying "I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day and tomorrow doesn't look good either."
Honestly, I don't believe in that. Then, why somebody should support:
- Absolutely Web-based company that spreads rumors ( that could really harm TPU reputation! / serious companies do Not spread rumors! Period! ),
- Could disappear in a matter of seconds
- Mixes politics and technology, and,
- The most important, does Not provide real names of all people which hold different positions at TPU on "Contact US" web-page.
With all my respect to TPU guys, why a person would give money to somebody he/she really do Not know? Just ask that question to yourself.
Also, ever heard of nom de plume? Ah, but you're not a writer, so I guess not.
#getoffmylawn
Frankly it's a case of “everyone is naked in this bathroom” & that's all you should know, just that tubers get paid more for it.
Not because I could get in any real legal consequences but because what I write for example may look bad to my employer, or maybe I simply don't want certain entities to know I do or know those things, so it is not expected or asked of me in a personal or professional setting.
First point: Adblock does it for free anyways. Even if you impose anti adblock measures, it will likely backfire. I honestly will not visit sites that are locked behind anti blocker walls. Unless there is a pressing reason for me to lift a blocker (and I use 3 of them), I just don't see the reason. If things got so bad where everyone employed it, I'd just investigate ways to block their blockers and get around it. Advertisements are the #1 means of getting malware on PCs. Adblockers have reduced infection rate on my PCs to zero. If I want to find a product, I'll go looking myself.
If I'm this way, I know others are too.
Second point: Badges and titles are not enough. You'll reach a saturation point and then need to find some new methods. Building the TPU brand beyond what you've done so far should be more of the focus. I came from xlr8yourmac and TPU's design was friendly and welcoming because it was from the same era. However, since then TPU really has been slow to adopt new things. A good marketer could take it much further. Expanding TPU more into video and generating a real personality.
I'd like to see incentives for backing for a year. Something beyond, maybe even physical items. Look at how Star Citizen does funding for their community information shows. They give both incentives for the present and incentives for the future. What about partnering with a tech reseller to give a discount after 12 months of backing? TPU gets supported, the tech reseller gets increased business, and the backers get whatever they want at a discount. That is much more of an attractive offer to someone like me who would seriously consider it for the discount.
The ads here are non obtrusive and I don't know what corners of the internet you hang out on if you were getting multiple viruses from ads.
As for videos, it was tried and failed. I'm personally not keen on videos as there's to much waffling and blablabla in most videos, just get to the point already. It might work for some sites, but I doubt most of the content creators here would want to do videos.
The other things you're suggesting aren't going to work either, as the readership here is global and the site isn't based in the US. Maybe you could set up an international tech reseller that we all can get discounts from?
Another thing that can be tried is, before any of the articles being published those same articles should be reviewed by an "Editor-in-chief" preferably one with English as the first language before being submited
That person can then "fix" the spelling mistakes, change the text, remove the mentions (the GN drama could be avoided just by removing the name of the channel from the article) or even discard it all together if it was missing sources, shady information, etc.
www.pcgameshardware.de/PCGH-Plus/
paying for badges and nicknames - please,stop.
tpu is pretty much all advertisements for upcoming products in the news section and standardized performance reviews (charts).
if it weren't for the gaming thread there'd be almost nothing interesting here.the gist of the problem is really that tpu's senior news moderator takes conspiracy theories he gets from brand fanboys and publishes them with no verification.