https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/843390/ :sob:

Is scratch shutting down? Hopefully not. Yes, the server costs are that high, they already had to change cloud data, it seems that wasn't enough and they aren't making enough money from donations so they now have this. Hopefully things will get better.

lfg30700 wrote:

Is scratch shutting down? Hopefully not. Yes, the server costs are that high, they already had to change cloud data, it seems that wasn't enough and they aren't making enough money from donations so they now have this. Hopefully things will get better.

They just have to make kids pay to get on trending and then they will be a fortune 500 company bruh

MaxxUltimate wrote:

They just have to make kids pay to get on trending and then they will be a fortune 500 company bruh

Let's hope not lol, scratch is a nonprofit anyway so they couldn't if they wanted to.

The way they branded the name was a bit confusing. It's moreover like a donation program rather than a membership. Since scratch is non-profit, like Wikipedia. They do need at least more support because of how low staffed they are.

MaxxUltimate wrote:

They just have to make kids pay to get on trending and then they will be a fortune 500 company bruh

Well actually

Cheddargirl wrote:

One of the known pitfalls of having things run on donation money is that it's dependent on how much and when those donations come in. Most donate one time, few do recurring donations and these have a tendency to be kind of small. A lot of our large recurring donations come from larger organizations, and sometimes these might not come in at a consistent time due to factors at their organizations, and we do have to acknowledge the possibility they could also stop donating (or, in the case of some services, start charging instead of offering the service as a donation). This kind of makes it hard to plan things like fixes or features (or, in the case of services, it could be disruptive). Which isn't great.

Hence why we now have this membership. You might notice it's slightly higher than the typical donation tier.

Is it kinda strange to take this route to make donating a higher amount more incentive in order to plan things ahead? Yeah, we acknowledge that. But we're also getting pretty large, and it's not unusual to also see other large nonprofit organizations that run on donation money (e.g. PBS) to have a membership options where everything isn't locked behind a paywall, it's just that members get some earlier/easier access to stuff.

So, no, we're not blowing all this money on events.

(On the opposite end is to be insistent that you guys do not blow the current donation money on things that would stress out the website servers or ST services thin. So uh, you know, don't break the community guidelines, don't misuse the website as a chatting space, don't spam, don't feed the trolls, don't flamepost, etcetera etcetera). Source

Anyways, here's an Edit:

TOLORS wrote:

8.7 Digital currency or money blocksSome form of digital currency which allows you to “buy” Scratch features (with real or fake money) would not really benefit the educational value of Scratch; after all, there is not really anything that you can buy. While there could be features that are only unlockable via digital currency, this does not really contribute to Scratch's purpose of being a programming language available for everyone. However, you can make digital currency in your own projects, if you like, as long as it follows the policy on pretend currency systems

This suggestion extends to Scratch blocks in the editor which can be used to exchange digital currency. The problem with such money blocks is that many users on the website are young and do not quite know how money works (and most do not even have a credit card account). Users could make projects which require others to pay a large amount of money to play the project. Overall, it adds further complexity to the website and would limit users' access, without any clear benefit towards the educational value.

A very good detailed analysis for why digital currency should not be on Scratch can be found on this post

MaxxUltimate wrote:

lfg30700 wrote:

Is scratch shutting down? Hopefully not. Yes, the server costs are that high, they already had to change cloud data, it seems that wasn't enough and they aren't making enough money from donations so they now have this. Hopefully things will get better.

They just have to make kids pay to get on trending and then they will be a fortune 500 company bruh

They need money to run the website, not money to be greedy

MaxxUltimate wrote:

lfg30700 wrote:

Is scratch shutting down? Hopefully not. Yes, the server costs are that high, they already had to change cloud data, it seems that wasn't enough and they aren't making enough money from donations so they now have this. Hopefully things will get better.

They just have to make kids pay to get on trending and then they will be a fortune 500 company bruh

or just add a donation feature to users and cut 30%

(Coming from a member)
The membership is in no way bad. Scratch is open source. Plus, no features have been actually paywalled, there’s only new ones.

(Which could be good or bad.)

The fact that they’re giving you paid sprites from a videogame, (Yooka-Re-Playlee) and then a thing for learning how Netflix and Disney write stories, is quite a microtransaction. I mean they did have an overpriced merch store with easily-replicable merchandise, but now they’re giving Discounts for items with a Scratch Cat on it.

MaxxUltimate wrote:

https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/843390/ :sob:

scratch is not going anywhere

I think the topic is teetering on the edge of being de-railed due to complaints.

No, we're not shutting down, but costs are high, and we're also concerned what could happen if any donated services get shut down as quoted earlier. We have some ideas in place on how to minimize that damage (such as possibly having certain services built in-house instead of relying on other services), but, herein comes the chicken-and-egg problem - we still do need a more stable stream of donations coming in to build them!

For people who still want to donate but feel membership is iffy or the price feels too steep, the original donation route still exists, which is of lower monetary value (just obviously perk-less).

Given Membership new in place, we're open to ideas on suggestions on Membership itself, such as renaming the donation tier or other possible perks that come with it, so long as it's reasonably tangible and not paywalled.

If you want to find other ways to lower server costs without throwing money:

• use Scratch primarily offline and upload only when a project is ready.
  
• limit your commenting. Maybe you might find commenting on griffpatch's profile fun, or find roleplaying in a studio fun, but there are pretty nasty server costs behind them, so chatting and roleplaying should not be your primary reason for coming to Scratch.
  
• just following the Community Guidelines and online community etiquette in general. Attack comments can run petty long (and, as pointed out earlier, too many comments = server strain), so report instead of engaging in therm. If you're trying to evade the word filter or test it's limits, DON'T, because the word filter is a service. Likewise, the forum is a costly service, so don't spam the forums. So on and so on.
  

It's a shared house; if you're not helping paying the bills, the least you could do is help keep the place neat and not make a mess.