The net is an expansive, overwhelming world that we tend to take for granted. . Many upcoming sites such as asstr.org, blogcritics.org, desicritics.org, etc. become sites most of us habitually visit.

Despite the immense popularity that these sites enjoy most of them have yet to make money. The sites are basically run by people who have day jobs and pay for the sites from their own pockets.

During the earlier dot-com boom people found easy money to fund anything they could dream of. In the Web 2.0 world, a few huge $$$ deals have made other sites believe they could strike it big too. The reality, though is that many struggle to keep the lights on, in the face of growing readership and popularity.

Take for example- Asstr.org, an adult site which is a free, user-supported web-site. There are no banners, AVS, blind-links, pop-ups, or other gimicks designed to pick the reader's pocket. Anyone can submit their erotic stories to the site and people from around the world get to read them.

The site also picks authors who are given space on the asstr serverand the benefit is a vast volume of readership yet to be matched by similar sites; all free of cost.

I had been submitting my erotic stories on Asstr.org sporadically and only recently I was accepted into their coterie of authors and collectors. It was a grand experience and I stood in awe of the vistas the site laid open. My stories were read, bookmarked and I even got feedback.

What more could an aspiring writer want? Well, a little money would be nice but when the site itself is struggling to survive its own popularity on overloaded servers and limited budgets, the authors/writers are generally happy enough with the fact that their stories are reaching the readers and some may even become famous as Kristin.

Last week, however, Asstr.og faced its nemesis. Their servers crashed and the site was down for over a week.The management were quick to inform its authors and collectors of the problems they were facing, which were compounded by limited funds. Here is the mail they sent to all their authors and I'm sure it won't be a problem with them if I share it-

Folks,

At this time we believe our systems have been fixed and everything should be back to normal. If you find anything not working, please let us know.

We are evaluating our options for minimizing this type of problem from reoccurring. The bottom line is the more machines we have, the easier it is to have backup systems in place in the event one of our machines dies. Based
on our experience, periodic system failures are unavoidable, and so by having other computers available that can take over, we can minimize and/or prevent any outages. Of course, whenever one of our systems fails, we work to understand what caused the problem and how we can minimize the chance of a reoccurance.

As funding becomes available to add additional equipment, we will do so.

We encourage our account holders (authors and collectors) to make their site visitors aware that while ASSTR is and will always remain free, unfortunately it takes real money to provide our services (particularly reliable services).
...
We appreciate everyone's patience and support. Please let us know if we
can be of further assistance.

- Rey del Sexo

In the modern always-connected world, it looks like websites are expected to go beyond 99.999% availability and reliability in the service of their readers. We tend to take freebies for granted but can't do without them in this new connected world. Asstr.org happens to be one of my favorite sites as it supports freedom of speech and provides me with a community of authors and readers who enjoy erotica.

What sites could you not bear to live without?