I have a request. An idea, but I need help. An idea that would help people. I would like to hear from supportive people who have suggestions or would like to help, or who know others with the skills and knowledge to help.
I want to see a cuddling website that provides the conduit for people to get together without having a middle man(or woman) taking a cut like some pimp. Hey, I don't begrudge people providing a service to make a buck, as long as there is a free option and people CHOOSE to use the service with the middleman. But where is the non profit version of these places? I'm not just talking about cuddle sites, but dating sites too. I believe we all pay taxes in one or more ways, and we should all be able to communicate with each other without someone playing traffic cop with our messages.
I'm semi retired. Retired from one career (federal employee in usa) and now manage my two rental properties renting to university students. So I have the time to handle a website but I need to learn the ropes. What does it take? What does it cost? It's not illegal to run something like that without profiting from it is it?? My thinking is, once the website has a lot of people, and the cuddlers who are paid and who would prefer not having a cut go to a middleman would surely choose the free option then the customers would as well, then you'd probably have some pretty good advertising offers and I'd imagine a couple of classy ads on the borders (not pop ups, i hate those things) would easily pay any domain fees. Am I wrong?
If setting up something like that requires person to person show and tell, I'm in the Northern Virginia area very close to DC and can host or come to you. Or if you just want to reach out and say hi, that's fine also.
I recently hired two ladies to clean both my rentals, and gave them $200 for each house. They were thrilled. They used to work for one of the cleaning companies, which charge customers $200 or more per house, and were giving the ladies TEN DOLLARS EACH PER HOUSE!! Disgusting!!! So maybe you begin to see what makes me tick? And what ticks me off?
@Fairbutfirm
I want to see a cuddling website that provides the conduit for people to get together without having a middle man(or woman) taking a cut like some pimp.
Have you checked out Cuddle Buddies on Reddit? There are probably several other online communities which are similar though I haven't come across them. I don't view the cut as a website acting remotely like a pimp. I don't know if you have any experience in managing a website (nor am I sure if you have seen the actual "pimping out" going on on other sites), but manning even a small social site like Cuddle Comfort where there aren't even a million people signed up is exhausting, and very expensive. There are server costs, hosting costs, domain costs, an unbelievable amount of spare time devoted to this type of thing - you'd hope for some compensation too. There is always the option of starting your own free group on MeetUp.com where you don't have to charge anybody if you don't want to. Cuddle Comfort is not a giant, it's run by one man and 2 moderators. I do not mind that 15% of what clients pay me goes back to keep this place free for everyone else to peruse. Enthusiasts do have a choice, because it's not the enthusiasts paying the bills around here unless they'd LIKE to hire a professional.
Thank you for you input. These server, hosting and domain costs.....who are they paid to? And "unbelievable amount of spare time" doing what??? That's what I need to learn. I'm just saying that with all the taxes we pay our governments there should be a free way for humans to contact other humans.
These server, hosting and domain costs.....who are they paid to?
They are paid to Cuddle Comfort, aka @Mark, who runs and develops the website pretty much all by himself.
And "unbelievable amount of spare time" doing what???
Moderating the site, figuring out how to further develop it, putting efforts into advertising it, making sure that all technical aspects of it are in good working condition, doing research based on how to further develop...managing it. Consider that this is all being done by one person (and possibly one of the moderators, I seem to recall reading somewhere that he has technical background). This is not a huge corporate conglomerate with a head office somewhere - it's actually run by "humans"...lol. A website isn't just founded and set in concrete while the owners sit idly by, and if it is, it's a bad website - there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on, and with this movement being as newborn as it is, it definitely needs all the help it can get.
There was a security breach of some sort not too long ago as well and new implements had to be added in. Downtime of any sort (even if it was just the forum) is also a loss of money. It would be nice if we could alleviate many of the seemingly unnecessary costs of things, such as taxes, but the reality is money doesn't grow on trees and nothing in life is truly free but oxygen and sunshine.
I disagree, money doesn't grow on trees, true, but in reality, nothing costs a penny! There is nothing in the world (or out of it, including sending people to the moon)that ever happened by throwing coins and notes at something. Everything is done through brain, desire, and natural resources. Money was invented so that the greediest and most ambitious humans could have more of everything. Money is about incentive. And it may be necessary to a point, but the concept has certainly not been implemented in an honorable way. But I digress.....
So Mark gets the fees but who does HE pay????? I'm looking for ground zero here
He would be the one in charge of using the funds to pay the above mentioned expenses I talked about such as hosting, domain, bandwidth, server costs, maintenance... A social website with even moderate traffic like this one which is only growing exponentially can cost thousands of dollars every month or every quarter depending on how much information is flowing through. Data is also not free. I agree with your sentiment but unfortunately it's very ideal given our cultural inclination. I too often wish things could be different.
This website was started in 2011 and was not geared towards professionals at all. Mark's aim was to keep the site open for enthusiasts. When pros started showing up anyway, it seemed inevitable and so the decision was made to allow them here, but to take a cut of their earnings for using this as an advertising platform. That's what has allowed the site to change over the last 8 years. It wouldn't be what it is now if he'd done this out of his own pocket.
You may want to research how websites are set up and how they work behind the scenes.
https://websitesetup.org/website-cost/ https://fitsmallbusiness.com/website-costs/ https://itstillworks.com/parts-website-7229068.html
Where do Mark and the mods sit physically? I'd be willing to volunteer and help out and I could learn the ropes by doing. And I love to travel and rentals are basically on autopilot through July 2020.
You just joined and right away have a bone to pick with admin. History there?
I don't know how to reply to a specific person or how to quote someone at the beginning but this is to Vines.....what "bone" are you referring to? No history, sir, this is brand new as am I. I think I explained my position and desire very well. I am simply trying to learn how a website works and who gets paid ULTIMATELY and still haven't received an answer that doesn't leave me with more questions, but hey it's early. I did, however, specify that I'd like supportive replies from supportive people, not coat holders looking to watch a fight. Thanks much.
@Fairbutfirm @Catloaf did a pretty good job trying to explain it to you . You do come across as somewhat adversarial. However I did re read your posts and I may have misjudged the intent . As @Catloaf stated , the site creator is @mark . He is not beholden to other investors as far as I know . He is I believe ground zero however I'm sure he can clarify that for you if he wishes . Also you should start a new thread in the general forum for this topic instead of in the thread for introductions . This is not the right place to inquire about this .
Ok thanks for your input
I would suggest @Fairbutfirm that you start a discussion “I want to bicker” as it would be more appropriate than a thread called “Introductions”.
I remember reading about some other cuddle buddy website on here where the owner was outright scamming the profession cuddlers by pocketing the money and refusing to pay, haven't seen a shred of evidence that cuddlecomfort or mark are anything like that. The cleaning ladies you mentioned were getting 5% of the money when really they should have been getting the majority, you're right that isn't fair at all, but that also isn't anywhere close to what professionals on here get and as such isn't much of a comparison except to show how much fairer cuddlecomfort is.
OP if you're willing to put in the time and effort required to build a website then by all means, you seem to have the best of intentions. But keep in mind that the best of intentions often aren't enough to make something like this work.
I question why Mark would let someone volunteer who has already stated he wants to start a website to usurp members and undermine this website.
@Zundar The website you speak of was The Snuggle Buddies. Some members have claimed to have no problem while others had some pretty disgusting screenshots of what communicating with the owner was really like. He sounds like a pretty vapid human being. He even had a small one-time political career in the making a couple years back. Apparently isn't very bright either...
@Catloaf Ah right, thank you. Knew it was something like that but didn't want to risk guessing on the same. Assuming he thought that if he didn't do it 100% of the time things would go alright, good thing he got greedy and the site got such a bad reputation so quickly or it would have grown along with his pockets.
Hope he attempts politics again so that when an opponent tries digging up dirt they find his past behaviour and promptly ruin him for it.
@Zundar If it was that simple to ruin an aspiring political career Trump would not be in office.