Am example of what seems to work is Boardgamegeek.com and their funding. They have a big end of year fund drive with a set goal, (perhaps at this time to get donations for US tax purposes) . This helps developers think and plan for costs for the next year as well as giving the community an honest idea of what running things costs. For example, is we reach amount X we can support a developer to add feature Y (I see that this is happening). I happily support this with a donation each year since I do not like perpetual monthly deductions.
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“it would probably be more interesting to add capabilities for supporters than to sustract them for the rest”
Once any given feature is implemented, these are two sides of the same coin. Any lack of features comes about because implementing them is bloody difficult, not because things are being held back from supporters.
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Yes, I get that it is not a big deal for you, but you do not get to decide that it is not a big deal for everyone else. These days are in addition to the weekends and the vacation that already accumulated in the same month which easily doubles the length of the game.
I would pay for the option of playing vacation-free correspondence games and tournaments.
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Hi there! In no moment have I said that there is a lack of features on OGS or that the developers should implement more. I’m just trying to make some constructive criticism and pool in some ideas, so telling me it is “bloody difficult” may not be that necessary. Think about it 
Also, I hope you took the time to read all the post and not only the last line of it, as it does not give you a good feel of what I mean.
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Does it mean that if we hit 5% we’ll get another anoek? And after doubling the number of users there will be 4 ?
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I love that you are trying to go ad-free, I think that’s great. I don’t like the idea I’ve seen bandied about for restricting features on the sites to members, but I think some token for different supporters and the ability to easily modify pledge amount would help. Like, if someone is pledging x dollars a month, they can optionally put a shiny crown next to their name, or a private ladder for site supporters just for fun.
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can pay in terms of lessons enough to make him 9p (oh wait, maybe he already is)
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Actually, your paid-feature idea can live in parallel with mine 
It would create separate tournament rosters with two kinds of player mindsets (in respect to time management).
Edit: good guys have opened a fast tournament group. You should check this out https://online-go.com/group/1836
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I would be a supporter since about two years, if you finally would provide other payment options then credit card. I mentioned that already formerly, but nothing happened. I tried it again today: And paypal still does only work with credit card (I have never seen such a strange paypal implementation, btw). Also still no one time donations possible.
Even if you claim something else, it seems, as if you are not very interested in donations. A pity.
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As I am retired and on a fixed income I would need a “1 time donation” feature. This way, when I can provide support, I do. But if I can’t, I don’t have to worry about an Auto-Pay feature still operating. Budgeting is a far different kettle of fish at this age than when I was out in the workforce.
Mogadeet
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I was an OGS site supporter before the merge with Nova and was able to make an annual payment.
The yearly amount that I can (at the moment) comfortably donate is such that the monthly outgoing from my account will be stupidly small.
Someone mentioned make a donation of the amount you can afford and then cancel the direct debit. Sure, that would work but then you wouldn’t have the gold username, vacation benefits and no ads. But maybe I could live with that…
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Just to bring it back up so people do not have to read all the way to the top 
You are being heard, it just takes time.
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I’m quite curious of how the option is going to get implemented. It’s never as simple as pay once and forget about it. The biggest downside of ‘one off’ support is that OGS will need to set some arbitrary awkward rules - given amount X you’ll get supporter status for time Y. Beyond the artificial anchoring, it also adds a lot of effort for tracking the status and notifying about it’s changes. All in all, it does seem like a lot of overhead for questionably minor usability improvement.
Many users are quite vocally asking for one-off payments. I can only assume that people’s definition of convenience is different than mine. Given real support is an ongoing thing (whether you pay monthly, quarterly or yearly) I’d prefer outsourcing the integration to major support platforms like Patreon. There are many advantages for such a setup:
- Set-up once and forget
- Tracking all projects in one place. Budget control.
- Built in support both for CC / Paypal.
- No management needed from OGS, meaning @anoek can focus on implementing new fantastic features instead
The remaining unsolved problem is donations without a CC / Paypal, but that’s an extremely difficult problem to solve internationally. Even for that very reason I’d prefer that someone else would be solving the problem instead Many platforms are popping up recently which provide Mastercard/VISA standard on prepaid accounts. I don’t want to advertise specific names, but just google (ekhm… I guess that doesn’t count as advert) best prepaid cards
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It might be worth noting that there’s nothing that says a person who makes a one-off payment gets the same perks as an ongoing supporter.
If you look at it this way, then the administrative effort and challenges you mention somewhat fade away.
You are just left with “so what do you get for your one off payment?”
I imagine one good answer to this is “a warm fuzzy glow of knowing you helped”.
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I understand nothing of money …
… but what about a low threshold like $1 or $2 per month –> $12 or $24 per year to get the “membership” benefits like more vacation?
I could imagine that such a low “membership fee” would make it attractive for MANY people to become members, perhaps like how the lower app prices in the iOS appstore still allowed developers to make a LOT of money just because the purchase threshold was so low.
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Since you can already subscribe for $1 p/m and annual subscriptions usually have some kind of discount, I think a $10 annual membership would be an excellent option for all parties (obviously with the option to donate a higher amount to offer greater benefit to the site and its development).
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So … you don’t want one-off support and you post a long post why all the people who say otherwise should just be like you.
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It’s not that I don’t like it. I just believe that development effort would have been better spent elsewhere and I provide my reasons. Feel free to disagree and explain your point of view.
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I think I like this way of thinking! Still I would feel bad donating 10$ a month if what you suggest was a viable option