Donation Observation

[kusto]

"Getting closer and closer to the Beta release. Founder accounts will soon stop to be offered." - Monday, December 5, 2011
"This goes in hand to another announcement, once i have mentinoed in previous communications in other means.
When the Dev server is finally concluded, we want to stop handing out Founder accounts. Its not fair to our eyes that people that put their faith for us several months ago, when a picture was all we could show, than to do it when there is a video and a server running. The difference of the leap of faith has to be rewarded."

"This gives us two options: either we raise the price on founder accounts, or we change the name of founder to 'Supporter' account. Although they would get the same benefit, the account would be flagged differently and it will be evident who where the supporters in the first phase of the project, in its infancy."

With 113 "founders" already, it seems like the group is already nothing special to consider. What a surprise they are still being offered a month later. Not so soon after all $$$

Updates on Kaya.gs Alpha - Tuesday, December 27, 2011
"To set some surprises straight, we use an Amazon Free Tier server, which is free, but also has very low reliability and other issues. Sometimes, Amazon practically shuts down our server completely. This is what happened today."

So after the US$6995 that is donated so far, you can not afford to even rent a paid server?

This is sounding like some money scam.

[yoyoma]

Yes, Kaya should immediately spend money on things it does not need to prove that it needs money!

</sarcasm>

[hyperpape]

The part where they have built large parts of a go server does not really sound like a scam to me.

[illluck]

I think that using a free server can be justified for alpha, since it may be a while before the public release. The handling of the accounts feels a bit commercial to me too, but since one of the objectives is for the server to be financially profitable and professionalism as well as commitment are requested of the creators it's probably fair.

[kusto]

so donators pay them to work on a project that is going to make the owners a lot of money and the founders nothing

all while they make the group bigger and offer nothing special it still smells like a scam

the founders list will grow bigger and the regular accounts will be more rare than founders in the future

@hyperpape: a scamming used car dealer will still sell you a car even if it is overpriced and only half working

[lovely]

I have a sneaking suspicion as to where the money could have went, but out of respect I won't bring it up here.

[daal]

I have a sneaking suspicion as to where the money could have went, but out of respect I won't bring it up here.

But that's what you just did.

[lovely]

I have a sneaking suspicion as to where the money could have went, but out of respect I won't bring it up here.

But that's what you just did.

You catch on quick

[Celebrir]

I have a sneaking suspicion as to where the money could have went, but out of respect I won't bring it up here.

As far as I know the both developers have quit their normal jobs for doing this. I guess they have to e.g. eat something as well Besides it is normal to be sure that you can pay for a few month for a server before you put such a project on it.

[hyperpape]

One of my bigger worries about kaya is that the founders won't be able to make back their money (for the time they've invested) and live off of it. If they were able to make money, that would be a good scenario. The worst scenario is that the server is never any good.

Analogy: plenty of people use kickstarter to create businesses. People who are interested in the product give money to make it possible. At the end of it, the product may be successful, and the founders have a business, but everyone is happy.

[cata]

I don't understand why you would want Kaya to spend their money on better hosting for the duration of a closed alpha test.

[Kaya.gs]

"Getting closer and closer to the Beta release. Founder accounts will soon stop to be offered." - Monday, December 5, 2011
"This goes in hand to another announcement, once i have mentinoed in previous communications in other means.
When the Dev server is finally concluded, we want to stop handing out Founder accounts. Its not fair to our eyes that people that put their faith for us several months ago, when a picture was all we could show, than to do it when there is a video and a server running. The difference of the leap of faith has to be rewarded."

"This gives us two options: either we raise the price on founder accounts, or we change the name of founder to 'Supporter' account. Although they would get the same benefit, the account would be flagged differently and it will be evident who where the supporters in the first phase of the project, in its infancy."

With 113 "founders" already, it seems like the group is already nothing special to consider. What a surprise they are still being offered a month later. Not so soon after all $$$

Actually its more than 113, because about 20-30 people haven't given me directions on how they want to be on the BoF.

Alpha is for almost 2 weeks now, and we haven't stopped the founder accounts because X-mas and new-year brought a lot of new supporters. But we are working on automatizing the whole account creation process by integrating paypal, and the switch from founder accout to supporter will happen easily then.

Updates on Kaya.gs Alpha - Tuesday, December 27, 2011
"To set some surprises straight, we use an Amazon Free Tier server, which is free, but also has very low reliability and other issues. Sometimes, Amazon practically shuts down our server completely. This is what happened today."

So after the US$6995 that is donated so far, you can not afford to even rent a paid server?

This is sounding like some money scam.

Actually because account creation is becoming big and people want to be able to change their passwords, we are going to open one of the non-free servers soon(surely this month). The one we need for a few months is quite cheap actually.
We have been working with the free tier since September, as we progressively had been testing what we have in our computers in the remote server. The switch is inevitable, just a matter of when.

You are not the first one to distrust Kaya, but certainly the newest one. After release, where i have spent roughly 70 hours/week talking and playing with founders inside the server, you really believe we are not 100% into it?

so donators pay them to work on a project that is going to make the owners a lot of money and the founders nothing

all while they make the group bigger and offer nothing special it still smells like a scam

the founders list will grow bigger and the regular accounts will be more rare than founders in the future

@hyperpape: a scamming used car dealer will still sell you a car even if it is overpriced and only half working

There are about 130-140 founder accounts. When we switch to supporter, which is an account with similar access but will be marked differently, founder accounts will never be offered again. So if your concern is "potential exclusivity", think of how KGS has about 100.000 accounts, and how many would 140 be in a similar count.

But true kudos if actually most people become supporters than regular free-accounts, means we are doing something right .

Regarding money, i think you might be confusing donation with investment, something of a trend of people with strong doubts. Check my response to CSamurai http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=76722#p76722 from a few months back.

[belettego]

As a founder I just wanna say that I don't care on what my given money is spent. Kaya.gs developers may spend it on beer or whatever they like. And if the project fails this would be a shame but time will heal my wound of losing $35. In my opinion the discussion if this is a scam becomes boring because the arguments repeat. Anyone who is suspicious: just don't become a founder. Do you really think you tell people something interesting which they would have never found out on their own?

No offence intended, just my two cents.

All the best for kaya.gs. I like what I see.

[Gegenzeit]

I hang around in Kaya more or less all day every day since the alpha is open. I can not recall a single time without a dev present - listening to people, fixing stuff, playing games, answering questions.

The amount of effort and dedication put into the project is astonishing.

If you had paid a company to do what they have done so far, we would talk about way way way more money than they have collected from founder accounts. If it was a scam, it would be a stupid and laborious one

[hyuuki]

If this is a scam then it's certainly very well hidden. I talked to Gabriel several month back, asking him tons of questions, before spending a pile and the project convinced me - so that the server is actually up and running and hundreds of games are played on it does not exactly create doubts in me.

Having worked on Go server development for hundreds of hours myself, I am confident in saying that a lot of man month had to be spent to built what there is right now. They are working hard, so I can only recommend you to join in and try it out asap