To celebrate my 21 years and 20000 posts as OSNews’ managing editor, it’s time for a massive fundraiser: a euro for every story I’ve posted over the past 21 years. Because OSNews is ad-free and independent, I rely entirely on your donations and support for my income and OSNews’ continued survival. Your donations ensures OSNews remains free of ads, corporate influence, and other commercial interests that have ruined so many great websites.
Why support OSNews?
- We do not run any ads, so we don’t have to be friendly to advertisers (i.e. the technology companies we’re supposed to report on).
- We are not owned and controlled by a large media company dictating our tone and content. You’d be surprised how many other sites are.
- We do not use any “AI”; not during research, not during writing, not for images, nothing.
- We rely entirely on your support to keep going.
I want to make sure I can run OSNews for another two decades and another 20000 posts, and I need your help to do so. Since my wife, who has a tough, underpaid job in elderly care, is largely unable to work due to health reasons caused by that very same job, my income has become a lot more crucial for our kids, my wife, and myself. With OSNews readers being more skeptical of subscription-like things like our Patreon than most people, it’s exactly these one-time donations that make up the bulk of your support.
To sweeten the deal, I’ve come up with a bunch of silly incentives that will unlock at certain thresholds:
- At 5000: I will use Windows 11 for a month for everything non-gaming. The real Windows 11, so not debloated, and with an online account, Office, Outlook for email, the whole deal. I dread this so much.
- At 10000: I’ll make a proper photo and video tour of my office, my computers, and my vast collection of PDAs, edited and produced on Linux, of course. I know very little about videography, so I’ve got some learning to do.
- At 15000: I will use some of the donated money to buy a Mac and use macOS for a month for everything non-gaming, and write a proper, fair review about it. I’ll live the Apple desktop life on a modern M series Mac, probably a MacBook Air or Neo, depending on deals I can find, most likely used/refurbished. I dread this even more than using Windows 11.
- At 20000: as detailed in my 21 years and 20000 posts article, I will get the OSNews logo tattooed on my right shoulder (my first tattoo), in honour of the role OSNews plays in my life. Photo and video evidence of the result will be provided.
I know many of you don’t really care about incentives and silly things like these, but I think they’re fun and add some interesting things to donate to. The donations already started coming in, so we’ve got a small head start. Also, if anyone has any idea on how to add a cool progress bar to OSNews to keep track of the donations and incentives, please let me know. I’m sure some of you can whip something up or point me to something.
OSNews was founded in 1997, so we’re almost 30 years old. Let’s keep this wonderful little corner of the people-focused web alive for just a euro per post. Everyone here deserves it, because y’all are great. ♥️
