Feedback on supporter features: I probably spend more time on speedrun.com than the average person. By virtue of not only being a big fan of speedrunning but also being interested in leaderboard history and activity, I browse and use the site frequently, visiting many nooks and crannies along the way. I do more than just look at leaderboards every so often. I even donated to the site a few years ago (something I rarely do) because I wanted to contribute to it. Frustrations with the older iterations of speedrun.com were everywhere, specifically with regards to its inconsistent and slow response times. The infamous “Oops! The site’s under a lot of pressure…” message was as common as it was frustrating, especially around the times of large events such as GDQ, when it would increase unbearably in frequency. This made the site difficult to use because of how often you’d get outright prevented from seeing it, but I can’t recall ever having seen it since the new move to Elo’s more powerful servers. The problem, however, is now back in full force (and arguably worse this time). The site’s ads make it harder to see the content on the pages, yes, but they also make the site slow. Its performance, if I’m going to be frank, is downright embarrassing for a site that has undergone so many major changes in the past year or so. You’d think some of those would be geared towards a smoother user experience (the new settings pages and layouts do somewhat clean up the site), but it also seems that there have been decisions made that run contrary to that vision. The site is choked with ads to a degree that makes it look like spam. I would expect to see ads like this on a sketchy credit card scam. My old laptop struggles when I visit speedrun.com; indeed, its fan is kicking up to full power from the webpage being open as I type this. I’ve had to deal with banner ads at the top of the page, ads in the sidebar, a video playing on the bottom left, and a popup displayed that hilariously overlaps with the video and occludes the rest of the bottom of the page. There are four to five ads visible on my screen at once. I understand that running the site is not free and that ads are, in some situations, an unfortunate necessity. Despite this, I strongly feel that this amount of ads is not required to fund the site. I’m obviously not sure, but this line of thinking boils down to one of a few high-level conclusions, most of which do not cast the site or its owners in the best light: Elo is deliberately showing more ads than necessary in an attempt to generate extra income. Relatedly, Elo is not interested in preserving the integrity of the site, and is instead exploiting it as a vector to turn popularity into money. Elo is attempting to incentivize buying the Supporter subscription by making the site borderline-unusable without it. Elo is making a misguided decision in terms of what amount of ads the community will tolerate. The ads are necessary to fund the site. I hope that it is easy to see why so many people, myself included, are reaching one of the former explanations instead of the latter. I have been relatively charitable with speedrun.com because the site is much easier to use now (albeit with adblock on) than it used to be. These recent changes, however, have pushed me from “tentative supporter” to “completely past my breaking point.” I have run out of patience. Here are my main questions: Will the number of ads be decreased now that there is another way to support the site financially? Will supporters be granted additional perks that are so beneficial or important as to alienate non-supporters and turn the site into an obnoxious freemium service? Will Elo privilege supporter feedback on not just the features but the site as a whole? (I am not speaking to whether this is morally correct or not) Will “Boosting” have additional benefits introduced to it so that those who cannot financially contribute may still be able to enjoy some of the premium experiences? I would be grateful if the site were to be improved in terms of user experience, not just in its interface but in how it is being presented to its audience. It is disconcerting that a paid subscription model is being developed instead of more features that would effect every user of the site. Elo continues to say that the "real work" is going to be done soon, and continues to add smaller features that are received negatively (e.g. comments). The promised rewrite would benefit everyone, while proving that Elo is dedicated to legitimately improving the site, so I hope that that is truly the next step. I thank anyone who has taken the time to read this long message, and I hope that work on the site continues to go in a direction I and the community at large are happy with.