I wanted to thank all my supporters on BuyMeACoffee, and to give everyone an idea of where your money is going. I swear I won't make this "email my followers" a regular occurrence, but this time for transparency's sake!
Your money is being spent to keep the site running. More importantly, it's helping a lot of people who need to write emails on a daily basis; some who in difficult situations and genuinely need help. A quick search on reddit shows people using PolitePost to communicate when they have ADHD, are in abusive relationships, in tricky legal situations, don't speak the language, or are just venting. It goes so much further than a good laugh or writing emails in the workplace. They have you to thank for it.
I am also personally thankful for every donation, and want to make sure you get your money's worth. I started posting PolitePost.net's monthly OpenAI cost on the About page to give everyone an idea of what sort of traffic we get and what the costs are. OpenAI is not cheap, but it is not prohibitively expensive either. The current breakdown of our costs are:
December 2022 - $90.77
January 2023 - $239.76
February 2023 - $302.14
March 2023 - $326.95
As you can see, the coffee you buy goes straight to operating the site, not a dime leftover for profit. That was always the intention. Very roughly, a $2 donation runs about 4,000 emails (assuming a length of about 400 words). I opened up memberships on BuyMeACoffee for monthly recurring donations. There are no locked features or perks intended, but it will help keep costs manageable. To be blunt, the site and the costs are growing. It is not profitable but I want to keep it running for as long as I can with as few restrictions as I can. I'm excited to see it grow, and happy to put in my fair share as well.
Before I stop, I wanted to point out some upgrades. PolitePost's header has two new features. First is ConcisePost. It takes long, formal emails, and simplifies it to something casual and concise. This was a repeated request, particularly for those who speak only a little bit of English. The second feature is NextGen. It leverages GPT-4 to produce better results. I have not rolled it out generally because it hasn't been working great. However, in time, I expect it will make your emails sound even better!
Once again, I thank you all for your support! Have a great Easter weekend!