ALS: Past, present & future.

Hey everyone,

I've been mostly silent on Patreon, but I want to talk to you in a more personal way about the past, present, and future of ALS because you are a central part of its existence. Some of you may already know that I'm about to finish my studies and have started working a full-time job. This means that I have less time to work on Apex-related projects, but I've tried my best to stay consistent with new updates being released.

ALS started four years ago when I was 18, and time has flown by since then. Now, ALS is one of the largest community-run websites for Apex (if not the largest), with 1.5 million unique visitors monthly and ~24 million views. To handle such a large amount of traffic, ALS now operates on a total of 16 servers. This may sound like a lot, but remember that ALS does everything itself, including providing various hidden services that require computing power, such as backups and security appliances. Additionally, ALS powers over 600 daily 3rd party projects with our API, which also requires a lot of computing power.

All of this costs money, and a lot of it. Thanks to all of you, ALS remains completely ad-free, and Patreon is my unique source of income. As I've always said to everyone who suggested we put ads and monetize the site: You're right, but I'm not doing this for the money. I'm having fun making this, which is the most important thing in my opinion. If I was doing this for the money, I would have accepted one of the 500k$+ buy offers, but that's not what I want for myself or for you. We all know how ALS would end up if that were the case.

Yet, the world we live in is getting scarier day after day, and we are all going through hard times. In France, where I am based, prices for everything have been increasing over the past few months. Due to this and a decrease in Apex interest, ALS income has been declining for a few months - at a very fast rate. Not gonna lie, I was scared at that time. However, with the recent regain in interest for Apex, ALS income is back to an "OK" state. I'm not sure how long this will last, but for now, it's somewhat fine. Depending on how things go in the upcoming months, I may need to find solutions.

If you have any ideas for the future of ALS, you know where to reach out to me.

All that being said, I would like to thank each one of you. Every single dollar goes a long way, and all of this wouldn't be possible without your support. I still have big plans for the future of ALS, especially with the new tournament features coming soon.

Once again, thank you all for your support. It really means a lot.

Long live to ALS!

Hugo