Sorry, but what does the most of what you are mentioning have to do with the actual problem, that was going on?
A tonga domain? Download rates? Premium accounts? Accusations here and there?
So you are expecting things to be free for lifetime, as they were freely available for some time? Interesting point of view.
I´ve been asking most of my personal favorite devs for their opinion about this issue. As mentioned, most told me, they are ok with the final agreements, some are still thinking about it, a small amount does not wanna come back.
That´s what i can tell from my personal experience. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Over-dramatizing things will help noone. No Dev, no user, no website. If you personally have things about it, that you personally can´t live with, then ok, just avoid the site.
I don’t see a lot of discussion points that can be actionable or negotiated on. The original changed TOS was revised, and most developers thought that was at least a reasonable compromise. Some developers are still saying that things are not settled yet, and wanting the community and other developers to act. But I don’t know what exactly those issues are. QuickMantis6690 in response to daScooty listed some.
Two of the sections for the continued protests are talking about no apologies were given. But what if flightsim.to feels were the wronged party? This whole thing started when they proposed premium access. Developers thought that was a slippery slope to .to charging for downloading their work, even though that is expressedly forbidden in section 4.1 of the TOS. People were just focusing on section 4.6 without context of the whole TOS. And when they tried deleting their content, than the argument over rights to delete came about. The TOS was revised to address that. So now the contention point is flightsim.to hasn’t offered apologies. Again, they may feel like they are the wronged party.
Transferring servers to Tonga. Flightsim.to still has offices in Germany, they still have to comply with the laws of Germany. Moving servers to Tonga has no impact on legal responsibilities. Labor rates are probably cheaper there. If there are still offices in Germany, what is the issue? Its being portrayed that they moved the servers to get away from German and EU laws, but they are still bound by German and now Tonga laws. I’m not understanding what it is developers are wanting be done, or why.
Then there was a lot of stuff about the Premium service. If users aren’t up in arms about this, then I fail to understand what it is the developers are wanting to be done about this.
I don’t see anything here that can actually be negotiated. I don’t see anything that can be resolved. The TOS went into effect March 5, which was two weeks ago. CynicalLake3917 suggested that we as a flightsim community help the developers reach a suitable arrangement with flightsim.to for the good of the community. But if the remaining issues are what QuickMantis6690 presented, then I don’t see anything that we as a community can help with, because there is nothing in that list that is actionable or able to be negotiated. Some developers still don’t trust flightsim.to. Ok. But there is nothing that the flightsim community can do to fix a developers trust issue. I’m not making light of it. It’s just I don’t see what it is the community is being asked for help fixing.
I can have a .to domain, a .com domain and a .de domain pointing to one single server located in France if I like.
Domains have nothing to do where a server is located nor do they alter legal rules applying to the company or their offerings on the internet.
The FS.TO started and grew because the developers were already out there. You had to hunt for their content or travel in the right circles to get it, but then FS.TO saw a need / opportunity to make a one-stop-shop for add-ons, and there you go. Add-ons were easy to find and downloads went through the roof. Many ‘cups of coffee’ were sent and developers were admired.
A small mod note (especially for those calling for this thread to be closed)… there is no obligation placed on anyone to keep visiting or reading this thread, especially if it is now of no interest to you.
Threads like this eventually pass into the great unknown of “closed” threads as folks find other topics to engage with.
Thank you for the reminder and I forgot that we can Change Tracking so we are no longer notified of any new posts. I forgot about that feature… Thanks !
No need to update since the addon is still compatible
No need to update since the addon was replaced by an in-house solution from Asobo/MS
The dev lost interest, time or both.
Speaking for myself, having uploaded a handful of liveries: I still use them, they’re still working. I could add a few files to make the C172 ones work with the newer updates for the wbsim mod as well as my 208B compatible with the Blacksquare variant. Since there hasn’t been any comments regarding that, there doesn’t seem to be an interest in either.
We don´t need those 3rd party sites. If someone really wants to raise the quality MS should jump in and do it like apple. Test, certify and get rid of all those asset-flipping-copy-paste-stuff that doesnt work, then put it into a well maintained and up-to-date ingame-marketplace.
Where did this myth even come from?
No, having a Tonga domain doesn’t put them in the legal jurisdiction of Tonga, that’s not how domains or legal jurisdiction works.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’re based in Germany. Which you have mentioned yourself, their legal jurisdiction is Germany, not Tonga. If they are trying to hide this they are doing a really awful job.
They literally have this displayed on their own site.
Other points that have been raised are, they use Cloudlfare.
Shock horror, they use one of the most common web security providers and one of the largest CDN providers in the world.
How large is Cloudflare? Very large.
About this point with their premium download speeds.
That’s 50MB/s, not Mbit/s. One is 400Mbps, the other is 50Mbps. In other words, they advertise that their average download speed is 400Mbps. Regardless, they use Bunny as their CDN which they prominently display. CDN’s can cost a lot of money and they’ll usually give end-users the best download speeds, depending on the ISP’s peering, their location and the CDN providers capabilities. Bunny CDN is very capable, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you get 1Gbps+
How much does it cost? They don’t tell. But FlyByWire use Bunny CDN for their downloads and they’re transparent about it through OpenCollective.
Oh and flightsim.to hosts a lot more than FlyByWire does. So I’m pretty sure their bill will be higher. All that bandwidth isn’t free and they need to monetise it somehow. They also have bills and staff to pay. That doesn’t come free.
If you want to host your own service, by all means go for it, competition is great. But there is a reason why everyone isn’t rushing to do it. The ones who are capable of doing it know the costs of doing it and the potential financial outcome from them attempting it.
Today I now get this on flightsim.to
Whereas previously I was still allowed the (slower) download ability for the releases with my adblocker
on, they appear to have disabled this. Either you pay for the downloads or disable your adblocker. I think they’re asking too much for the premium download service. The problem I get with my adblocker off is virus and trojan warnings. Seems one’s choices are now even more limited on this ‘freeware’ site.
"You don’t have to pay, but we do.
Let’s play fair and disable your adblocker.
We understand that ads can be intrusive and annoying, but they help us keep the lights on at Flightsim.to. As a essentially free service, we rely on advertising revenue to cover the costs of hosting and providing millions of downloads to the flight simulation community. It’s called Fair Use. By using an adblocker, you’re denying us the ability to generate income and support our creators, who work hard to create the add-ons and mods that make your flight simulation experience more enjoyable. We ask that you disable your adblocker and help us keep the community thriving .
If you prefer an ad-free experience, we offer a Premium Membership that allows you to enjoy all the benefits of Flightsim.to without seeing any ads. However, if you can’t afford to pay for a membership, please consider supporting us by disabling your adblocker. "
Are you sure the site doesn’t work with adblocker on? I see the two paragraphs you posted, and the wording is explicitly “We ask that you disable your adblocker”. I don’t see anything that says the site won’t work. They ASK since they get paid by ad views and probably click throughs. But I don’t see anything in the wording that says the site won’t function if an adblocker is running.
