 The "I'm in a hurry, just give me the facts" version:
StonerRock.com is not a business, it is an online community.
StonerRock.com does not earn a profit, it actually loses a lot of money.
For 9 years, Dan & Melanie (owners) have paid for StonerRock.com out of their own pockets.
Due to the bad economy they are not able to do that anymore.
StonerRock.com must pay for itself by way of contributions from StonerRock.com community members or it will perish.
Click here to make a contribution now.
The "I've got some time, give me all the gory details" version:
In February 2010, owners Dan & Melanie were faced with the possibility of having to shut down StonerRock.com due to financial reasons. It was an especially painful decision not only because StonerRock.com had just recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in December of 2009, but also because Dan & Melanie never would have met or married if it were not for the StonerRock.com community.
The success of StonerRock.com as a thriving internet community hid the harsh reality of its financial cost. The first year of the site was its most successful year financially, thanks in large part to the internet craze of 1999-2000 where banner advertising actually earned a reliable income. StonerRock.com was designed to survive on this revenue. Nowadays, banner ads are actually given away for free to All That is Heavy distributed labels/bands and do not earn an income for StonerRock.com. When the ad revenue dried up, StonerRock.com should have gone offline. As we all know, that’s not what happened.
Good fortune (and save-the-day timing) would smile upon Dan who was approached by Jadd and Aaron, then of MeteorCity, to take over their mail-order/online store, All That’s Heavy. Dan wholeheartedly agreed and began running All That’s Heavy from a storage closet and out of the back of his 1988 Chevy Van. Meanwhile, StonerRock.com continued attracting more and more new members from around the world. Dan decided to integrate All That’s Heavy into StonerRock.com. The hope was that All That’s Heavy would support StonerRock.com financially while StonerRock.com would pay for itself by sending customers to All That’s Heavy.
Over the last 10 years, StonerRock.com has seen its community grow from a few hundred “early adopters” to over 50,000 registered members (give or take a few thousand “troll” aliases). The membership consists of musicians, record label owners, artists, writers and music fanatics. Running parallel is All That is Heavy (renamed from All That's Heavy in 2008), which has seen its catalog grow from a few hundred items to well over 3,000 unique items with Dan & Melanie at the helm. This excludes thousands of other items that have gone out of print over these 10 years and subsequently been removed from the store.
As the internet and the world continues to grow, so does the StonerRock.com community. More and more people are getting into this music which means more bands, more labels, more merchandise. And when sales are great at All That is Heavy, the status-quo is sustainable at StonerRock.com. When sales go down at All That is Heavy, StonerRock.com becomes a financial burden.
Ultimately, it came time to face the realization that while it's created an incredible community, StonerRock.com remains a consistent source of Dan & Melanie’s business debt. 2009 in particular was an extremely difficult year for Dan & Melanie due to the economy, just like it was for many other people and businesses. After considering their options long and hard it was clear that they simply couldn’t afford to foot the bill for StonerRock.com on their own anymore. Ultimately, shutting the website down became the only feasible option.
And here is where the story gets brighter! In February 2010, Dan & Melanie broke the news to John (aka Arzgarth, aka StonerRock.com Editor-in-Chief) and the writing staff about the unfortunate situation and their difficult decision. John and the writers responded with a generous offer to continue running the website under an all new “cooperative” effort called “For the Community, By the Community”. Other long-term community members have volunteered to be Forums Administrators with an eye on improving and revitalizing the community environment for everyone.
So it was decided and so it shall be done. StonerRock.com has been saved by the community that it was originally created for. In appreciation of this generous and altruistic offer from the StonerRock.com staff, Dan & Melanie / All That is Heavy have agreed to continue paying the bills for the dedicated server, hosting and bandwidth above and beyond what they're able to collect from the community by way of contributions. Dan & Melanie would especially like to extend their appreciation to John/Arzgarth (for his great ideas, loyalty and dedication to saving the website), Andy/dinger007 (for his willingness to take over the "news submissions" email address as well as K666 Radio) and JJ/h.p. taskmaster (for his dedication to the scene and the enormous amount of reviews/interviews/etc that he's provided to StonerRock.com so far) and all the other community members who've stepped up and volunteered to be Forums Administrators.
Appreciation is also extended to our loyal All That is Heavy customers who have shopped with us regularly over the years. It's thanks to you that StonerRock.com has stayed online at all. Please accept our eternal gratitude, you don't need to do anything differently at all (except enter your StonerRock.com username when prompted during check-out on your next order).
If StonerRock.com is to survive and flourish then it is critical that the website is able to pay for itself. Please support our efforts to keep StonerRock.com online by shopping regularly at All That is Heavy or by making a contribution to the cause.
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