4chan owner Nishimura warns site can no longer afford fees

4chan owner Hiroyuki Nishimura has said in a post that the site is no longer able to pay the costs for its own infrastructure. He suggests several options to save the site, including increasing the number of ads.

In the post titled “Winter is coming,” Nishimura apologizes for not being able to keep the site in its original state. He further writes that no advertisements are shown between and below messages, because they do not work. In addition, 4chan would no longer be able to pay costs that arise from infrastructure and servers.

He therefore proposes three options to keep the site running. For example, it is possible to halve the cost of internet traffic by closing a number of boards, setting an upload limit for images and using slower servers. A second option is to show more advertisements, including pop-ups and pop-unders. Malicious ads would also be an option, Nishimura writes.

A third option is to expand the number of 4chan pass users. This subscription form earns the site fifteen dollars per year per subscriber. The Verge notes that American entrepreneur Martin Shkreli has offered via Twitter that he is interested in a seat on 4chan’s board. Shkreli was discredited last year because he pushed the price of a medicine up sharply. Nishimura has replied via Twitter that he will contact picks up with Shkreli.

Japan’s Nishimura acquired 4chan from Christopher ‘moot’ Poole in 2015. He himself is the founder of the 4chan example 2channel. Poole joined Google in March after stepping down as 4chan administrator in early 2015.