NYTimes.com interviews founder of http://4chan.org Turns out, the site makes almost no money :(

via bits.blogs.nytimes.com:

One on One: Christopher Poole, Founder of 4chan
By NICK BILTON

...

 

How many users does 4chan have?
We started with 20 users, now we’re the largest active forum in the United States with 8.2 million unique visitors every month, and 600 million page loads per month. People are on the site are on for an average of 19 minutes at a time and look at 30 pages each. On top of that, we’re currently getting 800,000 new posts a day.

So do you make any money from the site?
Technically yes. Functionally no. The site is technically profitable, we do a little more than break even, but no-one is taking a paycheck.

You keep saying “we.” How many people work on the site?
The site doesn’t have any employees. I have a part-time developer in Georgia, and I also have 30 volunteer moderators. So technically there aren’t any employees receiving a paycheck, including me.

So how do you make money?
The site breaks even and I do some odd jobs.

Read the rest of the short but interesting interview at NYTimes.com.

I find it both fascinating and depressing that a site as successful as 4chan doesn't make the kid more money. He's basically got no employees to pay but I guess the high traffic eats up whatever money he sees. 4chan's a cool site and he deserves to get paid for it. I enjoy 4chan quite a bit when I visit it, so I don't know why I'm suggesting this, but maybe he needs more ads? Or... a fee? O_O

And FYI, I visit 4chan for the papercraft, not for the porn. I use Flickr for porn. ;P

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