Sure, the second year seems a bit subdued as there haven’t been many major developments. One of the biggest changes we made was moving from a dedicated server. Of course, the ultimate goal is to run everything on our hardware with a lot of storage and processing power to support future growth and expansion of our services sustainably for years to come. Hosting has become cheaper, making it easier to support this in the long term.
As WordPress continues to enshittify, significantly the managed one (WordPress.com), I have expanded the free hosting of Japanese media/culture blogs so that people in the AniBlogosphere will have an ad-free and free alternative. It’s part of my expanded goal after starting Sakurajima in October 2022.
My ultimate goal is to create an independent Japanese media and culture fandom community that is run by people in the fandom and free from the Enshittification cycle. Let’s face it: all commercialized services, whether WordPress.com, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, or even BlueSky will face this. Anything that venture capital touches will turn to crap and eventually die as they will ultimately ask for results. As a result, the experience will get worse or just shut down. Social networks are not profitable and will never turn a profit.
This is why independently run websites, forums, blogs, and even the Fediverse are important. It is the last bastion of the internet we control. With search engines getting worse with AI and reducing traffic to independent websites, focusing on communities run by people in the fandom becomes crucial.
With that, Happy 2nd Anniversary. Of course, we have more in store for the third year.
As always, if you like the services we provide and want to support us covering the service costs, you may donate. Only donate if you are able to. You can see the full cost breakdown at the costs page and ways you can donate. You can also now also support us through the Account Upgrades feature on our forums as well if you want to donate monthly, but don't want to use Patreon. Regardless, all services will remain ad free and free for everyone to use.
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