Why Def Con News Is Ending

Hey guys and gals, I’m sure you’ve heard that Def Con News is ending soon, which sucks, so I thought I owed you an explanation. I started DCN from the ashes of Downtrend with the hopes that I could make a living at it. That almost happened with Don and Munny as we were on an upward trajectory, but traffic kind of peaked and then dropped, so it became more of a side hustle. Then, Google Ad Sense nuked us for publishing facts and DCN went to a break-even prospect, barely covering the cost of operating.

Obviously I had to take on other work to keep the lights on and eventually my paying gigs consumed most of my time, which is why I haven’t been doing much on here for a while. Thank God for Nathanael Greene for keeping this going, he really is the heart and soul of this site, as well as its savior.

In any case, the cost of site hosting and domain registration keeps going up and I decided that it was time to let go. I offered to turn DCN over to Mr. Greene, but he suggested that I should solicit donations, which I felt was a great idea, and that’s when everything went to shit.

I hadn’t been on Blue Host, which is the web hosting service I use, in over a year and came to find out it doesn’t work for me any more. I have an older Mac Book Air with an antiquated browser that is not compatible with Blue Host. I can’t update my operating system to get a better browser, nor can I use something like Google Chrome, which I hate anyway. The whole rest of the Internet works for me, so I can’t really justify buying new computer at this point.

Because I can’t use Blue Host, I’m unable to update the payments, so I didn’t want to ask you guys for money, if I can’t actually save DCN. I could probably get them on the phone, though I do need a temporary PIN that I can’t get to for tech support, but there are other issues with the site. There are a couple of things like various certificates that are broken which require Blue Host to fix and I can’t do it.

In any case, Word Press has free web hosting, you just don’t get your own domaine, so I started setting one up as a replacement for DCN. The problem there is to include Disqus, you have to buy the business plan, which is actually more expensive than the Blue Host web hosting. Without Disqus, there really isn’t much point to carry on.

I have been busting my ass for the past couple of weeks looking for workable solutions, but there just isn’t anything I can do with my ancient technology. I’m sorry and I understand your disappointment. I want to thank all of our loyal readers and especially Nathanael Greene for DCN’s awesome run, but the Internet tea leaves are telling me it’s time to go.

DCN’s domain registration expires on September 6 and I’m assuming so does the web hosting, but I honestly don’t know what is going to happen then. It may go dark or could carry on for a while. They may have auto-renewed everything but my credit card on file is expired, so I doubt that.

Anyway, thanks everyone and keep up the good fight.