The cost of hosting a forum is going up fast like everything else, and the more members, and the more total data you have, the higher the price.
You pay significant money to get good performance out of a server.
And then someone has to deal with everything associated with setting up, running/maintaining not only the hosting services, but the software, software updates, spammers, trolls, etc.
It is a lot to deal with, trust me on that, and a lot of out-of-pocket expenses on top of time spent.
The time/money has to be compensated for.
There is no free lunch.
I contribute money to this site (Supporting Member) because I know how time consuming and expensive it can be to operate a forum like this.
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