So to go even further more technical into details, this website is ran on a form of hosting called "shared hosting" of which entails:
- Inexpensive web hosting. Currently $8.95/month; paid by Anthony Brownrigg on a yearly-basis ($107.40/year) out of his pocket
- The website is hosted on a server with 100s to 1000s of other websites
- Very unpredictable stability, if a couple websites are a resource hog one day, it renders other websites slow or inaccessible
- Due to it's model, you have limited control over the server, since everyone else shares it; thus it's configured to be general, rather than specifically configured and optimized to how a specific website operates
- Massive amount of storage available (on a shared basis)
- Usually geared towards basic websites where downtime isn't an issue and where the needs are basic (personal website, small informational business website, etc)
- For getting something fixed, you need to have the hosting provider's server administrators to fix it for you; since they're the only people that have control of the server.
- Entire control over the server, allowing it to be modified or adjusted in any [virtual] way.
- Stable; since the server is basically all to yourself, thus it won't go inaccessible because of someone else's website.
- Not as much storage as shared hosting; but certainly sufficient. Like 40GB at minimum.
- Not as inexpensive as shared hosting
Overall, moving to a better server at some point would be a good consideration, and would require appropriate funding. Generally the price range being looked at is from $30/month ($360/year) to $80/month ($960/year). Of which does sound like a whole lot, but assuming like 20 people contribute $25 per year, that would total to $500, which would be at the middle of the price range I threw out. Some considerations that have been discussed is that the primary source would be on a donation basis, and then additionally retail (like if we started merchandising a little) and perhaps non-obtrusive static advertisement (where we'd maintain what's shown, it wouldn't be delegated to a different company to control ads).
So any thoughts, advice, or opinions on the topic?