Original Summary

I run a small video hosting service called Stillhaven.io . We are a team of four in Michigan. This week we closed the free plan to new signups. It was not a hard decision. The free plan was a marketing experiment. We ran ads to it and hoped people would see the value and upgrade when they hit the free limits. We expected some abuse, and we limited the ads to the US and Canada to keep the cost reasonable. Here is what it did in about three months. The numbers 35 free accounts 0 upgrades to a paid plan 5 suspended for breaking the terms Most never signed in again after their first two days and one big upload The cost did not break us. We already had paying customers before we opened to the public, so it was a small hit and not a crisis. But add the advertising, the moderation time and the storage, and it was an expensive lesson that was only going to get worse. What the free accounts did The pattern was the same each time: sign up, upload within minutes, never come back. A full episode of a current TV drama, uploaded four minutes after signup. Nobody ever played it. A 1990 feature film, uploaded three times by one account from release rips, then passed around by link. Dubbed episodes of a streaming series, embedded within hours on a site selling "Unlock 720p". Accounts that uploaded pornography, each suspended within 24 hours. A subscription adult site also asked for an account. I said no. Our payment processor does not allow it, and one processor account carries every customer's billing. It was the one legitimate contact that marketing produced, and we had to turn it down. Our automated scanning caught the pornography, and I am grateful my team had the foresight to include it before we opened to the public. It did not catch the pirated video. A scanner looks at frames, and a pirated film looks like any other film. What gave those away was the file names, which read like release rips, and uploads that arrived minutes after signup. Where they came from Two sources surprised us. The first was ChatGPT. One day five free signups arrived within twelve hours, and every one was referred by ChatGPT. Two of them uploaded the dubbed episodes. I had written the site to be easy for AI assistants to read, and it worked. I assume someone asked for something like "free private video hosting" and the assistant answered accurately. The second was our own advertising. Over 30 days Google Ads spent $401.48 for 120 clicks and 3 signups. All three were free accounts. The ad group that took the most money was built around "private video hosting". Its search terms included "anonymous video host" and "upload video anonymously". To me, private meant a client's unreleased cut. To many searchers it means hiding what you upload. We were paying about $3.30 a click to recruit the accounts we ended up suspending. What we tried first A block on disposable email domains at signup One account per inbox, counting Gmail's

  • 情报分类：服务器与云资源
  • 分类依据：内容涉及服务器、云资源或网络线路
  • 信息来源：Reddit · SaaS
  • 发布时间：2026/10/9 06:07:49