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<div>On Oct 20, 2024, at 5:19 AM, Mikel Maron <mikel.maron@gmail.com> wrote:</div>
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<div>In 2023, we organized a successful fundraising campaign <a href="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/category/organisation/fundraising/" target="_blank">
https://blog.openstreetmap.org/category/organisation/fundraising/</a> (the total announced results were £373,000, not sure if that's the source of the $300k figure).</div>
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<div>Yes, and that is genuinely great, but the question is what do we get for the money?</div>
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<div>The major output remains the free global tile server, where something like 99% of the usage is by third parties and not OSM. We create our own funding requirement and dedicate our sysadmin time to running this thing despite completely free alternatives
now existing (e.g. <a href="https://openfreemap.org/">https://openfreemap.org/</a> ) and then celebrate the “growth” of our “service”.</div>
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<div>We could use these resources to, for example, complete the map.</div>
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<div>It seems cheaper and more effective marketing to run a free OpenStreetMap coffee and hot dog stand in Times Square, New York City.</div>
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<div>Best</div>
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<div>Steve </div>
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