February 11, 2023 in Announcements Our approach to Flightsim.to Premium and Creators Program

At Flightsim.to, we have always been committed to providing the best possible platform for our users to share their experiences and creations in the world of flight simulation. Over the years, we have closely listened to your feedback and suggestions, and have been working hard to continually improve our website and services. It's been a while since our last update, but we're thrilled to announce that our services have come a long way since October 2022. If you recall, we shared our struggles and progress in the previous community message back then. After a lot of hard work and dedication, we're happy to say that our platform is now in a stage where we can offer further donation options that bring added benefits to our loyal users. We're eager to embark on this next step in our journey, and we want to do it together with the community. We believe that this new development will bring new opportunities and growth for the entire flight simulation community, and obviously our creators shall not miss out on this journey; they are who keep Flightsim.to alive.

While we've been considering how we can take our platform to the next level, and provide even more value to our loyal users, we have come to the conclusion that introducing a Premium Membership in combination with a Creators Reward program is the best approach to meet our objectives. Firstly, we aim to provide an enhanced experience for those Flightsim.to users who desire more and don't want to compromise while using the site, and secondly, we aim to provide added monetization opportunities for the talented creators who make our community vibrant, while keeping freeware as the core focus.

Our approach to the Premium Membership has been guided by a few key principles:

• Support our creators: We want to give something back to the talented creators who make Flightsim.to such a vibrant and dynamic community. That's why we're introducing our Creators Program, allowing creators to earn money directly through their downloads and making it easier and even safer for users to donate to creators.
• Enhance user experience: We believe that Premium Members who support Flightsim.to with their donation should enjoy a range of exclusive benefits and features, designed to enhance their experience on Flightsim.to and take their flight simulation passion to the next level. Features include ad-free browsing, guaranteed lightning-fast downloads, no countdowns and more.
• Maintain affordability: We understand that not everyone can or want to afford a Premium Membership, and that's why we've kept the pricing accessible where possible, while still providing significant value to Premium Members.

Introducing the Creators Program

While the primary purpose of the Flightsim.to Premium Membership is to support the cost of our servers and hosting needs, we also want to provide our creators with the opportunity to benefit financially. They play a crucial role in making our platform what it is, and it is only fitting that they should be able to share in its success. The Creators Program is a key aspect of our Premium Membership offering, and is designed to support and reward the talented individuals who contribute so much to our community. With this program, creators have the opportunity to earn money directly through their downloads, allowing them to receive recognition and compensation for their hard work and creativity. Not only does the Creators Program benefit our creators, but it also benefits our users by providing access to even more high-quality content and experiences. With the added financial incentive, we expect our creators to be even more motivated to produce and share their best work.  The Creators Program provides creators with multiple ways to earn money through their contributions to Flightsim.to. Our key principles of the Creators Program are:

• Earn more: Firstly, you can earn revenue from unique downloads of your creations. Secondly, you can earn additional income through updates and maintenance of your existing creations. Finally, you can earn bonuses for good ratings on your uploads. This incentivizes creators to continuously improve and update their work.
• Easier Donations: We understand that many users want to support their favorite creators, but the process of donating through third-party platforms such as PayPal can be complex, cumbersome and a privacy-critical topic. That's why we've made it easier for users to donate to creators by integrating a donation system directly into Flightsim.to. With our new system, users can purchase donation credit directly on the website (such as $5, $10, $25...), and then allocate the credit to the creators of their choice. This eliminates the need to pass private information to third-parties, and ensures that all donations are made in a secure and streamlined manner. In addition, users have the ability to leave a review and indicate how much of their donation credit they wish to allocate to a particular creator. This not only provides valuable feedback to the creators, but it also enables users to directly impact the success of their favorite contributors. We believe that this new feature will provide a more streamlined and user-friendly experience for our community, and we're excited to see how it will impact our creators and their ability to earn recognition and compensation for their hard work.
• Exclusive Program: The Creators Program is a selective and exclusive program, designed to reward our most dedicated and talented creators. While we encourage all creators to continue contributing to Flightsim.to, participation in the Creators Program is subject to specific requirements. These requirements are in place to ensure the quality and legality of the content available on our platform. We will share more information with you when time comes.

We're confident that the Creators Program will be a win-win for everyone involved, and we're excited to see how it will evolve and grow as our community continues to thrive. This is only a first outline of our project, we will get back to you with more details in due course. We currently estimate the period of launch to be March to April 2023.

Flightsim.to Premium Membership

The Flightsim.to Premium Membership offers several key features that enhance the user experience. The concept behind Flightsim.to Premium is a response to the numerous requests from our users who wanted to support and donate to our work. With the introduction of Flightsim.to Premium, you can now do so while also enjoying numerous benefits as a token of appreciation.

• Fast Downloads: The Premium Membership offers fast, reliable download speeds, thanks to prioritized routes and direct connections to top-notch CDN servers worldwide. This means you can enjoy speedy downloads no matter your location, and regardless of network traffic on our end. Our partnership with a global CDN guarantees lightning-fast downloads, and our speed guarantee ensures you never have to wait long to get your files.
• Ad-free browsing: Another important feature of the Premium Membership is the ad-free browsing experience. With no distracting ads or ad trackers, you get more control of your privacy, can browse the site without any interruptions, making it easier, faster and more enjoyable to use.
• No countdowns or limitations: As a Premium Member, you will no longer be subject to countdowns or other download limitations such as needed captcha verifications. This means that you can download files as quickly as you like, without having to wait for long periods of time or solve puzzles to access them.
• Supporting Flightsim.to's development: By becoming a Premium Member, you will be directly supporting the continued development of Flightsim.to. This will help to ensure that the platform remains up-to-date and continues to provide the best possible experience for users. The additional resources generated through premium memberships will be used to fund new features and improvements, helping to keep the platform at the forefront of the flightsim community.
• Support Creators: With your Flightsim.to Premium Membership, you are not only getting exclusive benefits for yourself, but you are also supporting the talented creators in our Creators Program. The funds generated from Premium Memberships will be used to help creators earn more through our platform.
• Faster support: Finally, Premium members will receive priority support, ensuring that any questions or issues are addressed quickly and efficiently. You get access to a private Discord channel with the dev team of Flightsim.to and can address your concerns one-to-one.  
• Free for loyal creators: The Premium Program rewards our most active and high-performing creators. By meeting certain requirements, such as a minimum number of downloads, creators can earn the benefits of a Flightsim.to Premium Membership for free. These perks are designed to acknowledge and support the creators who contribute to Flightsim.to and make it the thriving community it is.

It's important to note that the introduction of Flightsim.to Premium does not change the core mission of our platform: to provide a free and accessible flight simulation community. All of our current features and functionalities will remain available to all users, regardless of whether or not they choose to upgrade to Premium. We will not introduce any new limitations or change our core features. There will be no limitations on downloads or other restrictions for non-Premium users, including no throttling or speed caps or anything similar: The difference with Premium however is, you get access to are more-expensive, high-performing server network, which obviously also costs us more. Flightsim.to Premium is an optional way for users to support our platform and its ongoing development, as there has luckily been great demand to donate. We remain committed to providing a valuable and enjoyable experience for everyone who participates in the community, whether Premium or not.

We wanted to give you a first glimpse into our plans for Flightsim.to Premium and the Creators Program. While we are still working on the final details, these are the key points you should know. We are eager to hear your feedback and will provide more information in the near future. Our aim is to launch the Premium Membership program within the current month, and our Creators Program at the beginning of the next quarter, so stay tuned for updates.