Quartelife needs your quarters. I say If I give you a quarter will you call someone who cares?

Seriously sad. Check out the email I got this a.m. Cue taps.

"quarterlife is in crisis.

In spite of thousands of amazing and creative members from sixty countries, we do not have the traffic to survive as an ad-supported social network. Even with our minimal paid staff (only two!), due to hosting, rent, maintenance, and insurance costs, it still costs WAY more each year to run the site than we receive in ad revenues. We simply cannot continue any longer this way.

The only alternative left is to ask you, the members of the community, to help keep quarterlife alive, to keep those hundreds of thousands of photos, videos, paintings, poems, songs, blogs – and human connections – online for the world to see.

We are asking you to contribute a voluntary monthly subscription fee of $6.00 or – if quarterlife has truly been an important part of your life – $10.00, in order to help the site survive. We know this is a lot to ask, but we still have great plans for quarterlife – new functions, new content, new services we want to offer – and without our basic expenses covered we simply can’t afford to grow in these new areas. Be assured that if we cannot raise enough, and quarterlife has to close down, we will immediately stop collecting those fees. And if by some miracle we collect more than we need, we’ll lower or even eliminate the subscription fee. This is not about profit – it’s about survival.

quarterlife has always been first and foremost a community – and no more so than right now. We have put off making this request as long as we could, but the situation is dire. We need everyone who believes in the humane and creative quarterlife vision to do what he or she can to help the site weather this crisis. Don’t assume others will shoulder the burden. And please know that along with your subscription we want to know your thoughts – on how the site should grow and how it can best affect your life.

Thank you, thank you, for the incredible experience quarterlife has been so far. With your help I know it can continue.

Marshall Herskovitz, Founder

To Subscribe, please visit www.quarterlife.com