About a year ago the guy who runs that site got cancer and has no insurance, so he was asking for donations. I suspect that's what's going on here.

If you read carefully, the notice doesn't exactly say the site costs $500 a month to run. He says he needs $500 a month in donations, but he doesn't say what the donations will pay for. Maybe they will pay for his cancer.

Welp, there is a way around this, but I'll respect the site owner by not posting the details.

I don't recall whether he ever put advertising of any kind on his site.  If I were trying to finance the site, and didn't want to use the broader Google Ads type of stuff, I would try to sell various books or religious articles off the site, since it draws a lot of visitors.

As for the cost of running the site, it really depends on what you want to pay for in terms of performance, redundancy, etc.  You can get some really cheap hosting solutions that would be more like $20 per month, but they might choke under the load.  $500 per month seems like a lot for just infrastructure, since you can get a dedicated server in Microsoft Azure for about $400 ... except there's also work involved to maintain it, update it, etc. ... not to mention all the work that went into creating it in the first place.  So I think what he's asking is fair.

I'm not a huge fan of the "blackmail" of taking the site down until he gets random donations.  Perhaps he could make it a subscription service, or do some kind of sales/marketing on the site instead.  It's also a little weak that he's asking for checks.  Why not just put a PayPal link on the site?

Paul Mann (apollo on CathInfo) did hand-code the entire DRBO.org website, a labor of love I can relate to.

Like many Trad businessmen/website owners, he tried to get advertising sponsors, etc. over the years, with limited success. And keep in mind he lives in the largest gathering of Trads in the United States: St. Mary's, KS.

If you can't get a little "Trads helping Trads" mini-economy going in St. Mary's, then it can't be done.

Do you know of an alternative way to get into contact with Mr. Mann? I have been trying to get in touch with him since I'm interested in getting some ads on his and other similar sites for Papist Coffee. Unfortunately I haven't heard back from him in a while. If you know of any other contact info, I would appreciate getting it.

I'd also love the option to advertise directly with you on Cathinfo, especially considering how much it must cost you for upkeep and perhaps a better option than only having Google ads on. But I unfortunately never got a response.

Let us throw money at you Matthew, I'd be more than happy to do it. 

...

If you can't get a little "Trads helping Trads" mini-economy going in St. Mary's, then it can't be done.

Well, it is tough to get support from the SSPX laity when you say things like this: * The New Society Of Saint Pius X (SSPX) (drbo.org)

Looking at the site again, he does appear to have some ads there, probably paid advertising slots.  I think that Papist Coffee might sell well there given the type of audience that seek out the DR Bible.