Why does Nexus Mods place a speed cap on downloads?
The download speed cap on Nexus Mods ensures we can budget for and keep our substantial bandwidth bills within an acceptable price range and makes sure we aren't shocked (or utterly destroyed!) by spiralling bandwidth costs.
We use a global CDN to serve our files and our bandwidth is charged by the 95th percentile method. Essentially, that means we're charged based on the speeds we deliver, not the total amount of files that are downloaded. Thus, the faster users download from us, the more our bandwidth bills will cost. By limiting the speeds, we ensure that our expenses remain linked to the number of users who use our site and not the connection speeds of our user base. As a result, it's far easier to budget our bandwidth bills based on our active user base because more users typically means more ad revenue which means the increased bandwidth costs will be offset by the increased advertising income. If we didn't cap our downloads we could not budget in the same way.
What are the caps?
Premium Members who have financially supported Nexus Mods are able to download without a speed cap as they are directly supporting the upkeep of the sites. If you're interested in finding out about all the perks of Premium Membership, or want to become a Premium Member, please head to our information page.
Thus, up until now, there have been two tiers of users on Nexus Mods when it comes to download speeds:
- Normal users. Members who have not bought Premium Membership. These users are capped at 1MB/second.
- Premium Members. Members who have an active Premium Membership. These users are not capped.
We've now created a third tier of users on Nexus Mods that directly impacts the download speed cap. This third tier includes "Supporters", and users who do not use Adblockers. Supporters are users who previously bought a Premium Membership that has since expired (or who have specifically bought the "Supporter" membership from the site for a price of £1.29).
Supporters, along with users not using Adblockers, will have their download cap increased to 2MB a second, which is double what Adblock users will receive. This is how the speed cap tiers now look:
- Adblock users. Members who have not bought Premium Membership and use Adblockers on the site. These users are capped at 1MB/second.
- Supporters and non-Adblock users. Members who are in the Supporter member group or who consistently do not use Adblockers on Nexus Mods. These users are capped at 2MB/second.
- Premium Members. Members who have an active Premium Membership. These users are not capped.
This speed cap increase is live now for manual downloads and will be rolled out to Vortex within the next two weeks.
Why increase the speed for non-Adblock users and Supporters?
Simply put, if you're reading this, you've cost us money. To keep this site running we need to pay a very hefty price. From direct expenses, like the servers and bandwidth that are used to serve the page content to you, to more indirect but equally important expenses like our office space, the staff that maintain and improve the site, the hardware we work on, software license fees, HR, payroll, legal fees, insurance and so on and so forth. All of these expenses need to be accounted for in order to keep these sites up and running well. If you'd like a full breakdown of what Nexus Mods needs money for, we've dedicated an entire page of the site to an infographic that puts it all in to easy to read data points. You can see that page here.
In this age of Adblockers, we believe that the users who financially support the site should be rewarded for their help. Whether by directly donating towards the site by buying Premium or Supporter Memberships or simply by choosing to not use an Adblocker while browsing the site, these users are the ones who help to keep the site up and fully operational. Without them, Nexus Mods would simply cease to exist. We believe the help they provide, consciously or unconsciously, should be incentivised and rewarded.
On the flip side, we do not want to punish users who want to use Adblockers but do not financially contribute to the running of the site. There are myriad different reasons why users choose to use Adblockers, and a lot of them are perfectly valid. For these users, their experience is not changing at all. They'll still be able to browse the site and receive the same experience as they always have done in the past.
In conclusion, we are now rewarding users who contribute financially to the running of the site and we are not placing any further caps or punishing users who use Adblockers.
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A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time beingWhat's your bandwidth max download speed?
Lying about being charged for the network speed is one thing, but saying something is $50, and then trying to sneak in another $12.50 is absurd.
I'll just stick to my 2mb/s download cap, download some mods, then most likely never use this "service" again.
Lying about what, exactly?
First of all, all prices on the site are in GBP, denoted by the pound (£) symbol.
Second of all, whether you went through the upgrade process on the Nexus Mods site or through the forums, both systems inform you of our need to charge tax depending on your location. The text on both systems says:
We have not lied, you simply haven't bothered to read.
That being said, you could have done much worse, so at least there's that.
people that use adblock still gets the speed that they where always capable off.
Even if you dont want to see a ad, servers are not cheap, and servers the size of nexus are very expensive, they need to pay for it, and it is payed whit the ads, the supporters and the premium, so this is not punishing adblock, this is rewarding the people that helps maintain nexus, is a very very different point of view, if you always have used adblock nothing is going to change for you.
One's floor is another person's roof. We could get uncapped transfer as well, but just because we use some piece of software we suddenly can't.
But I do understand your point of view, try understanding ours.
And for the people who can't or dont want to help, they still obtain what was always avaliable.
So this is not a bad thing, this is a good thing, this is not a punishiment for adblockers but a reward for ad watchers and supporters
It's not being about being intelligent or falling for any ad scams. I still vividly remember when I first encountered my properly horrible ad on-line. I just had my PC fixed, I turned on one of the news sites, and then the screen went black. Completely, without any means to recover, no cursor, just black. I had heart in my throat, and then, when I was about to scream, an image of some new brand of car appeared in the middle of my not-so-dead screen via a full-screen flash ad. That day I switched from IE6 to Firefox, and never went back.
So it's about preventing the browser doing something you definitely don't want to, and if you do search a bit, you'll learn they can do much worse than that. If nexus has some ways of preventing such malicious (or just annoying) activities, then it's all and good, but their promise (or their ad providers' promise) is not enough for me, I have to make sure it's on my end as well.
I won't even mention the privacy concerns involved, as ads tend to tag you with an ID cookie and track you around the web.
Otherwise. Eh. Personally, I never even noticed the speed cap. And as nice as having it at 2mb for myself is now, I probably still won't notice it unless I'm downloading something super huge. So. It is what it is?
Edit: Also, I know it's not always as easy at throwing a couple bucks at a site. I'm disabled and have no income, so trust me, I get it. But if you get the chance, it might not be a bad idea.
Back to your main concern — privacy/security risk with using an Adblocker. I would always go with what ensures the security of self and others, so don’t compromise on that.
The target audience for this announcement is Supporters & Premium subscribers. Everyone else —Nothing has changed, business as usual. This was an update for supporters but viewable by the masses. There is no loss or gain for non-subscribers. There is no change for that tier. Treat this as nothing happened to you because just that—nothing happened to you. Business as usual. Your stance on this is on the defensive, but since there was no “deficit of bandwidth” issue before this announcement, there was no “offense” side to unbalance the scales out of your favor. Your argument is contextually-irrelevant.
@lyoko1: I get what you’re saying, however, I’m laughing inside at how you said it: “...this is not punishing the use of Adblock, but rewarding the not using of it...” lmao at how I’m going to take this concept and use it for personal gains (comedically of course) when debating with friends & family
Alas, I don't have a credit card so I can't buy Premium membership, otherwise i would.
To be fair, I think that too many people on internet are too self-entitled, demanding the best free services at their conditions, without even taking into consideration the possibility to give some financial support for the expenses that a internet site has to afford. The common mentality is often "why should I pay?" or, even worse, "why should I get less of those who pay?". I am not saying that's your case, OP, yet you are rising a sterile polemic.
@BeneathThePlass: probably not any time soon.
@silencer711: one one hand, you seem to understand where I come from, one the other you think my argument about ads in discussion about ads is irrelevant. Okay.
I used to get virus infections on the regular before I discovered Adblockers. Since then, I have had none. Adblockers plus a good Antivirus makes for the safest experience overall. If you don't earn enough money because of Adblocking, you need to think of a better model.
It's been this way practically since the site was founded. The only change is an increase in the cap. The cap has always been there.