How do IRC servers make money?
 

Do people do it just for the hell of it, or is there a way to make money running your own IRC server?

some run ads
but most of them are doing it for the hell of it.

I don't think its for the money.

no it's just an added bonus :)

It's a pretty interesting scene... lots of people and there has to be money to be made...

I played with eggdrops for a bit a while back... you can pretty much create any type of old school BBS doors you want with them... RPGs, etc...

Just checked out IRC again tonight, and there seems to be a whole shitload of new servers...

Hmmm... I just need to come of with an idear... :)

or what about the people that code bots and run a few channels on IRC. They all do it for the fun of it.

yea most are just done as a service they're some pretty big irc networks

There's no money in it - the big players in the IRC server world are mostly ISPs with bandwidth to spare. At most, someone might recognize the name and eventually switch to their service - but not bloody likely.

they dont make money, everyone there is volunteers..a lot of people get into hosting servers soley for the power of having an o:line (network god pretty much) :2 cents:

not sure exactly how it works but i'm assuming it works like video game servers. some people with extra server space and bandwidth put up a server.

Good question.

I have wondered that for years especially the ones that host movies for free download.

They have apparently virtually unlimited bandwidth and all they get out of it is the status of having the most current movies on THEIR particular server? :eek7

in some cases its the same people that have the downloads available that host the server, but most of the time it's a certain 'warez group'

all the bots people download from in those irc channels are hacked machines, usually win2k boxes with no defaults admin password. favorite target is univeristy machines and .jp lines (nice and fast)

they scan subnet after subnet looking for machine to take over.. and dump gigs of files to a subfolder in c:\winnt. then a program they've uploaded runs making it connect to irc and begin distrubuting warez

Servers are usually linked to someplace where the IRC servers act as chat hangout for group members/visitors of that business or online area.

The rest are guys who own servers and prob have nothing better to do with them.

Join us on IRC.2600.NET :thumbsup

don't think there's much (if any) money to be made running an IRC server...

Where you are downloading from are people's personal computers that are hacked. Nice, eh? They hack someone's computer, typically b/c they don't have up to date windowsupdate, and install movies and use all their bandwidth to distributed illegal files :)
ZoiNk

This explains it then. Still no profit but same mentality as virus writers I guess. :glugglug

ISPrime used to have their own IRC server connected to EFNet or another network. Not sure if it is still working.. used to be irc.isprime.com

I'm pretty sure its mostly a "prestige"/hobby type deal for people really into computers.

Emory University had a server, Mindspring, etc.
I think you can charge some money for registered nicks, not sure, but its more for fun.