Garage 61: Processing fast-lane and other pro perks
For about a year now, there's been the option to support Garage 61 through Patreon. And I'm super grateful for those who did, especially because it didn't come with any extra perks. That last bit changes today, with the introduction of a Pro plan.
The Garage 61 community is growing fast: in the last year alone the number of active users tripled. This brings some challenges, as evidenced during the Daytona 24 weekend where processing of driving data slowed down to a crawl. I'm fixing that, but while some things are easy, others require a lot of work which will take quite some time. Some slowdowns might happen again before we get there.
I've just introduced a tiered system, where the processing of driving data is prioritized for those who have a Garage 61 Pro account. Everyone who's a Patreon supporter automatically becomes a Garage 61 Pro. No matter how busy things are, your data should appear on the website as fast as possible. I'm hoping to avoid slowdowns completely, but that'll take more time.
Another Pro perk is unlimited retention. We might be reducing the storage of driving data to 1 year for free users. As a Pro you'll always get the full historical picture.
And finally, you'll get access to the #supporters-only channel on Discord, where I tend to post sneak peeks of upcoming features.
To take advantage of this you'll need to link your Patreon account to Garage 61, instructions can be found here: https://garage61.net/docs/usage/patreon.
This is just the beginning. There's many more new features planned, the majority of which will be free, some will be part of the Pro plan. I'm not planning on taking away any of the existing free features. The goal is to make sure that the free part of Garage 61 will be tremendously useful for everyone, with an optional Pro plan being the icing on top. It should make your simracing experience better regardless of what plan you are on.
If you like Garage 61 and want to help with the ever escalating storage bill, do consider supporting the project. Every contribution helps justify spending more time on the project, which in turn leads to more features.
Many thanks for anyone who's part of this journey. Thoughts, comments, remarks, questions or just having a chat: always welcome!
Ruben