A personal observation....
Recently I have updated ALL my scenery and yet with my latest upload there has been over 120 views to the scenery page and only a single donation to help flight-sim.org.
In the past before I made a request for a donation towards the site there have been many hundreds of downloads for each upload I made. There are other developers who give generously of their time and work asking nothing in return, maybe a THANK YOU wouldn't go a miss and even a small donation would go towards the electric bill, as this is certainly not for free. Fortunately there are always the few that have shown their appreciation by donations to flight-sim.org to keep this wonderful and needed scenery portal active over the years and hopefully many years to come.
It is something of an eye opener to observe many thousands will be spent on hardware and yet the necessary software to make the hobby a pleasure is begrudged and advantage taken of those who spend many months, years even, to make scenery and the most comments received are asking for more, better this or that, greater areas, more details etc. My wife likened it to someone who spends a fortune on a car but expects the garage to fuel it, upgrade the tyres and navigation system for free. No she doesn't share the hobby but has spent many a lonely time chasing me for meals and to sleep occasionally
So to those many flight simmers who over the years have taken scenery downloads for granted I now ask you to think again and if you are able and willing to make a small donation now is the time to do it. As without your support and encouragement this valuable asset may not be here in the future.
Thank you in advance and in the hope you realise the great asset this portal is for our hobby.