Field desk // Funding
Keep the archive up
BUFFMAP has no ads, no Advertising ID, and no data to sell. That is a deliberate choice, and it means the running costs have to come from somewhere else. Here is exactly where.
What it costs to run
The archive is cheap to run but not free. The recurring costs are:
- Edge hosting and the API — Cloudflare Workers, KV, and D1 serving
api.buffmap.app. - Image storage — every archived piece is kept at full resolution, and storage only ever grows. This is the line that scales with the archive.
- Store fees — Google Play and Apple developer program fees, billed yearly.
- The domain —
buffmap.app, billed yearly.
Ways to help
Nothing on this page asks you to identify yourself to BUFFMAP. Options are ordered by how much of your anonymity they preserve.
Worth more than money
Use the app
A documented piece, and a documented buff, is the thing the archive is actually made of. Nothing you can send us is worth more than a wall nobody else recorded.
Costs nothing
Put it in front of someone
The pilot grows by word of mouth, not ad spend — there is no ad spend. If you know a writer, a muralist, or an archivist in San Diego, send them here.
Fully anonymous
Bitcoin over Lightning
A BOLT12 offer — reusable, no expiry, no account on either end. Paste it into any Lightning wallet, or scan it if your wallet shows a QR option. We never learn who sent it.
lno1pgqppmsrse80qf0aara4slvcjxrvu6j2rp5ftmjy4yntlsmsutpkvkt6878s8l40cmf4wrwg5au767u69wwgffyc0jlp26p2n87wg6t733mfuatuqgpmds2057qyjs7exwvd4qjfehhl90f358m7ckp5d7tc60e4vgerccsqxw7wkvar34nmwfme0h2ddexn2ef6uuxvzlz62ugk5xx30shn8fjfvulq5xlh205cw4lldzk5czq36epvp5mqy6mgkcywx2yw6k59hs7juc7vxcpptahhssvhvrvm4qmhjuyqcs7yqqewz8rxxcv6z3mf6efqq9yvy2hzx4a96tytjlt9vxeuxete202l5ew79gp2np8qyttrljdz867t4scw7c6q
Card, handled off-site
One-off contribution
Processed entirely by Ko-fi. They see your payment details; BUFFMAP never does and never receives them.
What we will never do
These are commitments, not current-state descriptions. They are the reason the funding options above look the way they do.
- Run ads, or ship an Advertising ID, attribution SDK, or third-party analytics.
- Sell, rent, or share the archive, location data, or any contributor record — to anyone, at any price.
- Put an existing free capability behind a payment.
- Require an identity, a wallet, or a payment method in order to read or contribute to the archive.
- Mint, sell, or auction archived work as an NFT or token. The work belongs to the people who made it.
Planned, not yet available
An optional in-app supporter tier is being considered for after the pilot. If it ships, it would be billed by Google Play or the App Store, which means the store — not BUFFMAP — would hold the payment identity. It is not built, not priced, and not accepting money. This page will say so plainly when that changes.
Questions
For anything about funding, receipts, or sponsorship, email support@buffmap.app. For everything else, use the support desk.