Running a great free service used by millions has big rewards, but it's not all roses. Remy Sharp is publishing a series of posts detailing the difficulties he has faced operating JS Bin, the longest-running live pastebin.
JS Bin enables anyone to anonymously create public web pages, which means it's a magnet for script kiddies, scammers and spammers, all of which have to be fended off by Sharp himself. Some of the things he has to do to keep the bad guys at bay impact negatively on innocent users. Even registered users cause trouble sometimes.
Overall the posts provide an insight into what it takes to keep something free and open on the internet. It's a lot of time, money and stress, but Sharp has pledged to keep JS Bin up and running despite the cost.
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