"Atlas Update: The CEO of MapBox gave Dronpes a call. He understood and made it right. They've wiped our bill! The future of the Nest Atlas is secured, and now the funds raised for the Road can be put to even better use."

#PokemonGO: Travelers, what a roller coaster!It's been a stressful week for the Silph Road team, but the last 24 hours have brought two memories we'll never forget.The first was seeing hundreds of you pitch in to help us cover our steep basemap bill. In less than 24 hours, almost $13,000 materialized to support the Atlas and help secure the future of the Silph Road. Along with those donations were kind words and stories about what the Road has meant to you. I'll never forget that stream of kindness, travelers.Some folks donated hundreds of dollars and one man even donated a thousand dollars. We're blown away. But even $5 means the world to us - that you'd consider what we do here to be worth more than those incubators while Gen 2 babies are out there in those eggs. It's amazing to us.The second memory I'll not forget anytime soon was seeing a missed call and voicemail from a number I didn't recognize. I played the voicemail and heard this:Hey dronpes*, this is Eric from MapBox.Eric (MapBox's CEO, if my caller ID was not mistaken) went on to show an understanding of the situation, owned the mistake, and expressed that it was unbecoming of their company.Getting that call was much appreciated, and we spoke on the phone a few moments later. Eric had taken the time to read every correspondence we'd ever sent, checked out our Nest Atlas, understood the Pokemon GO community's emerging needs, and wanted to not only clear our bill, but compensate us for the engineering energy we spent removing them from our stack due to the pricing. They also offered a very generous amount of basemap hosting for the Atlas at a much more competitive rate and were very supportive of the aims of the Atlas and the Silph Road team's mapping projects.So Is The Atlas Going Back on MapBox?No. At least, not right now. We hold no ill-will, but we love OpenStreetMap and the work they do, and we love having full control of the Silph stack. It is good to have them as a safety net for the Atlas, however, and should something arise with our OSM map, knowing we will not go bankrupt jumping on MapBox is a huge point of security for the Silph Road operations.I want to take this opportunity to share my opinions on MapBox. I think they're a good company. I think what happened to us shouldn't have happened, but something went wrong in the 'enterprise sales process' and past conversations weren't honored. We tried communicating this, but there was a breakdown in communication. This isn't typical for MapBox. Look them up and you'll see this experience is the exception, not the rule. MapBox is an innovative company that has added much to the world of mapping, and has some incredible new technology coming out soon. Their CEO shot straight, owned the mistake, and more than made up for it in our mind. We would consider them again for future endeavors. Just as long as they're cost-efficient and we get a harder quote locked in. :) The Nest Atlas owes the past three months to MapBox - they have hosted our map under heavy loads, and have been a solid basemap provider apart from this incident.So What Will The Funds Be Used For?Hundreds of our travelers contributed $13,000 to help secure the future of the Nest Atlas.Now that the huge bill we were facing has been cleared, our financial position is much stronger. We still have large expenses coming up - particularly in rolling out the rest of our map infrastructure, but we do not anticipate needing all the funds raised to accomplish this.This means, that after taxes, we will have a few thousand more dollars than we need for this transition.We've talked internally about what would be the best use for the excess funds, whether we should stash it in a rainy day fund, donate it to charity, or send it to the OpenStreetMap foundation who make open map data possible for all of us.In the end, we wanted to do all 3.If you donated and feel strongly about how your funds are used, shoot us an email at theSilphRoad@gmail.com and we'll earmark your donation for that specific purpose, travelers. But otherwise, our team would like to spend these funds as such:33% for TSR Infrastructure expenses: rendering retina maps, serving basemap tiles before optimizations are in place, etc33% to OpenStreetMap Foundation: an amazing open source project whose contributions our Atlas is now built on33% to Children's Miracle Network: a high-impact charity that donates funds with low overhead to a network of Children's hospitals. Extra Life Foundation (who many on Reddit have seen before) donates their funds to CMN. We think there are few more deserving of a little extra funding than this group.I know that donating these funds to a charity and an open source foundation are not what we had in mind when we reached out for support, travelers. But today, the stars have aligned and the Road is in a position to give back to the world. I'd be ashamed if we didn't take the opportunity to do so - especially right in the heart of the holiday season.It will be a great honor to be able to donate thousands of dollars to these two organizations in the Silph Road's name. We hope you will agree.Parting WordsTravelers, thank you from myself and the Silph Road team.We've never asked for donations before, and don't anticipate needing them again. But you've come together and shown the very best of the Road. I hope everyone who donated knows how very much it meant to our team to see each donation come in. It's a memory I'll always cherish.The future of the Nest Atlas is secure! And not only that, but we have some new tools and features coming soon that we think will make it even better.Thank you for helping the Silph Road become the best damn community out there.- Executive Dronpes - *He didn't actually say dronpes. I think he couldn't pronounce it. He said my real first name instead. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2hRgBVa