Blog Misc. -- PayPal Donations Review -- 2012 Nov 03 SA

In response to several requests, I finally got this blog set up to receive contributions of financial support via PayPal in September of 2010, about five months after launching the blog. September through December of 2010, donations totaled $381.19, a monthly average of $95.30.

In the calendar year 2011, donations totaled $1,066.49, representing a monthly average of $88.87. [ALL of the amounts mentioned here are NET received from PayPal after they took out their transaction fees.] This was a slight decrease from the previous year, but still quite generous and very encouraging.

So far this year -- 2012 -- things have been taking a different turn.

In July, net donations totaled $9.41. This was the first time a month's contributions had totaled less than ten dollars.

August brought a nice recovery with total net donations of $73.21.

Then came September with zero donations. A friend suggested that there might be a "message" in this, and that perhaps I should re-evaluate how I invest my time. I chose to think of this as an anomaly, just a bad month and not a reason to question the work that I was doing, day in and day out.

But then came October.



In October, Republic Broadcasting slowly inched their way closer to an objective of raising $40,000 with which to purchase new hardware. And in October, Alex Jones splurged with a 49.5 hour marathon "money bomb" fund-raising broadcast (all of which was uploaded here). Jones fell short of his lofty one million dollar goal, but certainly gathered a very significant sum.

During the month that this was happening this blog, once again, received zero donations. This time, it has been difficult for me to not imagine that there is "a message" to be seen in two consecutive months of no contributions of support. It would seem that now either no one who finds value in the work that I do is able to contribute in support of that work... or, that no one now finds value in my daily work.

One is discouraging. The other is kind of devastating.

For longer than this blog has been in existence, this sort of work has been "my job." To an extent, this is mostly the kind of work that I am able to do at this point in my life. This blog was created initially to facilitate work that I was already doing, and then to expand that work. There have been set-backs (e.g., the cease-and-desist from Peter Schiff and the DCMA takedown from Jack Blood) and there have been times when health issues have simply prevented me from spending enough time at the computer to do all that I would wish to do. But I continue to see an importance in spreading the kinds of information that is published via this blog.

This blog was not created with the expectation that it would be a "revenue stream" for me, but the simple fact is that the donations that have come from here have made a significant difference in our life. It's humbling to admit, but true that there have been lots of times when the arrival of a donation came at just the right moment so that we didn't have to choose between buying groceries and putting gas in Mrs. S's car.

This post is meant neither as a demand, nor a plea for donations. There is no implication that if money doesn't start rolling in I'll just quit. What I hope to learn is whether the "message" of the past two months is that I am no longer providing value in the No Agenda sense of "value-for-value." If that IS the case, then I know there are lots of hours in the evenings that Mrs. S would rather I spent with her instead of the computer.

There are other issues I'd like to address that will impact the future of this effort, such as the impending implementation of the "six-strikes" plan embraced by my ISP, Time-Warner, Cablevision, Verizon and ATT in which a user can earn a "strike" simply by visiting a "rouge site" (e.g., The Pirate Bay). But I have said enough for now. I would like to hear from you -- about what you think the message of September and October is, and about whether this blog still matters.