PP Blog Sustained By Readers: Why It Does What It Does
Dear Readers,
I am updating this donation post at 11:30 a.m. (EDT) on Aug. 7. Donations have been received from 12 readers, and the Blog is back from the edge of the abyss. Thank you, dear readers.
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This Blog does what it does because its author — and many, many of its readers across the globe — are deeply concerned that criminals and hucksters have created what effectively are templates that enable fraud on a scale unprecedented in the history of mankind.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the damage a pickpocket could do was limited to, say, the size of the crowd a local community celebration or carnival that came to town once a year could draw. If Dad was the family breadwinner — and if Dad deposited his paycheck on a Friday night, took out $100 in cash, stuck it in his wallet and headed to the park to meet Mom and the kids — Dad was the pickpocket’s mark.
More than one Dad could get hit, of course, but the supply of Dads at a local event was limited. A pickpocket could put Dad and his family on boxed macaroni and cheese or soup for a couple of weeks, to be sure. And a pickpocket could turn Mom into a creative cook and storyteller — beans and wieners on one day and wieners and beans on the next, she might joke to the kids — but the pickpocket could not visit devastation on the family.
That all changed with the Internet and with the speed at which money moves these days. Put simply, the pickpocket no longer has to wait for a community event or for the carnival to come to town. He or she could use electronic templates, study what was “working” to the maximum criminal effect, create their own carnival audience — and start picking the pockets of a global audience of sums that put individuals and families in ruin.
The criminal template for HYIPs and autosurfs, for example, are getting more diabolical, more sinister. The template gets tweaked — perhaps called something else — but still is misery waiting to happen. The pickpockets have created what in effect is a criminal combine of pickpockets. This combine, however loosely associated, is eviscerating wealth at the local level in tens of thousands of communities across the globe and transferring it to a select few.
Perhaps most galling is that the criminal ventures are presented as the latest and greatest in Capitalism. People down on their luck and struggling to get through lean times are particularly susceptible to this message. Indeed, the crooks know what “works.” On one day, the criminal message may be targeted to people of faith; on the next, it may be targeted at people angry at the government — either for doing too much, or too little.
Over the years, the PP Blog has been chastised for being a puppet to the government masters, for being too stupid to recognize that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (or pyramid scheme), for cheerleading for the law-enforcement agencies, for not exposing the Great Conspiracy at the Federal Reserve, for being a Democrat, for being a Republican, for being a Nazi, for being a Socialist, for being against the little guy.
Friends, what I am is an American journalist who happened across the greatest crime story in history while publishing was going though the greatest upheaval in its history. This crime story only is expanding, and the situation only is getting more dangerous. I need the help of my readers to continue to cover it.
This month’s need is on the order of $550. Please help if you’re able.
All it takes is for everyone who reads Patrick’s blog to donate just $10/month, and it ensures that this blog remains active and continues to expose these scammers and those who promote them.
The scammers and their promoter’s want this blog taken down. It’s bad for business. Do nothing and they win. Do something and everyone wins.
So who do you want to support – the scammers and their promoter’s or this blog? Your choice.
Still $180 short. It’s down to the wire now. This post effectively has been up for eight days and has resulted in seven donations, one would-be harassing “comment” from a purported freedom-lover who uses multiple IPs to send harassing comments repeatedly and one email from a reader who declares the PP Blog a “reumor mill” and me “an absolute joke!”
Patrick
One more donation has come in. Still $165 short.
Patrick
Two more donations have come in. Still about $70 short.
Patrick
Can you please put up a link on the home page for monthly or annual subscriptions, as well as donations? Many non profit blogs do this in order to cover their publishing overheads and it makes it far easier for readers to make a small but regular donation.
Thanks
LORM wrote: “Can you please put up a link on the home page for monthly or annual subscriptions . . .”
I replied:
Hi LORM,
Subscriptions would greatly reduce readership because it would put things behind a paywall. That’s at cross-purposes with the aims of the Blog. Ponzi victims, for instance, would end up having to pay to read. Law enforcement would have to pay to read.
Subscriptions also would create customer service/maintenance chores that would erode my researching, reporting and writing time.
Readership of the Blog is up considerably, but donations basically are static — and it’s almost always the same folks who give. It’s a small number.
I wish I knew the answer. A lot of pressure would come off if I had 100 people able to provide $10 a month or 50 people able to provide $20 a month via donations.
Patrick
Patrick:
I’m wondering if LORM is talking about a “subscription donation” button, not a “subscription required to read the blog” button.
Having the ability to automatically make a donation monthly, etc. might make things smoother for you and for those who want to donate on a regular basis.
Anyway, just an idea, not sure if a Paypal donation subscription functionality even exists.
ARWR
what’s the total? I’m up for it.
Ah, I see. I covered it.
@Admin
In the long term, you’ll need to add other income streams to support the expenses. A blog can’t be ran on donations alone for a very long time, unless it’s specially designed for that.
“Specially designed” means covering topics that can attract donations, and having a special audience where lots of new readers come in on a regular basis, willing to support the work.
The normal methods for additional income sources are advertising and affiliate-links, but I’ll guess you don’t feel for methods like that, unless you can find really GOOD methods. So you’ll need to spend some of your time trying to identify GOOD methods and separate them from the bad ones.
The normal method for donations is to have some SPONSORS, e.g. funds or organisations with lots of money to share. I can show you an example for an organisation like that in the “Freedom of Speech” foundation in Norway (“Fritt Ord”). They have supported Norwegian blogs with 2 million NOK in 2010 (appr. $330,000 – $350,000 USD). But blogs aren’t their key areas, and the Norwegian market is their primary market. However, you can use the information from there to get the idea, so you know what to look for.
A GOOD method for advertising can be to use an advertising agency, but make sure you find the correct one. It needs to have lots of clients with other advertising needs than commercial ones. This method is GOOD because an agency will try to match its clients needs with different advertising mediums, and deliver a whole block of ads for 3-6-12 months if they have matching clients (so you don’t have to sell ads one by one to each client, or each month).
Remember, advertising is also designed to cover other needs than economical needs. Some organisations may have quite different needs than the need to sell something through their ads. So if you’re able to identify some of the other needs, you will probably able to find some example organisations, that eventually will lead you to the correct advertising agency (the one with lots of organisations on its client list).
It’s nearly impossible to run something effectively on a month-to-month basis, so you’ll need to identify some income streams like the ones I’ve mentioned, and work partially in that direction.
Thanks for this, Gregg. Had a second donation come in this morning and there is a tiny bit of breathing room now. I am very, very grateful to and for my readers.
Patrick
That is exactly what I meant, not a pay-to-read site (even the media giants have problems with that one. lol)
I appreciate the thoughtful comments and ideas from readers in this thread.
@ M_Norway: A special thanks to you.
Patrick