We are considering getting rid of advertising, much to the fanfare of many readers. Unlike the favorite meme of the left that we are in the employ of “big oil” the reality is that we aren’t, never have been, and never will be. WUWT’s “big oil” donations are about as real and valuable as these carbon credit certificates.
We don’t get that much from advertising, and lately it seems like it has become too intrusive, and slows down the site. In actuality, our ad partner is serving more ads than ever before for even less returns. It’s seemingly the law of diminishing returns in action.
If we do eliminate the advertising, we would be moving to a donation support model and will be encouraging donations more regularly. Some of you have already setup monthly donations, and for that we are very grateful.
Of course both Charles and I are curious how our audience will respond so we set up these two polls to help in our strategic planning.
Thanks again for all the great support we receive, both in emails and comments, and of course for your generous financial contributions as well.
Anthony Watts, Charles Rotter
So essentially you have been driven out of the public arena. Hidden behind a pay screen. Another great victory or the alarmists.
Where do you get that from? There may be COMMENTS suggesting restricting access but that’s not mentioned in the article.
Just donated. Keep up the good work either with or without ads. You guys keep me sane in a world gone mad.
I’ve donated when I could and in amounts I can handle.
As a fixed income retiree and a government consumer price index that does not track increased prices at the consumer level, I can not expect any benefit from consumer price index increases to payments.
If you decide to exclude us poorer folks, so be it.
Fewer beginners, newbies or terminally stupid people are clicking ads. Increasing ad frequency is part of the path to a total burnout for that ad revenue. It is exactly the type of decision made by marketing majors instead of aiming for higher quality products in their ads.
What’s worse in the ad-stream is that a greater frequency of ads generally reflects cheaper pricing for the ads.
Lower pricing, greater frequency of even more absurd advertisements promising everything from better health, instant wealth, amazing increases in sexual prowess and attractiveness.
Next will be psychic predictions from California, amazing Weddell seals predicting more global warming, polar bears drinking Coca-Cola, cannibal penguins and great white sharks that want to communicate with Biden…
Especially alarming, is whether any of the techie semi-deities, e.g. googly are tampering with the revenue clicks, which they are known to do; e.g. shadow banning, revenue blocking, etc.
None of which allows WUWT a decent revenue source.
Is there any way to charge bot owners for every incursion their bots make?
I like the idea of charging googly, faucebook, binged, twitty and others for their invasive data collecting software… A penny per character, a dollar for every image, entire articles for 1500 bucks?
Set the smallest monthly fee which might support your budget needs. Hint: You are not worth nearly as much as Netflix.
A trip down memory lane
2trip down memory lane
3trip
I haven’t noticed a problem, however:
Good luck.
Dunno if your Vote button is working either.
Perhaps Anthony could get speaking engagements. Alex Epstein was getting paid, a few years ago at least.h