UPDATE 2: Here is the signup link,
UPDATE: Ads are temporarily running for testing as of 2/19/24. They’ll soon be disabled until we have our membership service running. – Anthony
A few weeks ago I mentioned that some big changes would be coming to WUWT in this post titled Thanks, and the Future for WUWT. Thanks to everyone for their support!
One of the upcoming changes that I didn’t mention in that post is that we are forced to move to a subscription model, and this model requires that we start running advertisements. Now this isn’t anything new, we had been running ads since about 2009 when we were first invited to do so by WordPress, and that worked well up until a few years ago. Then, Google decided that they’d tell our ad provider that “we’re not worthy” and pulled their support due to our content. WUWT and many other climate skeptic platforms all suffered the same banishment. Of course that meant the website generated no revenue….which was the purpose of the climate activists that lobbied for the ban.
There really wasn’t anything we could do, as Google essentially has a monopoly, until recently. A new ad provider has emerged that is not dependent on Google Adwords. So, starting Monday, we’ll be using them.
This is the beginning of a larger plan in which we will offer subscription tiers to premium content. WUWT will always remain free for the majority of content – but it will have advertisements – just like 90% of every other Internet sites out there. Some premium features will require subscription, much like what Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. has done on his substack website.
I hate begging like I had to do back in December, so this will put us back into revenue generation.
Here is what is coming:
I am setting up an Internet TV studio. I’ve been working slowly on it for about a year. The challenge for me is to make it work with my hearing issues while making it look professional like I did during my many years of live television weather. The studio will be for weekly live broadcasts and for making instructional videos. With the new studio, there will be a regular weekly live interactive broadcast at WUWT to discuss the issues. That will be a subscriber based event.
A subscriber based weekly newsletter is also in the works.
Along those lines, I am working on a 24/7/365 live “ClimateTV” channel that will run videos, graphics, data, news items, and entertainment. I have done some test runs and it is looking good. There’s still much more work to do before I launch. This will be free and public, though we may run advertising on it.
We will be updating the “Reference Pages” – they’ve been broken, mainly by WordPress cache issues which makes any fix disappear quickly, but our resident writer and programmer Eric Worrall has come up with a plugin that will solve this long-standing problem that prevents us from displaying live information. Our goal is to become the “one-stop-shop” for all climate information, especially the things you can’t find elsewhere.
Eric Worrall is working on a WUWT App, both for Android and Apple phones. This will be made available to everyone for free. The challenge was to make one that neither Google or Apple can “shut down.” We’ve got that figured out. I’ve tested it and it is a great start, we just need a bit more tweaking before release in early 2024.
We will be adding new topics to the Everything Climate section – feel free to make suggestions.
We will do a website overhaul, to go to a more modern theme that is better for speed and SEO. Our current theme is over six years old and it is creaking under the load. It has no update path.
I want to do a monthly “state of the climate” report, much like NOAA does, but from a perspective of sensibility. If funds permit, I’ll send out press releases each month to all media outlets. PRNewswire is not cheap.
Thanks – Anthony
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I’ll be happy to sign up for a subscription. This work MUST continue!!
I second.
Click the three-line “hamburger” button next to the home button at the top of the page and then BE A WUWT SPONSOR.
I just did!
Just 16 cents a day to support the most important website on the planet! Don’t be the last of your friends to join!
Me too!
Can anyone tell me what this alternative to Google AdWords is?
And what the difference between Google AdSense and Google AdWords is?
I assume that such info is not only useful to readers like myself, but to many readers here. I imagine a lot of people who read here are not only readers but also creators and bloggers of various kinds.
Thanks in advance.
https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/76231?hl=en
I’m in!
Thanks Anthony, I really appreciate your work and dedication. Watts Up is an asset to our society!
If I run an Ad Blocker, will that reduce WUWT’s revenue?
I know they prevent me from seeing Ads but do the advertisers realize that?
Yes, it will.
Thanks for the reply.
The annoyance of the ads are worth it.
Turning off my blocking for WUWT now.
(I wonder if I’ll see that girl in her underwear selling work boots again?) 😎
Apparently (at least with Adblock Plus), you need to check every so often that the block is STILL turned off. I turned it off for WUWT more than a year ago – but this prompted me to check – and the blasted thing was ON again.
I also use AdBlock (no plus) and noticed that it was back ON.
My mistake was right clicking and selecting an option that was, apparently, just temporary.
I dug a bit deeper and under “options” and I think I just turned it OFF for WUWT for good.
(There was a “Stop Blocking” and a Manually Edit.
I put “wattsupwiththat.com” into both.)
I’m going to close it now. If it worked or didn’t work, I’ll let you know.
OK.
I’m not sure which of the two worked but ads are not blocked now.
(I see AdBlock’s “green thumbs up”.)
I think my mistake when I’d said, “Turning off my blocking for WUWT now.” was that I’d only “Paused” the ads for that session only.
These days, its Dylan Mulvaney in his underwear selling steel toe boots.
If so, I know what boots not to buy.
Well increasingly you won’t see the underwear but perhaps the yellow vest etc too-
Meet DignifAI – The AI That Dresses Women In Beautiful Modesty (youtube.com)
Seems the worm is turning and young men are telling young women on toxic TikTok OnlyFools etc to ignore the feminutzi advice that anything goes as the internet remembers. Basically don’t squander your inherited femininity and fertility in your 20s behaving like bad men lest you hit the wall in your 30s and you’re headed for lonely crying cat lady time as no decent man wants to wife you up.
PS: I’ve noticed conservative voices are getting louder in Oz after the failure of the woke Voice referendum and it’s really rankling the leftys-
Outrage at Australian man’s calls for G-string bikinis to be banned on the Gold Coast | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
Something’s in the air and Nige is feeling the vibe with the farmers-
‘Up with this, we will not put’: Nigel Farage praises protesting farmers | Sky News Australia
This is merely a suggestion, but there are other browsers out there that are a bit more secure. I use Vivaldi which has an ad blocker built in, doesn’t track you and also blocks other trackers along with a bunch of other neat stuff. I also use Duck Duck Go for my search engine inside of Vivaldi.
Will have to see what the prices are for subscriptions.
Brave browser?
I tried using Brave to setup an automatic monthly contribution, but it failed.
Anyone know when that Brave function will be supported??
Have you set a subscription price?
Hi Anthony,
Could you tell us what this alternative to Google AdWords is?
And what the difference between Google AdSense and Google AdWords is?
I ask because I assume that such info is not only useful to readers like myself, but to many readers here. Given that many of us are fellow creators and bloggers of various kinds.
Thanks for all the work you do,
Van.
Oh, be warned that many sites’ instructions to disable ad blockers are wrong.
And even when correct will have to be reset when browsing history is deleted, as I do every week for security against phishers.
Set it to allow all ads on WUWT.
After my first blunder (a setting that “paused the blocking” only temporarily), I have.
“AdBlock” shows a green thumbs up when Ads are allowed.
(Is that ironic or not?) 😎
Just a suggestion to any who own Google or Apple, but voting against the CEO and obvious Lefty board members is a way to register disagreement with their policies.
I too am an ORG and quit buying individual stocks — the research and paperwork is a large amount of work and the pros of the markets are way ahead on the knowledge curve. Now I have mutual funds and ETFs — none of the ESG type. Still, it is hard to avoid companies such as AAPL and GOOGL. Compensatory ownership of an energy fund makes me feel better.
When I started following WUWT I knew so little, 3/4 of what I read went right over my head. Now I’m up to understanding over half of what I read!
I’ve learned so much. I would be happy to support.
Seconded!
I first went to skepticalscience when I began looking into climate issues thinking it would be an impartial blog. How wrong I was!!!!
A vile place, and not because of the views which are pretty daft, but the aggression was unbearable for just asking simple questions. It was like a challenge to their authority.
I pitched up here with very low expectations and was met with folks who patiently answered my dumb questions. Been here ever since, still asking dumb questions.
Agreed. I came here much the same, listening and asking dumb questions. I now have advanced to the giddy heights of knowledge that mean I often know just how dumb my questions are! 🤣
Keep the “dumb questions” coming. They help all of us learn. If a subscription will help keep the quality of WUWT I’m all for it.
Me too. I haven’t arrived, but I’ve definitely departed.
I have often wondered how you were able to resist the forces of a subscription model and just figured you had a rich aunt that loved your dimples or something like that. Count me in, as R. Morton aptly stated: “This work MUST continue!!”
Oh the irony. The cabal that wants to shut down free speech is using Capitalism to force their goal. But, as a wise man once said, TINSTAFL …. so no apology needed.
TANSTAAFL ==>There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
PWIOUAAMMLTUPMO
Not to nitpick, and certainly not to disagree with your overall sentiment…but using googs to shut down financing to this sight ain’t capitalism; it more quango-ism. It’s more akin to Jacinda Trudeau shutting down bank accounts of freedom truckers than the result of free market competition.
The original Bell Tel. wasn’t as ‘evil’ and manipulative politically as Google and Apple, and it was broken up into little pieces – why are Goog and Apple still running around bullying us?
Ha! If I remember my history of that correctly — been decades since I even pondered it — Ma Bell asked for the break-up (pre-emptively) in order to pursue another growth strategy.
Googs and Apfel…keeping a good man down? To paraphrase the tele opinion guy in Scotland (with the great hair for his age), if it’s happening it’s because they want it to happen.
Microsoft was about to be broken up when all of a sudden the case was dropped. If my memory serves me right, shortly thereafter the Iranian nuclear program was damaged by their servers’ operating systems.
It was actually the software in the Siemens centrifuge controllers that caused the problems. Even though the centrifuges were air-gapped, one of the workers plugged in a USB drive with the virus on it and that was that.
Google is a monopoly so it really isn’t Capitalism.
now there is a novel shoutline :-
“funding phenomenal facts via fiduciary philanthropism”
(sorry)
p.s sounds good to me but can you incorporate either a 1 week free trial at each level for new readers or even allow subscribers to fund named others for a months subscription via a form of a referral program, to bring others on board, like buying a time dependent password etc
Why is it that the more money corporations have the more efforts they expend to hide the truth. One might almost think they feel guilt and are trying to cover the tracks of how they amassed their wealth. No matter what the net worth of Google, Apple, Meta in dollars, they can’t measure up to the value of WUWT in terms of bringing the truth to the world.
Thank you for the appropriate response to market conditions. The world needs WUWT.
How much is the subscription?
Ummm . . . just wondering in this “new” environment what this two word add would cost for publication on WUWT:
“F*** Google”
Of course, “ad”, not “add”.
I’m in!!
Please allow subscriptions to auto-renew
Being that I survive of a state pension I’ll be forced to skip the subscription. I only hope access to this blog and comments section will remain free.
If not, all the best Anthony, I’ll take what I can get because I’ve had it pretty good so far.
Let’s see the cost first. We’ll proceed then.
Same here; we are not at the heat or eat stage …yet !! but we are moving down the economic pile. Our Council rates are going up by 9.5% (while they cut services), phone/b band are rising, & the weekly shop continues to rise. Meanwhile, thieving politicians are pocketing £ millions.
“The challenge for me is to make it work with my hearing issues…”
No luck with hearing aids? I just got them and they’re super. Super expensive but worth it. And I’m just getting by on a trivial social insecurity check each month- so low I’d be embarrassed to mention it here. But the aids are worth.
My hearing was bad from birth but it hasn’t gotten any worst. On the other hand I have two people around me with hearing aids and their hearing gets worst as time goes on. I suspect it’s because the hearing aids crank up the volume on certain frequencies and the higher volume contributes to additional hearing loss over time. It may also be natural decay that created the initial need for hearing aids.
Both have high end hearing aids and I foresee a time in the future where I will have to type my responses to them.
I suspect it’s because they’re getting older! Everything goes downhill after a certain age. My dad liked to compare getting old with an old car.
My father-in-law had significant hearing loss from the explosion of a shell nearby in WWII. It got started a quick decline when he hit his 80s.
10 or 12 years or so Mr. Watts explained his hearing issue and steps to correct it. Those posts might be found by searching. I’ll let you try.
Let’s see the cost first. We’ll proceed then.
Got what you’re saying.
Until I was 35, I paid into Social Security. Then went to work for a city and what used to go into SS now went into OPERS instead.
I expected my SS to go down since I didn’t pay into it for 32 years. But I did pay into long enough to qualify for something. I got a reduced amount. Understandable.
But when I retired from the city and began getting checks from OPERS, my SS was reduced even more. That I never understood. My SS was already reduced because of the years and amount I paid in. Why reduce it more?
(But, I guess, that’s life under Big Government. (A few bucks from a few million adds up,))
Congratulations! WUWT is a valuable resource so am very happy to hear it will survive Google! I hope WUWT will sell t-shirts with “WUWT Survived Google!”. 🙂
It sounds like a well thought out plan. Don’t be overly ambitious concerning time frames. And thanks to Eric and Charles for all the background support.
Now that my Unicorn venture has collapsed due to gender issues, I may still have some funds left. 🙂
Anyone want to buy a one horned cow or a female pony ?
Looks like a lot of healthy progress is coming. All good.
Anthony I am writing from the U.K. to say thank you for the many years of enlightened and enlightening articles, news, analysis and above all high quality science. If I can afford the subscription I will support this new endeavour – the very best of luck to the new look WUWT and all who sail in her.
I echo what John said. I have visited WUWT every day since I discovered it. I have been a sceptic since the great Global Cooling scam and have influenced many people, though I always tell them to do research for themselves (while I give them this site to start with).
My thanks to Anthony and everyone who bring us this site.
Anthony,
thanks for the Heads Up…will be signing up as soon as possible. As many have already posted, i have learned so very much over the years since I discovered WUWT.
Take it as a sincere Compliment that they work to shut you down or limit the access to this site…that means you are hitting them where it hurts 🙂
To all…please continue to explain your postings so us non-scientist or engineers understand.
A lot of the graphs and technical jargon is beyond my (our) education level, but the simple statements of their True Reporting is fabulous info for us.
We can win this struggle!!!
Please make sure the ads don’t prevent us from reading the story if we need to enlarge the text to GIANT size to over come aging eyes.
Some news sites are fantastically bad about this, especially the header can grow to occupy 1/2 the screen.
Isn’t all the money you get from “big oil” enough?
/sarc
Story Tip.
Rockefeller and Democratic AGs in cahoots !
Billionaire-Fueled Rockefeller Fund Coordinated Climate Lawsuits With Dem State AG, Docs Show – Climate Change Dispatch