As we approach 20 years of operation for this website, financial situations combined with inflation and everything else has forced us to move to a new model for keeping this website active. We have never charged for content before, preferring to use advertising to keep us going. However since Google AdWords banned us for having content they don’t like a few years back, we’ve been unable to get much of a revenue stream from advertising.
We recently tried adding advertising from some other sources that did not rely on Google AdWords, which essentially has a monopoly on Internet advertising, but the results have not been what we hoped.
So, we are going to start offering premium content by subscription only. The good news is that you don’t have to opt in, the majority of WUWT content will remain free as it always has. However, if you want some exclusive content, inside track information, plus increased access, these new subscription-only features are great options. We need to do this to keep the lights on. Many other websites have gone to this sort of model including some popular climate websites and social media feeds. So, what we are doing is not unprecedented.
Four tiers exist, ranked from the most comphrensive to the least:
1. VIP Membership Offers Access to Weekly Online Meetings, Weekly Newsletter, Exclusive Content, and Commenting
2. Premium Membership Offers Access to Weekly Newsletter, Exclusive Content, and Commenting
3. Ad Free Sponsor with Commenting Paid Monthly or Annually (one month free)
4. Free Registration Includes Commenting (but shows ads)
Yes, that’s right, we are starting a weekly newsletter and a weekly interactive live video forum. These features are in the Premium and VIP content. In these premium features we will offer an inside track to what’s coming up plus some commentary you won’t see on the website. During our weekly interactive live video forum, you will be able to interact with Charles and I ask questions and submit content for consideration. We’ll also dissect some of the climate claims made that week, and seek your input.
You can go here to subscribe. If you scroll down the page you’ll see boxes like this screencap:
We have a special discount for our regulars who want to get an early start. Use Coupon Code EARLYBIRD20 for 20 dollars/month off VIP Membership for the first year. Here’s where to enter the coupon on the signup page:
Then you’ll see the discount applied, and you can finish the checkout.
We anticipate our first newsletter and interactive live video forum to start on July 31 for the newsletter, and August 1 for the interactive live video forum.
Thanks in advance for supporting us as we head towards 20 years of countering climate alarmism at WUWT. – Anthony
I’ve been expecting this for a while. It’s a bargain, considering all that I’ve learned from WUWT over the years.
Can’t really afford the VIP, so I just signed up for the premium.
Keep up the good work, Anthony, the world needs folk like you.
Sad to hear this is needed.
I guess all those “Big Oil Checks” they claim you receive must have bounced?
no they didn’t bounce, we never got any!
Something else “they” were wrong about.
Accusations “they” were not only wrong about, but also that their beloved “fact checkers” never even verified as true. Case in point was the pair of ex-Greenpeacers who were seen in a 2015 email chain as guys visiting the New York Attorney General’s office who were about to expose ‘industry payments to Dr Willie Soon’ – the ‘breaking news scandal’ at the time of him supposedly getting $1.2 million in bribery money. The implication of it being a lump sum payment was false and that it went straight to Dr Soon under the directive to spew false climate info. It instead was a donation over a 10 year period given to Harvard Smithsonian which skimmed almost half of it off the top for themselves for overhead, as Dr Soon succinctly explained. Not a word about those facts from “fact checkers,’ while the acute irony now is that one of those two ex-Greenpeacers himself has been receiving dark money payments into his LLC mystery company over the last 12 years of available IRS disclosures to the tune of just short of $20 million . . . . which averages out to over $1.6 million every year.
Sorry to hear that. Roy Spencer says he gets so many $100 bills that he uses them to light fires in his fireplace. 🙂
There seems to be a tidal wave of sites going to a subscription model. The content clearly has to be paid for somehow. The problem is that all these sites are chasing a limited pool of subscription dollars. Writers are going to lose readers who won’t pay for a subscription and readers are going to miss out on subscription content that they aren’t willing to buy a subscription for. I’d like to offer an alternative business model — micro payments for articles. I wrote a blog post about it:
https://canmancannedfacts.blogspot.com/2024/03/new-journalistic-business-model-micro.html
I like the concept, but there appears to be no technical support/plugins for such things.
I’m rather fond of the BAT (Basic Attention Token) model. Tokens are crypto currency. Unfortunately this never got off the ground. The idea is, you can earn tokens by watching ads, or buying tokens for cash. When you see an article you’d like to read, your browser automatically pays in token. If a thousand people pay a dimes worth, that’s $100. I certainly don’t mind laying out a dime here, a dime there … but fifty bucks to every outlet in case I might like to read a handful of stories each year is more than I’m willing to go.
I have wished for the token model for 40 years. But have spent many hundreds of dollars buying individual articles to research grant requests (for free!) for boards I have volunteered for, and am now about to drop my American Chemical Society membership because articles in Chemical & Engineering News require a prohibitive membership level. Tokens can add up quickly and will not avoid the 2 – 4% CC processing fee.
One other thing about subscriptions: NewsMax TV went from advertising-based streaming to subscription. I had just gotten to like a couple of their programs when the changeover occurred. So I tried to subscribe. The first attempt failed, because my credit card was rejected, with a note that an e-mail would be sent to me documenting that. So I tried another credit card. Same thing happened. I went through five credit cards, all with the same result. The e-mailed “explanation” in each case alleged that a transaction was cancelled because fraud was detected. Mind you, I have a perfect FICO score, and maintain zero balance on all of my cards. If fraud was detected, it had to be associated with the “secure on-line payment” page.
I went back to try it again, when I noticed a little footnote at the bottom of the page proclaiming, in tiny print, that it was a Google secure on-line payment portal.
I never was able to get a NewsMax TV subscription, and wonder how many viewers the conservative site lost due to Google’s chicanery.
To Anthony, the moral of the story is, don’t use a Google secure payment portal.
I didn’t really do any research (Googling) before I wrote my blog post. Apparently a lot companies have tried this without success. Elon Musk has even made an announcement in a tweet about this. Just because it hasn’t worked yet, doesn’t mean it never will. Perhaps a subscription heavy environment could push the market in this direction.
I’ve been toying with this idea for a while, myself. I think it will eventually become the savior of the on-line publishing industry. If every site went subscription, no one would read any more, and the whole industry would collapse. But with a per-article payment mechanism that required no effort on the readers part, that just might save it. At the same time, websites would have to up their game in terms of article quality, just so that people would want to read a lot of articles on a given site.
Until such a thing is in place, I’ll be happy to continue subscribing to WUWT. Not sure about the premium feature . I’m retired, and I already have too many on-line subscriptions, many of which I so seldom use anymore that I’ll go through a scrub of them, but I’ll never get rid of WUWT – unless the site suddenly goes Drudge!
The problem with subscriptions is that they tend to multiply. How many subscriptions can one person have?
I wonder if some sort of bundling service would make sense? It would probably require services agreeing to a reduced price through the service – but then people could sign up for multiple sites in one package instead of having a dozen different subscriptions.
Way back in AltaVista days, they discussed a “millibucks” system where page views at some site would incur a fraction of a penny charge, all aggregated and handled by web servers and support system. (I.e., the cloud.) I don’t think it ever got off the ground as Google popped up with a very different design, DEC didn’t work with them, and AltaVista soon became irrelevant. I always liked the concept though.
Mr. Watts, I have been making a recurring monthly contribution of 15.00 for a number of years now. Do I need to do anything with the new subscription stuff, or will it just smoothly transition over.
You’ll have to manually stop the PayPal monthly, and then sign up for the new subscription. Or if that’s confusing for you let us know and you can keep the PayPal monthly and we’ll just upgrade your account to that level.
Different systems. You should cancel the recurring payment and subscribe.
When Google started, its motto was ‘Don’t be evil’.
When Google morphed to Alphabet, it changed the motto to ‘Do the right thing.’
Rather funny how ‘the right thing’ is now implicitly ‘evil’, as evidenced now here by WUWT.
Further evidencing a peculiarly warped California climate state of mind:
AW, glad you moved to Nevada.
I would have preferred moved to Ohio and become my next door neighbor, but, he might not have liked that.
(Though his lawn would have always looked better by comparison!) 😎
Shawnee or Moxahala?
Not sure which, if either tribe, lived in the area I now live in. The Shawnee were in the Dayton area where my Mom grew up. (There were other tribes such as the Miami.)
Where I live now there was a Moravian mission nearby.
(I grew up in Northern Kentucky. Kentucky was sort of a “no mans land” between the Shawnee in Ohio and the Cherokee in Tennessee.)
A factoid people may not be aware of, most of the Ohio River is actually in Kentucky.
There was a treaty with the Shawnee that no settler could set foot on the north shore of the Ohio River.
So when Kentucky became the first State West of the Appalachian Mountains, the north shore of the Ohio River became its northern boundary.
Washington State has a “Carbon” tax, so not far behind CA for cost of gas.
Coming is a citizen’s initiative to repeal Inslee’s pride & joy.
Already on the annual plan, starting to post more after retirement. Glad to do so! John, old Inslee always said he’d institute the ‘carbon’ tax while he was overseeing (or should I say destroying?) the State, and with a Democrat majority in the legislature he finally did just so. I will be voting to repeal any and all taxes and/or bans of carbon molecule containing energy sources come this November. Now, if we could just assure all votes are accurately accounted according to the choices of voters, and not ‘adjudicated’ to the whims of those counting the votes…
Regards,
MCR
Google dropping “don’t be evil” was just an acknowledgement of reality.
“AW, glad you moved to Nevada.”
Just across the border for much of the state, and ‘was’ so much saner. Shame Nevada has been backsliding since so many Californians recently moved to Nevada.
Of course, California owns most Nevada water, which early Nevadans happily exchanged for promised cash.
Google and Yahoo both promised to never sell our personal information.
Google went first as they seemed to just drop the topic.
Yahoo skittered along for a couple of years then they never mentioned the topic again.
It wasn’t long before both companies started selling every personal datum about their users they could find, record or guess.
Banning which forestry equipment? Chainsaws? Logging machinery? For light, yard tree/brush cutting, there are electric chainsaws. I have one and like it. Serious tree cutting can’t be done with them.
On the sign-up page, the { authorize net } box appears to be unnecessary and confusing.
I ignored it and went with the $66/ year plan. If unhappiness sets in, I’m sure you will let me upgrade. 🙂
The red here button doesn’t open anything, I want to subscribe.
trying to sign up for the $66 plan but something called monsterinsights says I don’t have access to purchase the plan.
??????
Tim, not again, you skillfully messed this one up, too, didn’t you?
Do you accept PayPal?
I avoid paying with a Credit Card unless it is an encrypted site.
I have been paying $5 per month for some time now and am happy with that. I looked at the subscription option but it didn’t allow PayPal, so I think I will just stay as I am.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks to all, WUWT has been my trusted goto source for years, I have learned much & will continue to pass on any info I can get my hands on.
I hope we can still use the reference pages even though we can’t read articles.
We are on a limited fixed income & therefore, sadly I can’t afford paid subscriptions (we are having to reduce our charitable gifts; just when they are most needed ) .
In the UK, our energy/fuel cost have risen ( due to the green blob demanding the use of free renewables) local services have been reduced/cut while local taxes have increased & food bills have dramatically increased (due to Brexit & high energy costs).
We now have a new Libore government with Ed Milly’s peed at the helm of energy & climate, so lots more £ billions to be transferred from the poor to the rich.
$49.99 a month ?
That’s almost $600 a year
Greedy Capitalists!
nobody is forcing you to buy it.
You are offering premium content for $180 a year, or $360 a year (with 20%off for the first year using a coupon.
That is a high price for premium content that potential customers can not sample for free, perhaps for one week, as a sales promotion. They know the price but do they know much about what they will be getting for their money?
Fair point.
Sounds more like the core supporters, planners, researchers and authors to me.
I hope it works well for AW & team!
I tried to subscribe to a free subscription and got the following message:
I got the same- then for a short while- I wasn’t unable to post a new comment (not a reply)- then it cleared and back to where I was before- with adds. I live on a very, very low social insecurity- so can’t afford to contribute, other than tell everyone I know about this site, yet none bother to do so. Unfortunate for them as they only see the MSM stupidity on climate.
I find it hard to believe that what Google is doing is legal – abuse of monopoly or something like that?
But getting them done over in the courts is probably outside the bounds of human endeavour.
It’s time to bust up this Google monopoly.
a googleopoly!
Works for me. Signed up – not sure I need the video content etc. but enjoy the articles and commenting.
Anthony when will these new fees take effect? Now or upon a date certain? Will the VIP access features even be seen on the WUWT website for the lesser tier readers?
Will my $6/month automatically be cancelled if I sign up for the $66 deal?
Answered in an earlier comment, above.
yes
I think the end is in sight, global warming is getting too obvious, we can’t ignore it, so the propaganda has to wind down. Most people didn’t care for long. Now they start to do. I predict a few years, 5-6 maybe, for this clown show. Deniers, be prepared for open contempt from the people.
Same with the success of renewables. But enjoying the end-times in this field after all this years is nice, though
So the root cause of your science denial has to do with the ostensible inadequacies of renewables? You could’ve done so many other things… Why science denial?
I just don’t comment on climate change – I don’t deny it. I make myself unpopular here by advocating for renewables and public transport.
I think I may have made myself not clear in my post. I agree with you, and I wanted to add that renewables reached their breakthrough in the last few years – and (hopefully) the anti-renewable propaganda will also wind down in the coming years.
what breakthrough- are you hallucinating?
You should read the articles I post
https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/07/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf-1.pdf
Sorry, I didn’t get your intention.
Success? You see any renewable success out there? Got any in YOUR backyard? Got an EV? Got solar panels? Got a job dependent on dependable, low cost energy?
Ever heard of Hunga-Tonga. Do you know anything about molecular vibration modes??? Didn’t think so.
Go read a 1960’s book called the hidden persuaders to learn a little about yourself
Yes.
Yes.
Then you’re wrong. BTW when they say science is settled that is something that you can’t just dismiss out of hand. Perhaps you should consider that you are wrong and the overwhelming majority of scientists of the world (not just climate scientists, BTW) are right. And perhaps you learn a little about yourself and the ways how your thinking has gone wrong.
See above.
Are you just really bored?
TBH yes. It’s fun here.
The deniers will put Trump in office. 🙂
If you really think Trump and Harris are any different you’re more delusional than I thought.
I don’t like either one- but I do like Trump’s energy and border policies and I think most Americans do- so that’s why I think he’ll win.
If Trump were a superhero his only capability would be “reading the room”, ie. telling what others want to hear. He doesn’t give a damn about everyday people. He doesn’t give a damn about border policies. Immigration is bipartisan, the US economy needs these cheep workers that can be super exploited. Okay, Trump is a very good public speaker, in a sense he is truly entertaining.
Harris is just different dressing for the same. Nothing of substance will be different if either of these gets elected. The media noise is the only difference.
Yeah, right, the natural warming following a glacial interval (as has happened 20 or more times during the current ice age, the Quaternary Ice Age) has been quite obvious . . . but not so obvious is the global warming rate over the last 200 or so years (at a rate somewhere between 1.5 and 3.0 °C per century, or at most 0.03 °C per year).
In science you can’t just assume that something is “natural”. You have to prove it. Our best current understanding is that glaciations are the product of the Milankovic cycles. But this is catastrophic to your hypothesis ‘cos the expected Milankovic effect is slow but steady cooling. BTW this cooling does appear in climate modelling if we remove anthropogenic factors.
The current rate, according to our best paleoclimatic reconstructions is at least 10 times faster than anything in the past. And it’s accelerating.
That statement is clear evidence that you do not understand the Scientific Method, which never mentions nor requires “proof” but instead only needs a preponderance of objective evidence.
That statement is clear evidence that you do not understand the definition of “cycles” . . . Milankovitch cycles involve, by definition, long-term cyclic patterns in Earth-Sun orbital parameters (that is, they repeat over time). But you state “the expected Milankovitch effect is slow but steady cooling.” Duhhhh? BTW, in the science community Milkankovitch cycles are presented as an hypothesis to explain both global warming and global cooling (i.e., both interglacial and glacial periods).
“. . . very rapid warming at the start of the Bölling-Alleröd period, or at the end of the Younger Dryas may have occurred at rates as large as 10°C/50 years for a significant part of the Northern Hemisphere.”
This from the IPCC, no less (ref https://archive.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/074.htm )
Hint for you: 10°C/50 years is 20°C per century, or about seven times the current worst-case rate of global warming.
Get back to me when you have something worthwhile to post.
Literally the first hit in the American Heritage dictionary for “proof”:
Furthermore, you’d better know that bsing about terminology won’t get you far.
Exactly. Now we are in the cooling phase of the current “cycle”.
Oh, I see, you maintain a good friendship with the science community 😉 No. This is not just a hypothesis. And anyway, why are you keen on being in a contradictory position? How do we know if something is “natural” without (whatsthatword…) evidence? You have to have a scientific understanding (“theory”) for these to claim that.
The “science community” that you have a good friendship with maintains a distinction between “significant part of the Northern Hemisphere” and “global“. This is apparently hard to grasp in denier cycles.
It happened immediately 😉
You seriously equate “scientific understanding” with a “theory”???
Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. Here you go:
In the history of physics, aether theories (also known as ether theories) propose the existence of a medium, a space-filling substance or field as a transmission medium for the propagation of electromagnetic or gravitational forces. Since the development of special relativity, theories using a substantial aether fell out of use in modern physics, and are now replaced by more abstract models.
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories
In science, most theories have a relatively short half-life, as it were.
I’ve already told you, bsing about terminology won’t get you far. You clearly don’t understand these things, see your fiasco with proof/evidence. Don’t push it.
Do you have anything that is relevant to the subject?
Anthony – I currently subscribe to the $66.00/year plan. Question – As my annual renewal date rolls around, will I be automatically renewed? Will I receive a renewal notification? May you please explain how all of the renewal processes will be handled? I appreciate your response as I anticipate most subscribers will eventually be asking this question.
Regards,
MCR
Does it include free admission to the Special Climate Olympics?
Break up big gougile monopoly, Now!
Done and done! Can only do $6 a month, cost of butter&bullets is really taking a bite nowadays.
I finally got around to signing up. I wanted to see what the free advertising model looked like (answer – I cringe when I share a URL here even though a lot of media sites have equally annoying ads.)
Things went okay but this AM I got a call from Visa’s computer wanting me to verify the transaction. It happens frequently enough so I put the call on speaker phone and login to the DCU Visa account to see what’s really there.
The charge was from “EverythingClimate 530-5889434, NV” for $14.99, recorded around 0300. I reassured the computer it was okay and it left relieved.
A lot of transactions are for small amounts, so it’s was all a fairly normal event. Being logged in to my account is a huge help. One I fielded on my cell phone while driving was for $9.99 from “FLIGHTRADAR24 AB STOCKHOLM” and the text-to-voice software totally botched FLIGHTRADAR24 and AB. I knew FlightRadar24 is based in Sweden but didn’t make the association.
I declined the charge, the computer told me my card was suspended and when I got home spent an hour or so figuring out how to accept the charge and get the card reenabled.
This website is greatly important during one of the great debates in the history of science and (probably) civilization. Admittedly, I know more about the former than the latter!
I am willing to help with my subscription. The truth will out, I hope!
Bill Rocks