Keep on truckin’
p2pnet view P2P:- I honestly thought I’d reached the end with p2pnet, but I’ve been shaking trees non-stop and yesterday afternooon my wife, Liz, and I learned it’s 99% certain that we’ve managed to secure a loan which should keep us going for another three or four months or so.
That’ll give us breathing space, and we have a couple of ideas on how to earn enough to keep ourselves, and the site, going when the $$ runs out.
Should I be telling you this in public? Should I be telling you this at all?
I think so.
“I really miss doing what I’ve been doing for all these years,” I said to kcb19892000 on Wednesday. And it’s the truth.
p2pnet isn’t a hobby or a commercial site. It’s here to carry “news, stories, features and commentaries on digital media, distributed computing and associated technologies and events which haven’t been spun, filtered and pre-digested by vested corporate interests,” as I say in the About section.
“It places special emphasis on freedom of speech, P2P and sharing” and something which has been driven powerfully home to me over the past few days is: I’m not alone. A lot of readers aren’t merely hurting, they’re having serious difficulties as well.
But they’re not giving up.
When I heard from kcb19892000, I also heard from Bill Hudson, a friend who’s a singer/song writer in New York.
“I know at times the strongest voices come not from the powerful but from folks like us,” he said. “The best music always seemed to be coming from the worst of times. And people will always need that.”
So here we go again, but this time I’ll make you a solid, cast-iron promise:
I promise there’ll be no more posts saying p2pnet is closing. The number of stories may go up and down, or even stop for a while, but the site will stay online.
Because it isn’t mine, it’s ours.
I’ll keep on truckin’ with p2pnet because I believe in it, and because a lot of you guys believe in it too.
Cheers! And thanks for all the good vibes and good wishes …
February, 2010
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
February, 2010
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February 5th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
You are evil! Telling the RIAA and BPI and IFPI you are going away amd then you don’t!
February 5th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
I don’t understand. You say you need c.$40K (Canadian) per year. So now you’re getting a loan for roughly a quarter of that to keep you paying your bills for the next 3-4 months.
Jon, if p2pnet doesn’t generate (enough) money, how are you going to pay back the loan without getting a full-time job away from p2pnet? And won’t Liz and Emma have to get jobs as well?
And sorry, but you’ve sort of become the boy who cried wolf too many times. Who can believe you when you say you will never, EVER, post an article about p2pnet’s apparent demise.
And does that “promise” include never, EVER, making another public appeal for donations so you can pay your bills, keep running a website that generates no income on its own, and enable you and your family to rely on the kindness of strangers instead of all of you getting out there and obtaining gainful employment and paying the bills, just like most of the rest of the world does? What makes you and your family so special that you don’t have to do that?
And again, how can you responsibly take out a loan knowing full well that you can’t repay it in a timely manner?
(I’m not a troll or a hired shill or anything. I’ve posted here under another name in the past, but for this purpose I’d prefer my posting to be anonymous to generate unbiased responses.)
February 6th, 2010 at 12:29 am
@ RW above.
Normally I’d take your post down. It’s very similar to a couple of cowardly emails I’ve had from other shills/trolls.
However, they’re far outnumbered by emails and comments from people who genuinely care about the site and I thought I owed it to them to be open about why I’ve decided to try to keep on, and how I’m able to do that. I’m also starting a new advertisement trial tomorrow.
The donations have brought in a little over $450.
Liz and Emma? Liz is close to finishing a project we’re sure will produce results, and as far as Emma is concerned, child labour is illegal in Canada.
Cheers!
February 6th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Hi all:
I’ve had more of the same from “I don’t understand.”
He doesn’t have the courage to put his name where his mouth is so I’ve deleted it.
To the anonymous coward, if you want to discuss this with me, email me – p2pnet @ shaw dot ca.
Otherwise, stop badgering me.
Cheers!
February 6th, 2010 at 4:51 am
@RW: “I’ve posted here under another name in the past, but for this purpose I’d prefer my posting to be anonymous to generate unbiased responses.”
Huh? What kind of logic is that? Only RW is allowed a biased view and all further responses should be “neutral”? Get a grip.
@Jon: Thanks for the continuation of articles and for putting in the incredible amount of work needed to keep this thing afloat.
February 6th, 2010 at 8:00 am
Some people don’t get the difference between copies being free and work being paid for. Even Richard Stallman’s “Free as in free speech, not as in free beer” aphorism can’t quite do it for ‘em. Even so, programmers still get paid to write software that is freely copyable – but some people can’t grok that – it just doesn’t compute in their minds – something that is free to them cannot have been paid for (whoever paid for it is thus a fool or a charitable donor).
This is what someone just responded to me with “it seems that having 1000 fans chip in to collectively buy a song pretty much amounts to a donation since once the song is recorded it will likely be available to anyone”. So an artist getting paid $10,000 by a thousand fans constitutes a donation simply because the subsequently published recording can be freely copied by anyone? So if the same fans pay the same money to the same artist to play live it’s not charity? Duh?
It is staggering how desperately people will cling to the belief that if they don’t have to pay for published work (whether software, music, or p2pnet) no-one should pay for it, and if they do, they’re simply being charitable (soft). Moreover, that it’s somehow bad form for someone who does good work to invite those who highly value such work to pay them for it.
Sorry Jon, but there are a heck of a lot of people out there with an intellectual deficit bordering upon brain damage.
Here’s a little evolution of the Kickstarter idea:
Right hand column – sponsored by. Let’s say it’s available for a group purchase at $3,000 CAD.
A kickstarter sale is available at $3,000 for 100 shares at $30 per head. As soon as (and only if) there are 100 pledgers (when the kickstarter completes), the following month then fills that RH column with “This month sponsored by” and a list of names, URLs and 24×24 pixel icons to those 100 sponsors.
What you could then do is price it differently. Top of column large font: $200. Next 9 names medium font $90. Remaining 40 std font: $50. If no-one buys the higher priced options, you wait until the $3,000 is made up by more $50 sponsors, i.e. up to 60.
When the month’s over the right hand column describes the sponsorship offer and gives details of how to become a sponsor. Moreover at the foot the previous top ten names can be listed as some of those who sponsored the previously sponsored month. Sponsors are listed in order of signing up (not alphabetical).
Just idly bouncing the idea around. It’s a bit CwF+RtB though.
It might be something to explore while I’m working on finishing 1p2U.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:57 am
@ Crosbie: Great ideas. Definitely stay tuned. And thanks.
Cheers!
February 6th, 2010 at 11:06 am
@ Bill:
Thanks, mate. I know you’ve been there and done that so you understand what’s involved.
Cheers!
February 7th, 2010 at 5:53 am
In his original reply to the “I don’t understand” poster, Jon mentions that he has received $450 some odd in donations. The second, deleted, post from “I don’t understand” talked about hand-outs.
I don’t know how those people who did contribute financially – and thank you to you all – feel about their contributions but I believe ‘donations’ is not exactly the right word to use. Jon has been publishing p2pnet for close to 10 years and he has provided this service free to readers, thanks to a changing roster of sponsors and advertisers.
Due to the financial meltdown in the US, as of this January, that situation has changed and in reality what Jon has been doing is to see if the readers of the site were willing to pay for the service they are getting in order to keep it going. He has even offered extra incentives in the form of music tracks of his own and tracks contributed by musician friends. Lots of people are having to shift gears with the recession and that is what we are doing here.
The Rupert Murdochs of this world seem to be able to monetize their projects but then their projects are not of the same spirit as p2pnet. So if you are a reader who thinks p2pnet might be worth something to you, again, thank you. But it is insulting to Jon to say he is asking for hand-outs.
February 7th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
I’ve just seen this, having come from the new p2pnet advertiser. Not article. No, it’s not a pleasant post, but a way out of order one.
@RW post 2: are you winding Jon up? Because you’re talking bollocks, my friend. You don’t have to understand Jon’s financial situation fully and he doesn’t need to explain it to the whole world.
Just be grateful that there is someone out here (Jon) that has made it his life’s work to out the dreadful corruption affecting all of us, from Big Media and their puppet governments. No one else tells it like he does. And all with hardly any money either. How about you say thanks with a donation or two instead, huh?
Fuck, RW is probably just a troll. (rolls eyes)
February 8th, 2010 at 1:34 am
Liz, I have no problem with calling it a donation. Sometimes, when I fix something for a good friend and I don’t want to take money for it, they insist on paying. In that case I tell them I’ll accept a donation and they usually pay me a small amount of money. I wouldn’t call them hand-outs either; that’s more like a beggar in the street and this is hardly the situation here.
I don’t see anything wrong with Jon’s strategies either and I made a small donation myself when Jon announced he had to quit, as a thankyou (heck, the PayPal button is marked ‘Donate’!)
I will be subscribing to the 1p/article incentive too when that goes live, to show my support.
February 8th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Jon,
If I might be so bold, could I suggest that you ’sell’ subscriptions for $5 a month? I know you must have at least 4-5 thousand hits per day. Most people (in my humble experience) tend to shy away from open ended donations. Often because they feel that donating $5 – $10 would be too little, and would prefer not to be embarrassed by giving so little. Given that 1,000 people paying just $5 per month, would more than pay your bills. Subscriptions would allow access to ‘premium’ content such as comments, blogs, spotlight areas, etc.. Registered users have access to the ’standard’ news content. I’m not suggesting a paywall…but a small charge for ‘premium’ access.
Joe
February 8th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
@ JoeBubba
Good idea!
Cheers! And thanks …
February 8th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Subscriptions a “good idea”?
Jon you disappoint me and anger me at the same time.
This is what Murdoch wants to do and what you have always said is the worst thing to ever happen; that news
should be free and not have a premium on it; and that subscriptions will kill free speech and the free dissemination of information.
If you do this, you are a traitor to the cause and can never be trusted again.
February 8th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
paid access to comments is a good idea? goodby free speech. hello berlin wall mark II.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:27 am
how about using flatter or looking into it. http://flattr.com/beta
We aim to revolutionize how people pay and get paid for content on the internet. Come, join and show the world that good content is worth some coins out of your pocket.