Writing, Politics and the Loss of Alternative Income

In recent months, I have been watching the slow but steady decline of income from my online writing efforts.

Amazon pays less than it ever has, Google Adsense pays less than it ever has, my "revenue sharing" venues are paying less than they ever have. For the first month in many years, I might actually make less than $10. I used think that as long as I "made enough for a dinner out" I could justify spending some time writing every day.

The decline not because readership is down. In fact, readership is fairly broadly up, across my writing venues. The decline is the result of any given page view having less value than ever.

Meanwhile, the "Political Circus" is ramping up as the US Presidential elections of next year draw closer. Various candidates are trying to "establish position" and lots of viewpoints are being tossed around. Conspiracy theorists (at least some of them) would have us all believe that we are powerless anyway... and "nothing short of anarchy" can change our system.

To me, there is little doubt that most politicians are-- to some degree-- little more than sock puppets for business interests. It's one of the great weaknesses of the US political system: Government is ultimately run by those who stand to profit from government.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, by any stretch of the imagination.

What I do see, however-- purely as a keen observer of the human condition-- is that the ever-growing chasm between the "haves" and "have-nots" seems partially fueled by the fact that our ability to create "alternative" income streams is closing... that is, it gets harder and harder to be "outside the system."

Well.

Not harder to BE outside the system, but to LIVE outside the system. You can BE outside the system to your heart's content, you just can't make a living there, anymore. Or it's a lot more work than it used to be.

Again, not being a conspiracy theorist here... just postulating that just like the income earned by minimum wage (and most hourly) workers hasn't increased at the same rare as the life expenses of those people, similarly the income increases of the self-employed (most of us) haven't kept up with increasing costs to do business, and simply to live.

It's 2015, and I make about the same as I did in 2006. "Product X" or "Service Y" from a small contributor like me sells for about the same then and now. And if I have "the nerve" to up my prices, I will just lose overall business. When it comes to writing and getting paid... the "per word" rates are largely unchanged.

The math behind that simply doesn't work, from a functional perspective. And this, many feel increasing pressure to "comply" and just go get a mainstream job that fits "in the establishment" somewhere, and serves the "machine" we have been trying to operate independently of.

I feel sad for those writers who actually depend on this gig for paying their electric bills...

A Little Bit Disgusted

In recent weeks, I have been growing increasingly disgusted with the whole writing business.

Seems to me that the time may have come where I-- and many of my fellow online writers who have been using the method for years-- simply need to quit and throw in the towel on the whole idea of being able to make a few dollars from "micropayments" from their writing.

As I watch what goes on-- and read between the proverbial "lines"-- it seems more and more evident that it is getting all but impossible to gain any income from revenue sharing sites and ad revenue.

Web users increasingly use "ad blockers" and "collective publishing" web sites (like HubPages) increasingly get downgraded as "too spammy" by search engines... meaning that their web traffic and search engine traffic is caught in a cycle of decline.

Meanwhile-- if you are a web site owner or blogger who uses something like Adsense, or even the popular Amazon Associates to monetize your web properties-- it seems like the "revenue per page view" is in an eternal downward spiral with no logical end in site.

I recently looked at my own personal site stats from September and observed that with more (and "current") content than ever before, my Amazon commissions had actually declined to less than one dollar for the month for the second month is a row... compared to $15-20 a month, just a couple of years ago. Meanwhile my AdSense revenues had shrunk by almost 50%, while my site visits were up almost 50%, for the same period.

I suppose the good news is that my content attracts readers... I just no longer have a way to be commercially rewarded for that. Reminds me of "old days" as a writer where "compensation" was sometimes offered in the form of "yeah, but it will look good on your resumé!" Nice. Try using that to pay for your groceries, next time you're at Safeway!

The more I look at this, the more it feels like we are returning to some version of the "Free Web" that existed in pre-advertising days.

But something does not compute-- because the web is NOT "free." Billions of dollars have to be spent on servers, content maintenance and infrastructure... and that has to come from somewhere.

Unfortunately, it seems like it increasingly comes from "deceptive practices," in the form of those "other suggested content" listings now so prominent on many web sites. "Content," that is, that actually isn't even "content," but advertising or links to some kind of malware that will eternally insist that you need to defrag your hard drive in order to "improve performance," while serving you a barrage of ads for gambling or porn web sites.

Feels like the web has learned nothing at all.

Also feels like the average writer's avenues for the pursuit of an honestly begotten dollar or two are being closed off. So much for making a few bucks to pay their electric bill...