What's a PayPal subscription, anyway?
/A few readers have written in to ask about the mysterious box that appeared in the top righthand corner of my blog a few weeks ago. If you get new posts delivered to your e-mail or through an RSS reader, you probably didn't even notice it, but it looks like this:
If you click on the dropdown box you'll see a few different amounts and frequencies:
So why did this box appear on the site and what does it mean to you?
The Multinational Free-quent Flyer Empire
First, let's be honest: this site is not a cash cow for me. I'm not throwing a pity party here: I love blogging, I love helping readers, and I love hearing new ideas and datapoints from my readers, all of which is only possible because I have this forum.
On the other hand, it does cost real money to host the site. Some of those costs are offset by book sales, and I want to extend another thank you to all the readers who bought my eBook and those who were kind enough to leave a review on Amazon (even the negative ones)!
At the same time, ever since my short-lived and ill-fated experiment with affiliate links, there haven't been any good ways for readers to directly support the site. Sure, you can sign up for Uber using my link (and thanks to those who did!), and there are a number of other referral links scattered around the site (I get a dollar if you sign up for Venmo!). But that's not the kind of money that pays for monthly hosting fees.
Consider Subscribing
Which brings me to PayPal subscriptions. I got the idea from a podcast I periodically listen to (heck, I even stole the amounts). By choosing one of the amounts and frequencies from the dropdown menu, you can make a small, regular contribution to the site, which I'll use to offset the costs of running it. Naturally, you can make the contribution using a rewards-earning credit card.
So if you've learned anything useful, and especially if you've learned anything lucrative, from this site please consider making a small, regular contribution. It'll go directly towards producing the great content that you know and love, and towards keeping this site uncluttered by intrusive ads, affiliate links, and the other junk that you don't want to see and I don't want to deal with.
Won't you consider making a contribution today?
