Leaving the Past, Embracing the Future

Things are changing in a big way, and that means there's a bit of nervous electricity in the air. I've already had a mini outburst on social media about this, but here's the deal: a company I have worked for since 2009 is making huge changes, and not the good kind.

Textbroker has been one of my income streams since the beginning. It is what we in the business like to refer to as a content mill--clients who often put keyword stuffing over quality and relatively low pay for writers. There are sometimes huge globally-recognized brands, sure, but you always question why they would come to a website like this in the first place when they could just as easily put together an in-house team.

At the beginning, it was responsible for at least half of my monthly earnings. This has ebbed and flowed over the past ten years, but it was always a place to go when I had no other work to do on a particular day. While all of the other content mills have faded into obscurity or have been replaced by bidding sites (which aren't much better), Textbroker has lasted. Until now.

The company sent an email stating they were changing their payment processing from PayPal to Payoneer. Looking on the website's author forum, many had never heard of Payoneer before. Neither had I. Everything I've researched says that I shouldn't make the switch, especially not just for one company. Since I've had to deal with issues of compromised personal information (big sarcastic thanks to TurboTax, Target, Yahoo, and Equifax, among many others) I'm not in any way comfortable giving personal and financial information to this company.

It's not just the switch--it's the reason for the switch. Textbroker wants to try and prevent writers outside of the U.S. from signing up, and apparently, this payment processor will help with that. Really? This is a big deal because the website promotes only U.S. writers will be working on tasks, even though they have a worldwide client base. Switching to Payoneer does one thing and one thing only--gives foreign clients a better way to pay. Just do a quick Twitter search for Payoneer on Twitter. Most of the tweets singing its praises are in another language. A deep dive into researching shows that Payoneer is also a preferred payment method for international scammers. There are no official stats on this, but come on. It's pretty obvious. Textbroker claims that it is impossible to offer multiple payment options for writers. This, my friends, is a lie. I've been freelancing for over a decade--most websites and companies I have worked for offer multiple payout options.

The sad thing? Some writers on the site want the switch because they hate PayPal. I have never once had an issue with PayPal, so I don't see a reason I should have to change. I sincerely hope it does work out for everyone that makes the switch to Payoneer, but I won't be joining them in 2020.

I keep thinking about that moment where I will have to choose whether to push that "Close Account" button or not. I could sit around and hope they will bring PayPal back, but what I really need to do is leave the past behind. It was a great run, but Textbroker no longer serves my goals and ambitions in a lot of ways.  I don't know what is going to come next without this to fall back on, but what I do know is that I can't let the frustration of it all hold me back. This isn't the first time I've tried to leave Textbroker only to be lured back in, but it will be the last. 2020 is going to be an amazing year for me, so I won't spend another moment worrying about whether I made the right decision.

So long, Textbroker. It's been a wild ride.

Donation Debate

My blog seems a bit like an endless ramble that no one could possibly be interested in. But surprisingly, I have a better readership that I ever thought I would. This is why recently in discussions between a friend and me, the idea of a donation button has been brought up. Since I am a full time freelance writer, she says that a donation button is an obvious choice since my blog is technically part of my job. I thought about it hard, but decided not to do this. My reasons for this are simple: A) would this in any way affect my taxes? (I hate figuring out taxes!) and B) I already have plenty of sponsored links that people can click if they want to help out.

I actually found an article that says pretty much the same thing, only in a more articulate way: Donation Buttons on Blogs? The reasons in the article mirror the same the way I feel about it, but I certainly don’t want others to be discouraged about using them. In fact, I have run across many blogs that don’t use it for just straight income. Many blogs use this as an opportunity to donate and support specific charities. Of course donors should give at their own risk, because there are liars in this world.

My only question to those that use donation buttons: does it work? It seems unless you have thousands of readers, there would be little chance for donations.