Perpetual Ruminations

Tuesday

Greed sure can destroy. I have nothing against making money, and if your able, making a lot. But, I do believe in honesty and virtue, too. Profit is fine, but when it turns to greed, it destroys.

I was just over at a social site I used to spend a lot of time in. I have a few friends there still, so I try and stop in from time to time, but I have stopped using the site other than for staying in touch. It's sad to see how much it has changed -- for the worse.

I have nothing against change, and often it's needed. Look around in here, and you will see a lot of change. Especially those members who have been here for a long time. It's not the same, it's improved and grown. Even so, there are not so many ads all over that you cannot even load a page. There are numerous paid memberships, something to fit most anyone, and yes, there is still the free account, limited but functional.

The site I speak of also has ads, so many that they bog down the loading of the page. Also, some of the ads have been intrusive and spyware. They don't seem to care, as long as there is profit. They did not start out that way, no.

They had a mission, a plan, a vision. They started out a place where people could share experiences with like minded people. Also, you could easily stay anonymous, so you could share almost anything, without embarrassment. I joined because it was a means of writing. Many of the groups were things I had also shared with, and I could use them as a type of writing prop.

I met other members, developed friendships, and shared a lot with them and others. I even purchased a membership for myself and my wife, so we could enjoy more benefits. For twenty bucks, we had full membership and could do most anything the site offered. In addition, participating in the site earned tokens, much like the Gift Points here.

Then, after one year, I went to purchase another year for each of us. The price had changed from twenty bucks to sixty, and offered nothing more than before. Sure prices go up, but by three hundred percent?

Also, if you purchased the year, it was a better deal than by the month, you received much more, for a bit of a discount; if you can call a three hundred percent increase in price discounted. I do not remember for sure, but I think a month was now ten or twelve dollars and gave less than the yearly membership at sixty dollars.

I opted to go back to free and do without some of the bells and whistles. The next thing to go was any rights to what was posted on the site. It had some copyright information when I joined, but another member informed me that the site now took all legal rights to anytong posted on the site.

I read through all the legal stuff and could not find anything I could understand other than the site reserved the right to change anything and everything. So, I wrote to them and inquired about copyright policy. I never got a reply. I wrote again, and eventually I got a reply that did not actually say anything. Once more, I wrote to them and asked who holds legal right to material posted on the site. They did, and they also could share it, sell it, or do what they want without any notice.

I removed most of my writings and my use of the site dwindled to just a little here and there to keep in touch with a few members. Then, time became scarce and I went long periods without entering the site. Sometimes months. I really didn't have time, and I really didn't care, except to keep in touch with a few online friends.

A few weeks ago, I logged in and seen many more changes. I contacted a few people and they were so happy to hear from me, I decided to log in a bit more often and do a better job of staying in touch. I have left a few messages over the last two weeks, and today I stopped by to do the same.

I was going to send a gesture or gift, but they all take tokens now, well most of them do. So, I decided to upload a picture with the message and found out this also requires tokens. Alright, I still had a few left so sent it and seen I only had three tokens left after sending. It cost me six tokens to upload a photo to the message.

No problem, I can do some activities and earn a few more as needed. So I looked to see what I could do to earn some tokens. Nothing. I can no longer earn tokens; no one can earn tokens, now they have to be purchased. So, I decided to see how much tokens cost. They are a dollar a token.

That means, I spent six bucks to upload a photo to share. This is where it's going. Money for everything, the ads are still there, and half the stuff doesn't work right. I didn't take the time to figure it up exactly, but just estimating my past activities and interactions, it would now cost me upwards of a hundred bucks on that site, and I still don't retain any claim to anything I write or post.

Now that is just plain greed.