What does a man have to do to cover his costs?

 

I stopped charging for access to the Global Sourcebook for International Data Management (https://www.grcdi.nl/gsb/) in November 2014 – almost ten years ago. I wanted the information to be made as widely available as possible, and administering the paid version updates was laborious - I hoped instead to be able to cover my costs and continuing workload through sponsorship and donations. After all, I watched how Wikipedia raked in millions each year, and their international data information was, and is, poor, contradictory between pages and languages, and, in some cases, years out of date. My resource is by no means perfect, but by comparison it is 4500 pages of pure gold, pared, pruned and improved for over 30 years. Surely it would be no problem to get funding, especially as some customers were concerned that I would stop updating the resource without subscriptions, so they’d be the first to contribute.

Right?

Wrong.

I detest advertising on so many levels, but if it must be, surely rather advertising which reflected the information shown on the webpage rather than that which was “personalised” through pernicious spying and stalking. So I approached companies in the world of international data management and quality. People viewing the pages of the Global Sourcebook would be a perfect match for their services, and association with this respected resource would surely be a plus for any company in our sector. Alas, there was little interest – they preferred to trust their luck with Google and co. And as for donations … well, though the link for donations had around 1.5 million page views in those years, the number of donations was a disappointing. One, to be exact, providing a total income in that decade of 2 Euro cents per month.

OK, I get that business users are less likely to contribute – they have to go through overcomplicated internal processes to get access to even minor amounts, and the one contribution was from another sole trader – but the extent of the disinterest is still rather sobering. Finally, I had to give in and activate Google AdSense for the Global Sourcebook. I chose the least  pernicious options I could – no personalization, no tracking, no this, no that. And yet still I receive a few cents per day from those ads, more than I received in any given year when relying on voluntary donations. Why people would click on those ads is a mystery to me, but much is a mystery to me when it comes to my fellow man.

The bills continue to come in. The resource is used and admired, but nobody wants to support it with cold, hard cash. What does a man have to do to cover his costs? Answers on a  postcard please ….