Paying Up Front or by Hits?

Originally, (going back a decade) writing sites (or more properly named, publishing sites) paid users by hits.  That is, by how many people viewed your writing.

If you received no hits, you got no coin.

In those days, the various Sites were honest. Every item you posted had its own counter, so you would know, as you logged on, how many hits you had received in a day.  You would see how much money you earned. You could go to your list of published articles to see which ones were getting 1k hits which were getting 10.

Sites were honest.

Even if you snuck in your own personal counter, it would show no different result then that admitted by the site. There was no reason for deception.   The various sites were operated by people who saw no reason to lie to you.

The basic paradigm was 50/50. That is whatever you earned the site on which it was published took one half of your revenue.   It the site received 1c for every three hits an item got, you received 1c for every six hits.  This was how it was.

Factoidz was the first site in my knowledge which went from being honest to to play with hits, and, because it was so sloppy, it was caught.

I recall noting I had 1,635 when I first logged in and a few hours later 635. One thousand hits disappeared. By that time that event occurred,  I, as well as the majority of users  was one toe above ‘member’.   Factoidz was a site which classified those who joined, as ‘member’ (where they could not publish) ‘writer’ (where they could and their work would be moderated) and ‘staff writer’  (where their work would not be moderated).

Going from Staff Writer to Writer, I knew knew they would steal my work,  drop me to member, and then lock me out.

This is what Factoidz did to many writers, just before it went down, taking all the cash for M.Q. (the owner).  M.Q., who had been reported to various legal entities changed the site to Knoji and then turned it into some ‘coupon’ site which is whatever that is.

However, the fact is that being paid by hits, as encouraging as that happens to be,  only works when the site is honest.  When it is run by honest people.   Once the site become like Factoidz, there’s no sense in continuing.

This site pays up front. Depending on how long an item is, one has different pay rates. Yes,the pay is small but it is real. If you post ten short items you earn $1.50. That is straight forward.

Niume uses the hit paradigm and my guess is as good as yours whether you did get 100 hits or 10 hits or 1.

Although clearly, if you have seven comments that should be at least seven hits, this seems to escape the minds of those who run the site.  A user can stagnate at $3.65 for a week, despite having likes, hits, favourited, etc.

Although it seems so much fairer to have a site pay by hits it isn’t, not in today’s dishonest world.