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p2pnet news view P2P:- Since my last update my wife, Liz, and daughter, Emma, and I have been talking a lot about what we can do and what we can’t do, and what it’ll mean to us as a family, to keep p2pnet online.Filesharers belong to a P2P community and p2pnet.net serves as a part of that. It’s a voice among the growing swell of other voices promoting honesty, respect, openness and freedom online, and that’s the way we want things to continue.“It was looking as though this coming Yuletide season might have been the last for p2pnet,” I posted last Wednesday. “But Christmas has come early, I said.“Cliff Haerden, who runs MultiBox.be in Belgium and who’s also a p2pnet regular, is donating a server, with all the bells and whistles. And that means p2pnet will keep on truckin’. ”And when I continued, “I’m still looking for $2K a month to supplement the ad income, but I may have a way to deal with that too”, I was thinking about a loan and we were successful, which means we can now get through until March or April next year.So p2pnet is now officially off the market.And on that, interestingly, of the enquiries which arrived, more came from Russia than anywhere else. I guess they don’t have the same constraints there as we do. Be that as it may, none of the suitors wanted to identify themselves or say what their plans would’ve been for the site had they become the new owners.Pass.I also talked with a well-known net personality who’s been involved with online content distribution since the beginning. Unlike the Russians, he told me exactly what he had in mind, and maybe we’ll be able to connect in some other way.‘ … threatened to close down p2pnet … ‘In a post on Rupert Murdoch’s ideas about the value of online content, “Jon, you also believe your ‘content’ or ‘product’ is worth money and have recently threatened to close down p2pnet if people don’t start paying up,” said an anonymous (as usual) comment. “Yet you have never paid anyone who has written articles for you which had helped you earn your salary from your former anonymous benefactor. Are you a hypocrite? Yes you are. Please respond intelligently.”I’ve had a few other thoughts like that expressed in Readers’ Writes, as well as in emails, and I answered »»»Did you see my post that I might have to close p2pnet down as a threat? That suggests it means something to you. I get up at 3:00 every morning, answer emails and stuff until around 4:00, and then post until around noon. Then I spend another hour or so working offline. And I often log back on again for an hour or two in the later afternoon. Just like now. Not only but also, I now work on a2f2a.com. Every day. For free. And I make and receive phone calls related to both sites. And I’m a husband and home-schooling father. I used to be an amateur musician as well, but I don’t have time for that any more.This isn’t about content, or how much it is or isn’t worth. I’m not demanding payment. I honestly believe I’m providing something that’s needed and I’m asking for help to keep on doing that,I posted ‘p2pnet: close to collapse’ seven days ago. How much as come in? $376.03, after PayPal has deducted its fee. So if I say (very conservatively) I worked for 8 hours a day for six days, that’s about $7.80 an hour. But please don’t think I’m belittling that. I’m not.And I haven’t mentioned the lawsuits. One was entirely pro bono, and one wasn’t, and it cost me a lot of money I had to borrow and still haven’t paid back. It would have been more had it not been for the $2,000 readers donated. And we’ve contributed our own savings over the years. So now we don’t have savings.I thought I’d had it when I made that first post, but with Cliff on board, and a lot of thinking, my wife and I believe we may have a way to keep going until the end of March. That’ll give me breathing space, and thanks to Rogan, we’ll also be re-jigging the site which will, I think, make a big difference.As for paying contributors, I’d love to and now I have someone to work with – Cliff – it’s possible a project I’ve had in mind for five years might be fired up. If it does and it works, it’ll be an earner and I’ll not not only be able to pay contributors, I’ll be able to hire a writer, and maybe two.Keeping on keeping onThe biggest problem with keeping a site up is ISP and host costs. But thanks to Cliff, hosting is taken care of, and ISP dollars are a fairly small expense.We’ll worry about loan repayments and other things when we need to.But I’ll be leaving the donations button up for the time being.I’m very, very grateful to the people who’ve put their hands in their pockets to help me out. The amount is still at $376.03 and although their contributions are valuable, it’s clear the only way I’m going to be able to keep going is by attracting more ads.Rogan will be re-designing the site and Ken Baron, a professional New York advertising consultant who’s helped me before, will be coming back as the p2pnet advertising manager.In We are the walrus, I said »»»“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”That’s from The Beatles’ 1967 song I Am The Walrus. The attribution is to both Paul McCartney and John Lennon, but the words are Lennon’s and for me, they sum up what the net is all about.Peers to peers. People 2 people. Sharing. Caring.P2P.Finally, as I also said somewhere else, p2pnet.net stopped being a personal blog a long time ago. It’s now a community resource and one way or another, it’ll keep on truckin’.
