A LOT of people aren’t welcomed here any more. That hurts donations significantly.
Exactly. I still give a monthly donation, but mostly out of inertia.
“FR wants my money, but not my opinions” - that’s been my prevailing thought since I committed the apostasy of saying Romney gave a decent speech one night many months ago. Amazingly, I wasn’t summarily banned, but the rebuttals were quite rabid, and really were a game changer in my attitude towards the site, of which I’ve been a member off and on since the Clinton days. Add to that my non-Christian beliefs, and a profession that many here strongly despise, and it’s clear I don’t really belong.
I still come here for the news and the often entertaining reactions to it, but I no longer believe the local denizens represent the views of the vast majority of conservatives I know (fortunately), and I certainly no longer throw the raw meat of any serious opposition opinions to the self-righteous who control things here.
Many who might have provided financial support have literally been run off or banned, but an even greater number, I believe, have simply been alienated. The folks who run the site - officially and unofficially - are, of course, free to do so however they want, but it is naive to then also expect, after creating so much divisiveness, that a wide swath of conservatives are going to pony up donations out of a sense of good will.
I hate to say this but this is true. There were many people here since 1998 who fought side by side who've been thrown off or simply shredded to pieces by certain members who allowed to run without a leash even on who attacked me and is a Sarah Palin hater.
When I stated there were people promoting voting for Obama, and even one of the most known FReepers on this site who is close with the leadership told me privately they knew this was true and nothing would be done about it.
I decided to call these people out only to be viciously slandered. I even provided proof. They tried to completely distort the statement.
I'm going to leave it at that. Instead of banning folks who donated for the last ten years, maybe they should go after the thugs who use threats of zotting to scare FReepers off the site...
Pissed off and banned people don’t donate.