Posted on 12/05/2001 12:37:55 PM PST by DoughtyOne
Ummm Yea ... ummm The check is in the mail ..lol
Jim Rob = $80,000
John Rob = $80,000
Overhead @ 100% = $160,000
Total $320,000
Would be cheap for Silicon Valley at twice the price.
Nothing is required of you, so only contribute what you feel the site is worth to you. If nothing is a 'fair' amount, so be it -- no harm done. God bless.
At straight time for 2000 hours and time and a half for 1000 hours and double time for 1000 hours each.(About $17.78/hour base pay.
Must be a 'labor of love' -- For which we all are deeply in your debt - Too bad so many are FReeploaders'.
(By the way, as a disclaimer, I have no idea what Jim and John get by on, I'm just a fellow Californian with wife, kids, mortgage, and pets, and the usual bills from Sacramento.)
This site is worth at least twice as much as any cable company, and 5 times as much as any 'fishwrap'.
In defense of Bob, he may believe the site is worth a million bucks. It is his prerogative (it is his money) if he chooses to contribute only if certain conditions are met. Sounds fine to me.
Having said that, I can see this issue is probably a direct result of Bob's choice of confrontational words.
Bob, if you do wish to contribute, and you do wish to see disclosure, you could make a conditional pledge, dollars for books, so to speak. However, I am certain you would catch flak for making such a statement on the forum; I'd suggest private mail to Jim, a saintly patience and temper, and a link to my suggestion here.
If a significant number of people made such conditional pledges, Jim may re-evaluate his disclosure position. Or he may not, because that is Jim's prerogative (it is Jim's site.)
Jim has his own concerns regarding the books, nothing diabolical, nothing under-handed. More so than anything his concerns are of protecting his creation. (From whom? Many enemies, not just the "copyrighted" anti-Freeper group. This is a political endeavor, afterall. Not to mention the most deadly enemy is the silent enemy you don't see.)
I personally receive no money from Free Republic. Jim contracts my company at $11k/mo for bandwidth and services, including custom programming and maintenance. The $11k/mo covers most expenses (won't cover hardware upgrades, replacements, etc. and certain other expenses.) Bandwidth is almost all of a 10mbit Internet connection. (Does 1.2 Megabytes per second.) And the monthly cost should be less than that by a significant factor next month (renegotiations, relocations, etc. still pending.)
As for that $11k/mo received by my company, a very significant majority is used to cover the bandwidth, as testimonials elsewhere would corroborate. Bandwidth is expensive! The rest goes to my Pepsi habit, and minor things like rent. ;-)
3-4 can a day man myself, I cut back from ~5.
Gotta get my 'caffeine' somewhere, so I drink 'leaded'. {;~)
Man, if I cut out Pepsi, I could double my monthly and still be ahead, or without one.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.