Too many Paypal Buttons where they don't belong?

[Smuk]

I can't help it, but almost every decent netlabel i visit on regular basis, seems to add more and more Paypal buttons on their websites. Whats the deal?
Netlabels are supposed to be free, and not bring guilt if you don't push the great beg-button. Yeah, i get it.. support the artists and all, right?

Archive.org hosts your music for free and the prices on domain / webhotels are nearly free these days. I don't like this new development of begging. It seems rather pathetic in my eyes. If you want to support an organization, buy their products like t-shirts or a limited pile of cd(-r) instead. That's a far better deal where you actually get something in return which proves your true support!

[adam]

I can't help it, but almost every decent netlabel i visit on regular basis, seems to add more and more Paypal buttons on their websites. Whats the deal?
Netlabels are supposed to be free, and not bring guilt if you don't push the great beg-button. Yeah, i get it.. support the artists and all, right?

Archive.org hosts your music for free and the prices on domain / webhotels are nearly free these days. I don't like this new development of begging. It seems rather pathetic in my eyes. If you want to support an organization, buy their products like t-shirts or a limited pile of cd(-r) instead. That's a far better deal where you actually get something in return which proves your true support!

I agree. The fact of the matter is, nobody will donate anyway. Not really anyway.

There are buttons on a couple places on YOTM but they will probably be removed for various reasons. The issue being that funds need to be raised sometimes for advertising and the investment into new areas for the labels as far as products and supporting artists go, but the fact of the matter is that donations don't do squat for anyone.

[cyhl]

man, com'on!!!!!!!!!!!!! offering the possibility to donate something is not aimed at bringing guilt...

first of all, sure, hosting is not very costly these days thanks to archive.org and etc.; but let me ask you a question: are you running a netlabel? do you know how much time it takes?????????? so please, you should be giving props to any single netlabel owner instead of criticizing!

then, even if costs are low, costs are still there!

then: when we added the donation buttons a few months ago, we actually thought people would donate regularly, and that we could send some money to the artists; that's THE MOST IMPORTANT, and that was our goal when we did it!!!!!!!! forget who runs the label, but you should at least give respect to artists who give their music for free!

a few months later, we realized that pretty much nobody donates, so we quickly forgot about giving money to the artists, and, we just keep it for our operation costs...

ok, whatever, that didn't stop us, right????????? so I guess we're still not doing this for the money, orelse we would have stopped! (if you still need to be convinced!); and if we really wanted to "bring guilt", or "force" people to donate, there's tons of more efficient ways (on the web design side of things) to do it than just placing a button on the download page... anyway, most of the times, people don't even go to the netlabels website itself coz direct download links are posted everywhere, so they don't even see the donate buttons!

and at the end, I've had nice conversations with most of the people who donated... it's always cool, intersting and constructive for us to talk with our "audience", and at least, the donations gave me the opportunities to do that...

[cyhl]

man, I actually think you managed to piss me off!!!!!!!!!!!! that happens only a few times a year, hehe

and at the end, I'm always grateful to the people who piss me off, coz when I come back to a normal state after being pissed, I always feel good, coz it's good to evacuate your feelings once in a while, right?

anyway, after the first emotional reaction, let's be constructive: I'm actually very interested in hearing what other people think... so please, everyone, let me/us know whether (and don't worry about pissing me off, that won't happen for at least 3 months from now )

can we post polls on this board? that'd be an interesting one...

[jpls]

i see nothing wrong with adding such links to a netlabel's download
page where people get to download FREE TECHNO.

deal with the buttons and quit bitching or stop downloading free
techno so that you can spare your precious eyes from the horrific
sight of an option you have to support an entity financially.

[patrick bateman]

I think it's fair for netlabels, artists whoever, to use those buttons, but Cyhl just said what I was thinking already, that people are actually not using them.

[adam]

It's human nature..

Donating, (money aside for a minute) takes extra time. The pace people do things at these days, nobody wants to take a couple extra seconds to donate some cash. I know I don't/won't. Yes, i'm a hypocrite but it's true.

I'm curious if there is some other surefire way to raise money for hosting/advertisement/artist honorariums

[dsat]

if it's free, nobody will donate...
but then again, i don't support 100% that netlabels should be free
it makes the music seem less valuable

music shouldn't be free, that's my opinion
what's a record worth of if you can simply download quality music for free?
it's like dumping prices... i's bad business for me and it will be damaging in the long run

there's too many people already who take it all too much for granted
i don't see the point in giving away hours or weeks of work for free to people who don't even have the decency to support the label...