So there's this whole thing going on over at Fotolog. The "owners" have somehow racked up $70K in what they are calling "real bills that have to be paid." (As opposed to faux bills that can just be ignored?) So they are asking for donations.

Donations!

They don't have the slightest idea, evidently, of how to run this company and now they come running with a desparate, 11th hour plea for $70,000 that they need in the "next few days" or the site will be turned off. This just irks me all to hell. I mean, wtf? Every time there is one of these crises, (and they happen more often than you would expect), members make all kinds of suggestions on the discussion boards on the site about how things could be adjusted, how the site could make more money, etc. Some of these suggestions are well thought-out and sensible, as many of the members run websites or work in programming etc. Some of them, of course, are crack pots, but it doesn't matter, Fotolog ignores them all. They are arrogant AND stupid, a really bad combination. What's worse is that I can't believe that some poeple are actually falling for this and donating money! It is really beyond the pale.

In this "plea" for donations, they are playing the community card (as if they were the ones that built the community), hoping to tug on the heartstrings of people who have made friends and real connectins through fotolog. I have made many friends there myself, but if the failure of a web site means that I lose my friends, then what kind of friends are they?

I don't pay for the service anymore. Five bucks a month isn't a lot, but it is the principle of the thing. I used to pay for two logs, but no longer. The site and the company are so poorly run that I just can't see investing in it. I'll begin to pay again once they've demonstrated that they can at least run a web site properly, but I'm not holding my breath.


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