Out of order…
13 August 2007
Cartoon by Pedro, El Sentir de Coahuila
Much as I might hope that people think enough of the Mex Files to consider making a donation similar to what they’d pay for a monthy magazine subscription, not enough people are able, or willing to do so to make dontions a viable source of support.
There seems to be an assumption that free-lance writers can carry over expenses for several months. They can’t. Late checks (in one case a day late) meant there was no way to even meet the minimum on my telephone bill.
I’ll try to post something (I’m posting from the local public library) at least weekly, but between taking another job and working on a short book, I don’t expect to be back on-line regulary until September.
3 Comments
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The Mex Files 
Enough with the carping about not enough economic support. You have tried to make a go of something that obviously there is no paying market for. Let it go, save us the complaints and move on to something that will pay you.
In response to “Grumpy”:
First of all, what a fitting name you have provided yourself, very true to your apparent pessimistic message. Secondly, if there wasn’t a market, why did you choose to leave a comment? I think it’s quite ironic. Obviously, you were a “reader” if not you would have ignored this site. My question is: Why haven’t you moved on?
Just because one uses a product doesn’t mean one believes it is worthy of paying for. There are many sites out there that are subscription based and one can control access only to those that pay. If that doesn’t happen and I can get it for free, then I pop in to see what the complaint of the day is. “Reader”? I don’t believe I have ever read an entire post.
I don’t understand why you felt the need to respond, but since you did it is just like shooting fish in a barrel.
Oh yea, I didn’t answer your question. I left a message to emphasize to the author there wasn’t a market, no matter how many pleas for money he made, it was never going to pay him enough to live. Someone has to tell the emperor he has no clothes.
Señora Diaz de Leon, tiene buena noche
“Grumpy is being disingenuous when s/he claims not be be a regular reader… it’s rather doubtful more than one person at IP address 189.165.19.104 (in Montevideo) comes to this site.
As to whether it is “worth” the asking price or not, I can’t say. None of the economic theories that I know about have ever dealt with the pricing of information and knowledge. Perhaps the Mex Files should be limited — as are academic websites — to the ability of those connected to state approved institutions to pay; or perhaps, one should hoard this information, making it available at a contractual amount.
At any rate, having made this information available under a “Creative Commons” license agreement, I’m not doing anything differently than most other information sharing websites of similar distribution. Most regularly run fund drives every three months.