The PayPal topic has come up lots of times regarding my website. On Bumfuzzle, at the bottom of the menu column is a little PayPal button that currently reads, We Sail So You Don’t Have To. In the past it has variously said things such as, Buy the Bums a Pizza, Buy the Bums a Taco, Enjoy Bumfuzzle?, and maybe a couple more. It has never said, Donate Please!
So are we beggars? Does this constitute begging? A healthy percentage of “cruisers” on the web chat rooms seem to think so. Here’s a link to one in particular. Cruisers Forum
In 2005 Ali and I were cruising in Malaysia.
She had just finished a book called Save Karyn, about a girl who got herself buried in $20,000 worth of debt. She started a website, poked fun at herself, talked honestly about her shopaholic ways and how she was changing them, sold all the fancy belongings that had gotten her into debt in the first place, and outright asked for donations to help pay off her debt. In four months she was debt free.
Ali finished that and said, “Christ, we should put a PayPal button on our site.” And thus, so far as I know, we launched what is now a very common sight amongst cruising blogs, the Paypal “Buy us a…” button. Sorry. Though let’s face it, it was going to happen sooner or later.
We knew we couldn’t beg, or say things like, “Please contribute to our continuing adventure.” We were sailing a three-year-old catamaran around the world. Obviously we had the money to do this ourselves. So why put this button on our site in the first place?
The answer is that we felt we were providing a product. For free. We blogged almost daily about our life, our cruising, our boat problems, our learning curve, everything. And we posted thousands of pictures showing what the lifestyle was to us.
People were free to read all of this without paying a dime. Which was fine by us. Obviously. We weren’t running a subscription based site. People pay for sailing magazine subscriptions. Aren’t those the same thing? Well no, because our site didn’t have a single advertisement on it. How many magazines are like that? How many blogs for that matter?
The big arguments seem to be 1) That we shouldn’t expect others to pay our way, 2) That there are charities out there that need the money, and 3) That we’re assholes.
Well let me give our reply to those.
Since 2005 we’ve received a total of $10,214. Sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but let’s face it, ten grand has not paid our way around the world the past seven years. It comes out to about $120 a month. You can take a look at our website and see that we spend on average quite a bit more money than this. In fact just doing the math in my head I suppose this comes out to between three to four percent of our total expenditures.
We know the number is $10,214 because Ali keeps a spreadsheet on it, she e-mails thank yous to each person who gives to us, and sends out postcards from around the world to many of them as well.
People that give to us are not debating whether or not to give twenty dollars to us or to UNICEF. This is not an either/or choice people are making here. If you think it is, you are as nuts as the folks on those cruising forums.
Well, there they may have a point.
Now I admit that the proliferation of these buttons is a little disconcerting. I myself do find it pretty obnoxious when a person starts a brand new website with no content other than a PayPal button on it saying things like Feed the Kitty. To me these people haven’t provided anything yet. They haven’t given their readers anything for their money.
I also think they are a bit delusional. I think there is a misconception out there that any Joe Shmo can start a blog, say they are going to sail around the world, and have people throw money their way.
The truth of the matter is this. We have a pretty big following. In the seven years since we first posted that link, Bumfuzzle.com has received over ten million page views. Meaning we’ve received one dollar for every 980 page views. Give or take. That’s not a very good conversion rate. So the idea that somebody who has never written a blog is going to suddenly start paying their way around the world based solely on a PayPal button is pretty ludicrous.
Anyway, this all came about because the other day some random seventy-year-old posted to my Facebook wall, “Is this the same “Bumfuzzle” that outraged the cruising community by begging for donations? Tacky darling, very tacky.”
I know, right? That was my first thought too. Seventy-year-olds are on Facebook?
Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s wrong. I don’t much care. Maybe it is simply a generational thing. Some people seem to think if the product you produce can’t be held in your hand or wasn’t built with Craftsman tools then it isn’t worth anything. It’s just air.
I don’t know, what do you think?
Thanks for letting me know your thoughts, and please, click here to donate towards our next season’s lazy sail through Baja.
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(Oh, come on, I’m only kidding. Lighten up.)
11 Comments on “PayPal Button, Is it Begging?”
I for one truly enjoy reading about the life you and your family live. It inspires me and my family. There will always be a critic in everything people do and say. I say, keep it coming.
I’ve been thoroughly entertained by your cruising blog and appreciate learning about your trials and tribulations. You happen to be in my favorite part of the world to boot. You’ve provided me with an entertaining and informative story and I have no problem with the PayPal issue. Why shouldn’t people have a way to show their appreciation. Thanks for your efforts to tell your story.
I will definitely be donating to this site. I already pay for a boating mag subscription that is very good but this is better. I appreciate your honesty, your real life experiences with no pretence. You have inspired me more than you will ever know. I now do not want to retire I want and adventure:-)!! Thank you Pat, Ali, Ouest & Lowe:-)!!
Forgive me if this is more of a story than comment.
While looking into my family history I came across a story of my grandmother as a teenager “a man came to the door, and explained that he was collecting money to build an airplane. After hearing the strangers “vision of aviation” she ran to her bedroom and got all her savings and gave it away. (By today’s standards it was about an hr.’s. wage, but at the time well over what her father made in a month) when great grandpa found out, let’s just say he was not happy. “How could you give your savings to a stranger? Grandma said “Someday aviation will be a great thing, and I WANT TO BE PART OF IT!!!!” Thank you for your PayPal button
Been reading your blogs for a long time now. Really like it. You have a unique viewpoint that I find refreshing. Haven’t hit the paypal button.. probably won’t anytime soon, but I feel that its your right to do it, and I support you in this. I read the Cruising forum about it, got tired of the old farts that was down on it. (bet some of them were young too, but display a old fart mentality.)
Some people are like that. They get a wild hair up the arse and can’t keep their mouths shut. Gord May had it right when he said nothing good would/could come out of the discussion.
Thanks for blogging.
Bob
You are completely right. The amount of money you could be making off advertisements and affiliate links would be huge, but you choose not to subject your readers to it. Every penny of that 10k paypal money you deserve. People seem to forget it costs money to even run a website. Thanks for the great content Pat!
This post is 3 years old, but I’m responding anyway.
I’ve spent the last month reading your entire journey. What I just donated was more than worth it.
I don’t know if you are still monitoring comments, I haven’t read past this point (now three years+ in the past), yet. For my and all your others fans’ sake, I hope there is no end and that you are continuing to blog to this day. I found you a couple weeks ago and have been binge reading ever since. I started looking at boats about three months ago. In less than a week I take possession of my 1971 22′ Santana. I know it’s so small and insignificant that you probably don’t even know what that is, but it’s a big deal for me. Not only have I been thoroughly entertained and engrossed by your writing, but I have learned and have had thoughts provoked more by it than from any other source I have gone to for help and information on the path I’m about to embark on. You absolutely have earned every penny received. Where else are you not bombarded by ads in any format of entertainment? Oh, a question that’s been on my mind for a while: Since in Mexico has the food really been that good that you haven’t mentioned pizza one time, that I can recall, since being there? I don’t even recall you searching for Mexican pizza as you have searched for almost every other country’s representation of pizza? (I know you’ve had Mexican pizza ala Taco Bell…YUM!
Welcome, Trina. Thanks for dropping us a note. To answer your question, yes, the food is really that good in Mexico. After so many years of searching the world for anything that even compares to Chicago pizza, we’ve had to give up. It doesn’t exist. In much the same way that good Mexican food doesn’t exist outside of Mexico. Congrats on the boat. Wishing you all the best on your adventures.
I completely agree, food in Mexico is outstanding. I just thought it was funny nobody had noticed your abrupt cease in eating pizza. Gotta get back to my binge reading here, love your dry sense of humor. Thanks for the reply.
Over the years I’ve learned that some people just aren’t happy unless they have something to complain about. All I know is it’s 2019 and people are still reading your old entries (I’m slowly working my way through) so you must be doing something right?