Listowners-L Archives

Archiver > Listowners > 2002-03 > 1015015629


From: "Kurt Pickering" <>
Subject: [LO] Affiliates
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 14:47:14 -0600


"More or less offensive." Followed by a lecture on the profit motive.

That's pretty funny - because I'm, as anyone who knows me will tell you, a
free-enterprise Adam Smither.

While I'm blowing assumptions, lemme blow another: I'm sure you think I'm
one of those folks who think all genealogy on the internet should be free.
Well, I have been an Ancestry.com subscriber for three years now. When a
service is being provided, there's nothing wrong with paying for it. I've
even recommended subscribing to it, privately, to people who solicited my
opinion as a List Administrator.

So why do I think Ancestry.com should allow us to use Ancestry.com's own
Affiliates program and earn the commission Ancestry.com OFFERS, using in the
process the lists WE created and which are there to serve as advertising
vehicles for Ancestry.com BECAUSE WE created them?

1) Because they offer it. In so doing, they set the commission at a level
which allows them to retain enough profit to meet their goals. A cost of
doing business THEY find acceptable. Allowing us to do this will not drive
Ancestry.com out of business.

2) Because we create the lists, whether we "own" them or not. Without
them, clearly, Ancestry.com would be just a little weaker.

3) Because free enterprise's single most key component is synergism. I'm
not asking for any freebie here. Neither is Ancestry.com, given that I'm
sure RootsWeb's actual cash flow is still negative. But I go back to the
fact that this is an OFFERED commission: there's enough here for the
company and the list creators. Synergism. THAT's how free enterprise
works.

I'm going to add this, because when I'm wrong I admit it. I did go back and
check some old messages I had saved, to learn that indeed the subscription
footer link has been there for many months. I just never noticed it. (Gee,
how effective.) Obviously, I did only notice it because of my own idea.

Doesn't change the fact, though, that I thought up a pretty good idea only
to be told it's not allowed by people who are doing the very thing they're
not allowing. Bothers me ethically, Adam Smith or not. He and his system
are as much about teamwork as about competition.


Kurt Pickering

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