Weak Dollar Killing Euro WMs?

[hazel]

Hi All,

Seems that the US and Canadian WMs won't have noticed the steady decline of the greenback over the last year or so, but many a European (especially UK) Webmaster has seen their income drop off quite dramatically. If the buck gets any weaker we'll all have to get a 'proper job'

Saw this over a RevShare Hosting. Should be a worry to any Euro newbies using their space:

"As of January 1st we will be changing the minimum for check payout to $50 for US/Canadian webmasters and $100 for International webmasters. Revshare Hosting is paying our webmasters directly on more and more programs, with payouts twice each month it’s just not cost effective to send out these smaller checks so often"

The cruncher, to me anyway, is the last part of the last line - "...
just not cost effective to send out these smaller checks so often". $100 at he exchange rate, plus transaction charges, works out at about £45 - A night out with maybe a bag of chips (fries), and without a taxi home!

At the thick end of $2 to £1, and getting worse, how long will it be before smaller WMs give it up because it just don't pay?

When does that retard in the White House retire? |pissleft|

[Useless]

Originally posted by hazel

When does that retard in the White House retire? |pissleft|

We'll all be paying for his sins forever. Maybe Chelsea Clinton will become president and kill the deficit the way her father did with the deficit created by the elder Bush and Reagan. America is bankrupt. Were just haven't filed the paperwork yet.

[Jel]

Yeah,
I hear you there Hazel. 100 bucks gets me £48 at the moment, I'm just riding it out until things get better, which is all we can really do I suppose. Luckily I'm in a better position than when I started out a year ago, but had I only been doing this a month or 2, I probably wouldn't be able to continue. The greedy part of me says yay, less new webmasters, but I guess I'm not really that greedy, cuz I know it's gotta suck for the very new webmasters.

I do however have something that might help you, gonna look see if you got an icq# in your profile, if not you can icq me on 258757060 - same goes for any uk members here who I might be able to get a better exchange rate for. Not by a great amount, but every bit helps

[kalle7]

Yep, I know exactly what you mean hazel. Every week it seems like I get paid less money for what I do.

One thing that I have found usefull is to promote sponsors that has got the e-passporte option. Get an account and a ATM card and life will get much easier.

Some sponsors are amazing and have really unerstood that treating the webmasters good is the key to success. They transfer money to your epassporte account even that you only have had one sale. This should really be an example to how to do it for other sponsors.

In my case, I can not get checks sent to me before I have got about $ 300-400 at one sponsor account. The price for the banks to exchange checks for me is to high to even consider below that amount.

Also promoting programs that are within the same system as f.example CCBill sponsors is a great way of making sure that you will not have a lot of accounts out there with $ 30,- on them and that you will never get out cause of high limits.

[hazel]

Hi cfnmparty,

Don't use an ICQ, but you can mail me if you like

Perhaps things will get a little better soon. Either I'll start making enough to make a proper go of it, or the pound/dollar exchange will become more favourable again

Still feel kinda sorry for the new guys who just want to make a bit of pocket money for a drink at the weekend

[Opti]

Anyone have a list of programs that pay in Euros?

[stuveltje]

Originally posted by Opti
Anyone have a list of programs that pay in Euros?

sexmoney is euro sponsor,
mediaplaza its for adult ringtones, logos and games and non adult for all kind of mobile phones, they pay in euro and us dollars, you can make your pick with that, also how fats you wanna get paid, weekly, 2 weeks, monthly.
There are some dutch sponsors who also have english sites, but then with the real dutch sponsors you get sites with animal and incest also and you know teen sites the age of a teen is younger in holland then in US and the dutch sponsors are more the per per minute sponsors.

[stuveltje]

and i agree about the dollar, did i normally get 120 euro for 100 dollars, now i should be happy i get 75 euro for the same 100 dollars minus 7 euro cost for the cheque.very nice, but on the other hand, hosting is very cheap (i have that in us) content is cheap, domains are cheap. still i want the old dollar back

[urb]

It's a real pain.

But like stuveltje says... it works both ways.

[alessandro]

The weak dollar is killing most of europeans. Most prices in my country are calculated at a dollar course aprox. %10 higher than it's actual course, so many people who had economies in $ got screwed.

[tickler]

Originally posted by hazel
Seems that the US and Canadian WMs won't have noticed the steady decline of the greenback over the last year or so...

We notice it in Canada also, eh!

It was about $1.50(cdn) to $1.00(USD), now it's about $1.25-1.30. They are starting to talk about layoffs because out exports are becoming over-priced to the US market.

[ecchi]

For the past 6 months or so, I have made a lot more out of my "non adult" work than my "adult" work, simply because most of my "non adult" stuff is for British customers so I get paid in Pounds sterling, not the Monopoly money that the US$ is becoming.

[Fonz]

Look at the bright side, now we can all buy content and scripts at almost half the price

[Trev]

Originally posted by Fonz
Look at the bright side, now we can all buy content and scripts at almost half the price

It has to be hurting the content providers over there too, though. We had one we liked a lot, but they charged in euro's and it started getting really expensive... too expensive.

[ecchi]

Yeah, tell me about it. I sell a lot of stuff to non-adult webmasters, and I get very few sales from the US, because although my prices are low in Europe, they are high when you pay in $US.

I also got a hosting company that I set up to charge in $US because at the time most of my customers were American. Now the dollar has taken a dive, I don't make enough out of it for it to be worth the time I spend on the business.

I don't think I can wait four years for you to elect a President who is not hell bent on making America the laughing stock of the world, so could someone please impeach him now.

[Sean416]

Beleive me, canadians are feeling it too!

[Bjorn]

guess i am the only one eing happy with this lol

Since i make 90 % of my income from EU currencies , i am pretty happy, cheap content, cheap hosting, cheap design work, cheap everything really |afro|

[SirMoby]

US politicians tell voters that a weak dollar is good because it makes it easy to sell US goods and that is going to boost the economy. What they don't tell the voters is that less then 17% of the US economy is based on manufacturing and only a small portion of that is exported to Europe.

The good thing is that it makes it cheaper for European surfers to purchase a membership in US dollars We won't get into a discussion about inflation, which US voters will start to feel soon.

Of course if the US debt keeps going up and China and Japan stop lending us money then you'll get paid in Euros.

[Useless]

Originally posted by SirMoby
US politicians tell voters that a weak dollar is good because it makes it easy to sell US goods and that is going to boost the economy. What they don't tell the voters is that less then 17% of the US economy is based on manufacturing and only a small portion of that is exported to Europe.

The good thing is that it makes it cheaper for European surfers to purchase a membership in US dollars We won't get into a discussion about inflation, which US voters will start to feel soon.

Of course if the US debt keeps going up and China and Japan stop lending us money then you'll get paid in Euros.

I realize that it is horribly un-American for me to say this, but I'm not known as a great patriot anymore. Why the hell doesn't the rest of the world just gang up on us and bring us to our knees? Why not try some sanctions and trade embargos? Come on guys, you can do it! It would make the whole world a much better place.

[swedguy]

I can't control if the dollar is getting stronger or weaker, so I try not to sweat too much over it.

Get a dollar account, that way you can keep your money in there until things get better. Cut your expenses and withdraw as little as possible.

[stuveltje]

i did stocks and all before i started the bizz 3 years ago, i am still following the markets, in holland they say the expensieve euro stops the economy to grow! they say now that in america the economy is getting better, they still pronounce that the dollar will dive more...........well i am not happy with that...but then what can i do about that, i keep working and the us bucks i earn i am putting that in other us bizz, because change it in euro dont make me rich

[andrej_NDC]

this is a great time for invesments where you pay in $$$. For example exclusive content, etc is very cheap now, good time to buy a lot of them and start selling it later, the dollar value will go up, its just a matter of time. But it applies for more things than only content.

[hazel]

First up - hi Tickler and Sean 416,

When I said 'Canadian WMs weren't affected over the last year', I was referring to most of the year when there were about 2.45-2.50 Mounties per Pound to the greenback's 1.70-175. Now of course the Mounty has got stronger again, and the monopoly money weaker

Sorry to hear that you guys are feeling the pinch too

Secondly - for Useless Warrior,

Europe has already got a lot of embargos on the 'Apple Pie', particularly in aviation [Boing are almost in tears over Airbus], software and hardware technology. Most of the last two are being imported to the US via Europe from developers in UK, Germany and the old Soviet states. They all have heavy tarrifs for the US markets; And all because they put massive duties on stupid stuff like Arron sweaters

Whichever way you look at it, the politicians are a bunch of overpaid kids - on both sides

Let's just keep going and see what tomorrow brings

[GeorgeTH]

Originally posted by swedguy
Get a dollar account, that way you can keep your money in there until things get better.

Good advice!
Look at the last 10 days: at some stage the US$ was over €1.37, today it's well under €1.31 - now on a $1,000 check that's already ~€40 in your favour = more than the bank charges plus a good cup of coffee in most countries...

I certainly gamble on that in recent months - sometimes I have checks laying for over a month before I bank them! And I keep an eye on the financial news...

[nekrom]

Yeah over the last 12 months, webmasters in Au have noticed the significant drop in the value of the USD when converted to AU. currently we only make about 25% more ontop of each $1USD.

Switching to Euro paying sponsors does seem to be the way where all heading over here.

-N