LRC In Trouble?

[T.hill]

He's just too dogmatic for my tastes.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

I don't like disparaging Lew, but he is simply a polemicist and nothing more. He contributes nothing intellectually to the libertarian movement, and he probably is one of the biggest encouragers of dogmatic moralists among libertarians -- those that allow no nuance whatsoever, while under the impression of being heroic or principled. The kind of people that have no humility and never doubt the validity of their own beliefs.

Yes, prior to jumping on the Trumpwagon, that was his specialty.

...nurturing the religious fanatic type ancaps and telling them not to vote.

 

[Ender]

From an article published on LRC:


This is the general theme I've seen in the LRC posts about Trump. More a "he's better than the alternative" than an endorsement. You guys don't seem to be reading what is actually written on LRC. Oh, well. Haters gonna hate, Statists gonna State. Libertarians will march on without y'all.

My POV as well.

 

[Tywysog Cymru]

I've been very disappointed with LRC recently with their constant praise of everything Donald Trump does.

 

[Ender]

I've been very disappointed with LRC recently with their constant praise of everything Donald Trump does.

Not much different than many on this forum, of late.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

Not much different than many on this forum, of late.

 

[juleswin]

He should ask Trump for a contribution for all the positive coverage. I'm done with Lew.

The man does it all for free, I wouldn't be surprised if he donated some of the LRC money to Trump for doing such a great work fighting the establishment.

 

[TaftFan]

Drop the stupid health articles.

 

[Ender]

Drop the stupid health articles.

Being a health nut, I like the articles.

 

[Badger Paul]

"Except that there's nothing remotely libertarian about Trump.

...or paleo, really; he's a New York left-liberal at heart. "

I absolutely agree with you. But for Lew, any candidate spouting this stuff (and doing so while being "anti-establishment) is better than none.

 

[Rad]

Save the white nats fund. Seriously, if Austrian economics is such a huge success then why is Lew in trouble? The morons basically sunk Ron's campaign with their childish newsletters.

There are too many crummy sites that beg for money while quality ones barely get by: http://www.antiwar.com/

 

[KingNothing]

LRC is a fine site, that should use this as push to improve.

Lew should view this as a notice that he needs to work even harder, and act with even more intelligence, if he really wants to stay in the game.

I'm certain that he will.

 

[KingNothing]

Based on the link posted here, http://www.similarweb.com/website/lewrockwell.com#overview , virtually no one gets to LRC via social media, search, or referral.

Seems like they have plenty of opportunities for improvement, and that if they take advantage of those opportunities, they'll be just fine.

 

[KingNothing]

I don't like disparaging Lew, but he is simply a polemicist and nothing more. He contributes nothing intellectually to the libertarian movement, and he probably is one of the biggest encouragers of dogmatic moralists among libertarians -- those that allow no nuance whatsoever, while under the impression of being heroic or principled. The kind of people that have no humility and never doubt the validity of their own beliefs.

This is the most accurate description of someone I've ever read.

 

[fcreature]

What is so expensive about these high traffic sites? Is it the bandwidth?

I just use cheap $15/mo shared hosting for my sites that I make a living on. I have looked at Virtual Private Server (VPS) options, and a fully managed VPS with a 4TB monthly limit, dedicated quad core, dedicated 4GB memory, 200GB space, is only about $200/mo. Is that not enough resources? I'm sure self hosted videos, or streaming video, will skyrocket the bandwidth needed, but does LRC do that?

Or is it a matter of the salaries for tech people to administer and improve the site?

For these types of sites, nothing. They're serving mostly static content utilizing some sort of content management system to do so. It's not like it's a custom job with a lot of heavy processes, I/O, or even many database reads/writes.

I've been a professional web developer/programmer and internet marketer for 15 years, and now I'm an executive at a cloud hosting company, so I do have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Now I don't know if the fundraising call is for just the website or other associated organizational costs. I couldn't really tell from the posted article. Typically with these types of fundraising calls, the money isn't really for the hosting costs. If it is then they really don't know what they're doing and they should probably hit me up. Usually it's because they want to earn a full time salary off the website, or they have others who are earning a salary off the website as as such the "expenses" are high.

By the way, all this nonsense about google cutting CPC rates on liberty/anti-state websites and/or rankings is pure hogwash. That is not how it works. Usually if a website with this kind of traffic can't be monetized it's the fault of the website owner. I can't tell you how many times I've bought websites that make nothing and implemented a few small ad changes resulting in those same websites earning thousands/month. Maybe they should seek some help/advice in regards to that. The fact is that if their ad space is worth anything, then they'll get paid well for it. If Lew really believes that google is screwing him over then he should sell advertising directly to media buyers. There are plenty of them out there who will scoop up every single impression you have if its profitable on their end.

Just a random guess as I obviously haven't seen any of his metrics or demographics, but it's a strong possibility that he's seeing a lot of revenue lost due to the decline in desktop web browsing and the move into mobile. The monetization/advertising game does change quite a bit in the mobile space.

I'm not the biggest fan of the LRC these days, but I do hope they remain online. So I wish them luck in their fundraising.

 

[TNforPaul45]

Not much different than many on this forum, of late.

Spot on. And until they eliminate the severe strain of racism and sexism that is peppered throughout many of the LRC's posts (not necessarily Mises.org), then I will not be supporting them at all.

 

[Mad Raven]

For these types of sites, nothing. They're serving mostly static content utilizing some sort of content management system to do so. It's not like it's a custom job with a lot of heavy processes, I/O, or even many database reads/writes.

I've been a professional web developer/programmer and internet marketer for 15 years, and now I'm an executive at a cloud hosting company, so I do have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Now I don't know if the fundraising call is for just the website or other associated organizational costs. I couldn't really tell from the posted article. Typically with these types of fundraising calls, the money isn't really for the hosting costs. If it is then they really don't know what they're doing and they should probably hit me up. Usually it's because they want to earn a full time salary off the website, or they have others who are earning a salary off the website as as such the "expenses" are high.

By the way, all this nonsense about google cutting CPC rates on liberty/anti-state websites and/or rankings is pure hogwash. That is not how it works. Usually if a website with this kind of traffic can't be monetized it's the fault of the website owner. I can't tell you how many times I've bought websites that make nothing and implemented a few small ad changes resulting in those same websites earning thousands/month. Maybe they should seek some help/advice in regards to that. The fact is that if their ad space is worth anything, then they'll get paid well for it. If Lew really believes that google is screwing him over then he should sell advertising directly to media buyers. There are plenty of them out there who will scoop up every single impression you have if its profitable on their end.

Just a random guess as I obviously haven't seen any of his metrics or demographics, but it's a strong possibility that he's seeing a lot of revenue lost due to the decline in desktop web browsing and the move into mobile. The monetization/advertising game does change quite a bit in the mobile space.

I'm not the biggest fan of the LRC these days, but I do hope they remain online. So I wish them luck in their fundraising.

Thanks for the reply!

What about the DP? What was so expensive about that site that even with the tons of Amazon book ads, affiliate banners and clickbait banners, Michael had to do fundraisers to keep it going?

 

[angelatc]

The man does it all for free,.

I did not know that. How does he make a living?

 

[juleswin]

I did not know that. How does he make a living?

The free part was referring to the all the positive coverage he has been giving Trump. The post I was replying to was asking why doesn't Lew go hit Trump up for some money for all the positive press he has been getting from LRW website.

Lew Rockwell and Molyneux alone have given Trump at least $3 million in free advertisement in the last few months.

 

[A Son of Liberty]

My take - and I haven't spent much time at LRC lately - is that his advocacy of Trump is more of the iconoclastic bent than actually supporting him... I've taken it that what Lew likes about Trump is mostly that he's up-ended the Republican establishment. More than willing to grok that's not an accurate interpretation, however. I have no allegiance to Lew... or anyone, for that matter.