1. The Crux Of The Problem
I realize that only one day has gone by since I last posted an article about my HubPages channel. My seven years on the HubPages writing platform have been some of the best times of my life, so I'm not here to bash or even badmouth HubPages. However, like my colleagues there, a major concern has come to my attention about the HubPages writing platform that has fallen short of my approval.
HubPages has decided to do away with all of its network sites. If you don't know what I'm referring to, here is a list of them: Fat Ring, PetHelpful, Bellatory, Felt Magnet, Delishably, AxleAddict, dengarden, Exemplore, LevelSkip, Reel Rundown, ToughNickel, WanderWisdom, Spinditty, WeHaveKids, YouMeMindBody, Calorie Bee, Paired Life, LetterPile, TurboFuture, Holidappy, How They Play, Owlcation, HobbyLark, Soapboxie, Sky Above Us, Remedy Grove, Patient's Lounge, Health Pro Advice, and The Crime Wire.
At this point, HubPages is currently only accepting submissions for the following network sites: HobbyLark, WeHaveKids, WanderWisdom, Owlcation, LetterPile, and Delishably. However, they plan to discontinue those network sites as well eventually.
You may have noticed that in my article titled "HubPages Gives Lame Excuses For Not Upgrading Articles To Niche Sites," I complain that this one article titled "MAPs: Twitter's Problem With Paedophiles" had been upgraded from the main DiscoverHubPages site to the SoapBoxie network site despite that it wasn't as of good quality as a number of articles that I had submitted to the SoapBoxie network site were and were rejected. Well, in case you're wondering why this one article is no longer on the SoapBoxie network site, it's because that same network site no longer exists.
The editorial board of HubPages has informed me and my colleagues there that all of the articles on those network sites will be moved over automatically to the DiscoverHubPages site where miscellaneous articles are mainly published. All sorts of concerns are surfacing left and right from members of the HubPages writing platform.
The Powers That Be of the HubPages writing platform actually believe that eliminating all of the network sites to their platform altogether is going to improve the number of views that Hubbers like me are going to receive for our articles. Well, fact has it that it's not playing out that way.
Writers like me on the HubPages writing platform are noticing that our view numbers have been plummeting since then and that our commissions are shrinking. One of my fellow Hubbers told me that revenue-sharing writing platforms have a pattern of rewarding their writers with obscene amounts of money in the beginning of their existence and then fizzling out in the long run.
2. The Upside And Downside Of No Network Sites
I admit that probably The Powers That Be of the HubPages writing platform may have considered the fact that eliminating the network sites would make it so that there would be no big shots on that writing platform. The problem is that even though I didn't have as many articles published on the network sites as I would have liked, I still had enough of them to notice how much more money I was earning back then as opposed to now.
On one of the discussion threads, I was chatting with this one woman who was earning over a $1,000 a month publishing articles about pets on the PetHelpful network site. One of our other colleagues expressed concern to her on how she was going to deal with the transition of her articles from PetHelpful to the DiscoverHubPages site. She didn't really have a direct answer, but she replied that she was going to tough it out the best way she could.
It greatly worries me whether anyone will be able to earn a four-figure-a-month income on the HubPages writing platform after this same change is completed. There are several techniques I am going to experiment with to see if they drive views to my HubPages channel in large numbers. I'm still aiming for the 300-article goal that I mentioned in my previous article titled "I Now Have Over 100 Followers On My HubPages Channel" here on my PEAKD channel.
3. A Personal Issue For Me
Two years ago I submitted an article to the HubPages editorial board to be upgraded from the DiscoverHubPages site to the TurboFuture network site. The editorial board replied and told me that they would edit my article and then upgrade it to TurboFuture.
After not hearing from them for so long, I communicated with them to find out what happened with that same upgrade they were going to do. Every time I contacted them with that question, they would respond to me that they were working on it. However, they never made good on their promise, and now the upgrade I was promised is no longer available to me.
I know that it's their platform and that they're free to do whatever they please. However, this is not the way for any writing platform to do business.
When I first became interested in publishing articles on a revenue-sharing platform, I joined the Infobarrel writing platform. I had watched all the videos on YouTube about how it was such a goldmine of opportunities for anyone who wanted to make money off their articles. Eventually, that platform went belly up, and all of the articles that people had published on it disappeared with it.
Fortunately, the only thing that I had published on the Infobarrel writing platform was a comment I had made to someone's article in their comments section. I never published any articles on that writing platform. Therefore, I didn't lose any intellectual property of value on it.
For a while afterwards, whenever you typed www.infobarrel.com into the address field of your computer screen, some kind of environmentalist website would pop up. Now there is nothing at that same web address, and you only get a message on your computer screen that that site cannot be found. Rumor has it that that writing platform was not paying its writers toward its last days of existence.
4. Final Thoughts
Nothing lasts forever, especially on the Internet. The only two things that are a sure thing in life are taxes and death.
HubPages has been good to me for the most part. Now that concerns are everywhere among me and my colleagues who publish articles on that writing platform, I figure that the only thing I can really do is back up all of my articles in case this platform one day disappears altogether as Infobarrel did.
I will continue to write articles and publish them on that platform. Who knows? Perhaps something big will happen there as a result of their decision to homogenize it into one platform with no network sites, and I will be among the lucky few who reap the benefits of it. Like everything on the Internet, I guess I simply have to roll with the punches and be patient about what may come.
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