Weak Dollar Killing Euro WMs?
 

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|

Re: Weak Dollar Killing Euro WMs?
 

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.:D

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 |shake|

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.

Hi cfnmparty, |waves|

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

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.

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|violin|

It's a real pain.

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

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.

Re: Weak Dollar Killing Euro WMs?
 

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Beleive me, canadians are feeling it too!

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|

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.

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.

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|violin|

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. :)

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 :)

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...

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

Great Advice Swedguy and Andre!!


Also, if you are looking to switch to a sponsor that pays in Euros... it isn't going to make you more money if that sponsor bills people and calculates your payments in US dollars before converting that figure to Euros.

(and I "think" sexmoney does it this way... Forest?)

a dollar accound is great.not in the netherlands at my bank, freaken greedy nutheads ( my bank) the cost are hugeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee............i think i start my own bank that would be better|violin| i am still in shock when i found out the cost they charged for a 500 bucks cheque, 25 euro for the cheque and 25% of the amound of the cheque dealing with it, well you think for yourself how i reacted at that bank|violin|

China and Japan own about 40% of the current US debt with a large portion controlled by their central banks. Indian owns more and more of our data infrastructure. Japan makes many of the needed parts in guidance systems so we can't fight a war without them any more.

If we're not careful it won't take a bunch of countries to destroy our economy. Of course our politicians say they won't because we're helping build thier economies but as the Euro grows stronger then automataclly Europe becomes a better trade partner. Today we consider these countries friends but yesterday was different and tomorrow may be different again.

I think the EU may need to drop the value of the Euro a bit in order to increase thier exports but that's going to take a lot of effort. The world just doesn't have confidence in our current economic plans.

Get one in another bank/country. You can cut both your exchange costs and the cost for cashing checks.

yep alot of people and companies in europe thinks the same only the eu top itselfs thinks not, they said themselfs....the strong euro stops the grow of the european economy....some countries think even that getting their old valuta back is better....for real i think the same, because all went bad the time we have got the euro

As an Canadian webmaster, I can say without a doubt that getting a 40% cut in net income (canadian dollars) blows chunks. While my expenses (like servers, content, domains) is all calculated in US dollars, my other expenses (like computers, electricity, housing, food, and everything else in life) is done in Canadian dollars. It has certainly changed my approach on some things.

I have been actively looking for sponsors that pay in Euros, and that handle european traffic better. The US porn market isn't as strong as it was a few yers ago, and the change in the exchange rate has made it significantly LESS profitable.

The US is working to pump up it's own economy by making it harder for imports to be competitive. This leads to more factor jobs in the US, which makes Bush look good. In the end, it just means that all the things american love (like electronics, clothes, and whatnot) are more expensive, and there are more minimum wage jobs out there in manufacturing stuff that would have been done in china otherwise.

I don't expect to see the dollar recover much for the next 6 - 12 months.

Anyone got some good Euro payout programs to recommend?

Alex

Does the number 1.50 mean anything to you? Probably be there by the end 2006. The dollar can't make a come back until the US has an economic plan that creates US jobs and lowers typical expenses. That may not be on the agenda of this administration.

Sir Moby, you are correct. The current administration is using the same techniques that Ronald Reagan used, the old "voodoo economics" (they call it trickle down). The theory is you cut taxes for the rich, and they hire more people and spend more money, which drives the economy.

Sadly, most rich people spend the same regardless, so a change in their taxes only serves to raise the US debt, lower the value of the US bonds, and as a result, lower the value of the US dollar.

it is doubly worse this time because the decreases in tax revenue has been matched with totally insane increases in spending (certainly due to 9/11, followed by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) that have left the US reeling. Normally the trick for the republican president is to ignore this for his entire term, lumping the "pay the tab" part onto the next democratic leader, who will then be labeled a "tax and spend" liberal - no realizing that the expenses were generated by the conservative republican that came before him.

There is very little indication that the US will do anything in the next couple of years to help the situation, except perhaps to push the interest rates up slightly to stop the dollar from falling much past the 1.4 or 1.5 euro level. That will still be a VERY painful level for most businesses, and will certainly have effects for all webmasters outside of the US getting paid in US dollars.

We really do need a good list of Euro payment sponsors!

Alex

Yes Opti!

we do pay in euros and calculate in euros to dollars

|waves|