Another Month, Another Outage

Not Good
Excess Monthly Bandwidth

As you may have noticed, we had another outage here at Thrasher's Wheat due to excessive monthly bandwidth consumption.

This is an ongoing problem. For most -- this is a good problem to have an increasing audience and page views. For us -- sadly -- it's not a good thing, at least financially speaking.

You see, every time demand surges with tours, albums, archives, tributes, etc. we have to go to our ISP host and move up to the next service level package, i.e. greater expenses. And costs continue to rise, just as Neil Young's star shines.

Again, this would all be well and good except that we fund this based on several sources. Primarily -- as many of you may know -- out of our own pocket. This is something we find to be really fun and meaningful and rewarding. We love what we do here in our very, very spare time as we ride into town on the train each morning or back again at night.

The second source of funding is our readers. First we tried the Amazon.com route which generates relatively small returns which continue to dwindle. You see, folks just don't buy CDs, books, DVDs, etc. like they used to. Physical media sales are falling off a cliff. And those commission that we do get from Amazon are quite nominal. Think about 2% on a $13 CD. That's about $0.26. We'd need to sell about 100,000 units on this site to make a go of things. ha!

And we've tried selling ads as well. First of all, most of the "ads" over there on the right do not generate revenue. The banner ad across the top generates about $1 for every 10,000 impressions. Again, we would need a lot of traffic to generate anything substantial.

And we tried fund raising with PayPal. This is the preferred method but also the least successful. It seems it's very hard to get folks to drop $5 a year on Thrasher's Wheat -- even if they visit the site daily. It seems so many want everything for free these days. We realize there's a global recession and all but we do think that $5 a year isn't too much to ask.

Believe us we when begin to say how distasteful this whole process is. We hate to whine or beg.

First, we want to say how much we appreciate all of the support we do receive. Your comments and letters are greatly appreciated and keep us going. So if you're writing comments, sending videos and photos, buying off Amazon, making PayPal donations, clicking ads, re-tweeting or sharing on Facebook your help is deeply appreciated.

It is this sharing that really makes what we do here so rewarding and satisfying to be part of our little global Neil village.

With record traffic levels which stressed the Thrasher's Wheat Platform leading to increasing bandwidth fees we either take TW to another server level or we'll continue to have these outages.

For loyal, regular supporters of TW, this post is not directed at you whatsoever. For those of you who come here frequently but do not comment, contribute or offer other support, please continue to read.

By going the reader-supported route, there are two ways in which you can support Thrasher's Wheat.

The first option is to make a donation using PayPal. Just click on the link below to make a donation. If you do not have a PayPal account, you can use a credit card to make a donation via the button below (see lower left of PayPal screen).

The second option is to shop for your CDs, DVDs, books and other merchandise using the Amazon link below. Each time you purchase an item on Amazon by clicking through the logo link below, Thrasher's Wheat will receive a small commission.


United States - Amazon.com

Canada - Amazon.ca

United Kingdom - Amazon.uk

Germany - Amazon.de



(Please note: International Amazon orders (non-U.S.A., non-Canada, non-U.K., non-Germany) do not credit to Thrasher's Wheat unfortunately. Other international readers are asked to please use PayPal account or credit card to support Thrasher's Wheat.)

You have proven that Thrasher's Wheat matters to you, and that you support our mission: to bring free Neil Young knowledge to the planet, free of charge and as free as possible of advertising. You've helped make and keep Thrasher's Wheat available for the whole world. If you find this site helpful as a reference or news source, please help us continue to help all Neil Young fans. Hopefully, this will continue to work to help defray the costs of running Thrasher's Wheat. Any excess funds generated above and beyond operating expenses will be donated to The Bridge School.



Please don't give out of guilt; just give if you place value on what we do and are in a position to donate a little.

We'll also be giving away a Bridge t-shirt to a random TW supporter.

So Why Bother To Support Neil Young News on TW?

Our goal is simple: we create the best Neil Young blog we possibly can, refrain from contaminating it with nasty, giant corporate advertising, and then ask you to donate to us what you think it's worth. So far it seems to be working out sort of. We're not likely to break even on bandwidth and storage expenses (much less donated labor) this way, but that's not our goal.

Here at TW we're not just non-commercial. We're anti-commercial. We feel that quality blogs and advertising just cannot co-exist. We also choose to refrain from forcibly extracting money from you by charging subscription fees. We leave it up to you to decide what our service is worth to you.

Send support now via Visa or Mastercard — or use Paypal — or scroll down for other options.
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Your voluntary support enables us to devote all of our time and energy to making TW the best blog possible - and pays for the bandwidth, equipment and services required to keep the blog online.

The amount of your contribution is up to you - based on your opinion of how much you enjoy TW & what you can afford. A number of reader's have adopted the "one hour's wages per month" formula - some can afford to send even more than that (thanks!), others can afford only $5.

We particularly appreciate automatic monthly, quarterly or annual support payments. The more regular ongoing support we receive in that fashion the less we have to bug you on the blog. Please consider choosing that option of support.

We want to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed so generously over the past few years. We quite literally couldn't do it without you.

And, as always, we understand that contributing money is just not an option for some of you. That's fine. All posts, feeds and services at TW are open to everyone, and we will do everything in our power to keep it that way.

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Send support now via Visa or Mastercard — or use Paypal — or scroll down for other options.
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Safety & Security Concerns:

When sending & receiving your credit card information online we use the standard https protocol that all online commerce sites (Amazon, banks, brokerage houses, etc) use. We do not know -- much less store your credit card number. We have no way to access that data ourselves, even if we wanted to.

We do not ever, under any circumstances, share your email address or any other information about you with any third party - nor do we engage in any kind of email or direct-mail marketing. We will send occasional (2-3 times per year) email to readers, which you can opt out of by unsubscribing.

Other Ways to Help:

Use our TW Neil Young Amazon Shopping Store :

Neil Young Store on Amazon.com

When shopping for your CDs, DVDs, books and other merchandise (Neil & Non-Neil) use the Amazon link above (it's always in the lower right sidebar, too). Each time you purchase an item on Amazon by clicking through the logo link above, Thrasher's Wheat will receive a small commission.

(Please note: International orders (non-U.S.A., Canada, & UK) do not credit to Thrasher's Wheat unfortunately. Please use PayPal account or credit card to support Thrasher's Wheat.)

Spread the Neil Love:

Spreading the word about Thrasher's Wheat is also a huge help. If you have friends that you think might enjoy TW - please take a moment to drop them a note. Postings about TW on appropriate web forums are also a great way to spread the word.

As a matter of fact, we have folks using our new Thrasher's Wheat logo on their blogs!

Again, thanks everyone for their contributions. But mostly thanks for all the reviews, photos, links, videos, and comments. And your kind and supportive words, especially. We truly enjoy sharing the Neil love around the world. We've been doing this on & off for 16 years on Rust/HH/RH and 13 years on TW and we'd really like to continue -- readers willing.

So by helping us out, you'll also help out Neil. And maybe in some small way, it helps the LincVolt project. Because we all want to light a candle, make a difference, be the rain, and be the change.

Be the wheat.
Peace and love,

Thrasher & Thrashette

ps - Thanks to Bill & Rebecca at Radio Paradise for fund raising support tips.

"Keep on bloggin'
`Til the power goes out
The batteries dead
Twist and shout"

- "Fork In the Road"