Overall, I have been pleased with the terms, technology and service of one of my two main advertisers on this site, Text-Link-Ads. It’s not perfect, and it may have potentially cost me and many other independent media outlets ranking and traffic, thanks to Google’s privately-controlled data-definition algorithms, but it has still been worth it.

Recently, on an unrelated (I hope) note, I had my PayPal account frozen. I was getting deposits from TLA every month into PayPal, along with the odd donations here and there from generous readers of this site. After getting that whole thing sorted out, I have since removed all PayPal code from my site and not used its services as a money collection/transfer service - frankly because I don’t trust them. They have the ability to freeze my associated assets randomly and not tell me why and then ask me to provide documentation of something I’m not? Baloney. Not a consumer financial management service I have much reason to continue using.

Logging in today though, I have noticed that TLA has added another payment option as an alternative to PayPal. It’s one of those prepaid debit card things: you know, all part of that same initiative that VISA and the rest of them are working on to totally eliminate cash transactions in our society. I love those commercials where the world of commerce is whirring along in perfect symmetrical harmony until some old-fashioned stupid bozo comes in and tries to pay in cash, and everything comes to a screeching halt. But then a magic check card comes along and sets everything right. Classic drama used by the upper castes since time immemorial to motivate certain categories of subservient behavior. I love it!

Not sure I feel that getting ad revenue payouts into a highly-restrictive plastic form is necessarily a smart idea though. I’ve talked at length on and off my site about how you never quite get your money’s worth out of those cards: they always find some crazy restrictions to apply to where and how you can use it and then you’re not able to draw the scrapings left over at the tail ends of cards: fractional amounts of money which eventually just fall off into the digital ether or who knows where. Actually, I know where they go: they just go back to the companies as part of their planned profits. They know how people operate. They study these things.

In any event, I’ve reverted my monthly ad revenue payments through TLA into check form - at least until I can figure out some zany way to get people to hand me cash for saying amazing things on (and off) my website. That, I guess, will be the day. In the meantime…