ma91pmh

Not going to get into the agree/disagree debate but again point out you are only doing this for self-protectionism. No need to dress up with all this "learn the craft" BS.

Marathon Man

then you are disagreeing.

look, of course I am trying to protect myself and the 'craft' or 'business' or 'hobby' I do. Wouldn't you?

the fact is, the more this stuff gets out--and it already is out a lot but that shouldn't make it ok to keep outing it--the worse things get. Cant understand why people aint seeing that. And if they are seeing it, why they allow it.

Can you imagine what would happen--what WILL happen--on the day that either all major store chains MSers use that take GCs as debit stop taking GCs as debit? We had a little taste of that with the OV glitches at Wmt.

or howsabout when some gov't change happens to negate the PIN rule on GCs?

And when that happens, will these outers finally be happy? Or will they actually have the gall to assume that something better will come along?

If we all pick up a bucket and bail some of the water out of the boat, maybe we have a chance of lasting out here. If we do not, well, then, there you have it.

ma91pmh

MM - this day is already coming. No amount of protectionism is going to change that. Talking about it less or more is not going to change that.

The do MP and I had up in NY really hit it home for me.... over 100 people showed up, all talking smack about how they do $40-50k a month. Simply not sustainable.

This gig is already dead, it's just a question of when the lights go out

Marathon Man

probably right mate.

but like some patient with only a few months to live, can we not at least let this one last a bit longer while family gets things in order? or should we euthanize him now because that is how the state thinks?

come on man... why cant we do everything we can to prolong the life of this stuff?

Why outwardly kill it? What good will that do?

ma91pmh

I think you are over-estimating the ongoing damage. Like MP's original post - IMHO ZERO impact on the longevity of gift cards.

The one thing I think could impact longevity would be an article in the WSJ or NYT or other similar high profile. That may cause whatever activities are currently afoot to end this to accelerate. Let us not kid ourselves that these activities are not already occurring.

But yeah I know it's repetitive but it has never been clearer to me that what we have here is a classic "dead man walking" and it's just a question of when and not if. When literally any idiot with a double digit IQ can easily MS $50k a month it's game over.

Marathon Man

Alllll the posts on blogs and wsj and all the hype added together is killing it. Yes.

What I am proposing is that we lessen the ALL to SOME and over time if not too late, we lessen that to NONE.

It may not happen but Ill die tryin. I am really surprised however to see that you appear to have given up. You are acting like that WWI soldier who is wandering around outside the trenches as shells and shots are being fired as his mates are screaming for him to take cover.

This I have seen before in MS believe it or not. It usually means the person either:

Has been booted from too many programs for his own liking
-Thinks many aspects of MS are a huge PITA
-Thinks of many aspects or personnel as beneith him
-Cant MS to the degree he sees others around him doing for some reason and therefore secretly loathes much of the game.
-Doesnt have the credit lines or time or ability to balance one or the other or both in order to fully MS

Why be a defeatist? Get out there and ms hard whilst you can, that is, if it is gonna die.

But still do it with hopes and mannerisms that it might live if we take care

sbm12

So, is the open discussion of 1.75% Amazon CC fees by HMT also outing a "secret" MS method? Or is that one OK?

stackm

Hmm... one would think that there is a much higher chance of newbies getting burned by this strategy than by sending $1000/mo using AP.

So why no hysterical demands for removal of that post?

MileageUpdate

Is that a deal? I didnt know we started scraping the bottom of the barrel for deals just yet.

ma91pmh

LOL!

And we are going to see lots of people get hurt doing this "deal" too

Bring me the popcorn

Marathon Man

Well if people want guys like me to play triage doctor and try to save as many deals as I can, maybe it would be helpful if those same people stepped up and helped quell these outings too instead of spouting off in here!

I can tell you from experience that the amazon reader thing is probably not a smart thing to use in volume. Youll likely get a 1099 and also they could shut you down and call it suspected fraud and then hold your funds for weeks or months.

I hope Im wrong but you were warned here first.

See, the antagonists dont see it. They are stupid and illogical in their plight to make the quest of prolonging MS as impossible as ever.

But heres some humor even they may enjoy:

http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7lUs/fiber-on...g-by-scorpions

When I see this guy in this commercial I think of a certain blogger. This is how I think it may have happened. He was in CVS with a fat stack of gift cards in his hands studying the rack when his future woman smiles at him as she looks for one gift card for a beauty salon as they meet and start to talk she realizes he must be rich because he has thousands of dollars of gift cards in his cards so he must give them as gifts and she is intrigued. To get attention that he craves he tells her the MS game and she can see dollar signs and they blog together and out all the deals to earn bucks.

stackm

Didn't Streisand's attorneys argue the same thing? It rarely works that way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

The recent posts and AP and Mall would likely be forgotten in hours, but they are still getting attention now because of the censorship attempts.

I probably ignore 95% of what I see in the blog world. But if I see multiple posts in a comment section demanding "Delete this!" I'll certainly give it more attention.

I agree that many of these ideas will last longer without attention. But trying to police the content and bloggers may actually be having the opposite effect.

Marathon Man

You are absolutely correct.

So all we can do is try to teach by example so next time people can learn to police themselves.

Dunno if it will be effective, but like I keep saying, here I am bailing water out of the boat with my bucket... Is anyone else willing to help me?

stackm

Example: The censoring of the "MS Secret" is still being discussed, only now on the much more widely read VFTW (see comments):

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea....rd-redemption/

farwest101

Perhaps in the SHORT TERM a specific deal may be more widely exposed, but when we continue to shame and shun the selfish greedy pimps pushing CC affiliate links, there will be less of it in the future.

There has been visible success since many have begun to criticize and expose the greedy scumbags outing deals. We now see many of the pimps agreeing to stop outing deals.

And we know see more people being educated on what many of these pimps really are - credit card marketing businesses masquerading as "travel blogs" with so-called experts pushing inferior signup links.

Most people surely have little idea that the credit card pimps get as much as $100-$300 per signup ("conversion"). And when the community understands how much money is at stake, they can judge for themselves how believable the pimps self serving arguments are when it comes to exposing deals.

Of course, many pimps will continue to be greedy selfish scumbags and we need to castigate them for their scummy behavior. Some will see the error of their ways - others won't give a damn if that means it stops/slows the gravy train of easy $$$ from pimping themselves and their readers for a CC affiliate income - otherwise they'd have to get a real job instead of pretending to be so-called "experts".