As part of my making money online venture I signed up for eHow last year to write some articles and earn some residual and passive income. Although I have not broke the bank with eHow, I have earned some cash here and there. But I find that every time I really want to buckle down and concentrate my efforts into writing quality articles to add to my eHow library, some bug, or glitch, or SCAM seems to be going down at eHow. Don't get me wrong, eHow can be a very lucrative place if you put your mind to it, but in lieu of recent events I've become a bit disenchanted with them and am not sure when I should begin contributing again.
Enter eHow UK. About six months ago, eHow set up a 'sister site' in the eHow UK. What they didn't disclose was that they took all of our articles and profiles from eHow USA and completely cloned them on this site. So what, most people are saying. Well they also didn't disclose that all of our clones articles had ads and they played with the SEO so that they would begin ranking higher than our US and the original copies of the articles. So that people who may have been searching for our articles got directed to the UK articles of which we were NOT being paid for. YUP, eHow had set up a site to directly compete with our original articles that were bringing them in money for months, of which none of the profits were shared with their writers or 'users', as we are deemed at eHow.
Well on the eHow forums...some observant and savvy writers took notice of what was going on and began asking questions about the UK site especially after they noticed their income was steadily dropping. And how were they answered? They weren't. They had their posts promptly deleted. But that did not stop them. They made new posts, asked more questions. The main one being are we being paid for the UK articles or not. This is a yes or no question. Management began responding with vague answers like we have a secret algorithm for earning income here. Well duh...we know that..but are our UK article earning configured into this secret algorithm? After months of dodging the questions and having the fire put up their collective asses from concerned writers they finally admit that no we were not being paid for our UK article clones.
In the midst of all of this there were other eHow writers insisting that the UK was not affecting their earnings and telling the concerned writers that eHow had a right to do whatever they wanted with our articles and if they didn't like it they could leave. Very juvenile I know as that is NOT how you solve problems. And telling someone you like getting ripped off or leave is extremely insulting. I mean these people became really nasty calling these people names and being very rude. Insinuating that it is there negative attitude that is causing their profits to plummet and not the very real UK scam that was going on. Making these people feel like they were crazy for thinking the great and illustrious eHow would screw them. Many insisted that eHow was not at fault and did nothing wrong. I've noticed one frequent poster on the issue even managed to make every post about her...and still does. The pro eHow posters pretty much got to say what they wanted while those upset with eHow for this debacle and asking pointed questions had post after post deleted. More dodging.
After learning that we were not being compensated for our UK articles, posters then began to ask if and when we would be compensated for the use of our articles on the UK site. That became another ugly discussion with the back and forth and the deleted posts. Anybody who even mentioned a lawsuit or facts about the UK site, like how the server is located in the US, had their posts deleted. Anyhow, after much bruhaha, eHow just released a video indicating that yes, the UK site did affect earnings and yes, they will be compensating us for our UK articles.
Being honest I'll have to say that I don't believe that for one minute eHow would have said anything, or fixed anything had they not been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. It would have been business as usual. And I have a super hard time believing that they didn't know what they were doing to begin with. With that said, I am glad that they did come clean and are taking steps to rectify the situation. But I wonder if all of those folks who insisted that they were not affected by it and were so rude and mean to the posters who were will turn down the extra compensation?
As it is now, there are posters on the board basically telling others how they should feel about it now that eHow is trying finally fix the problem. They have labeled the posters who have decided to proceed with eHow with caution unhappy and bitter. Like they should be jumping for joy that eHow finally decided to do the right thing. Making judgements about people because they have a sour taste in their mouth about this whole thing. The fact is, people have a right to feel and react to the situation the way they want to, and should not be labeled this or that because someone else chooses to have a different opinion.
I personally am thankful and grateful for those 'disgruntled' writers who brought this issue to the forefront. If not for them, I think we would still be getting ripped off. And if not for their dedication to this issue, it would never have gotten resolved, and we would never be seeing compensation. But instead of gratitude they still seem to be getting more grief! I for one am thankful and implore the others to give a rest already. Every one is entitled to their own feelings, thought, and opinions, and nothing makes anyone any more right, wrong, happy or unhappy.
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