Why The No Advertising Policy- Suggestions Welcome

[Guest guest]

HI EveryOne,

Some folks have written to me about the recent No Advertising Policy and I

thought it best to share with you why I started that policy and welcome any

suggestions to improve upon it.

Thank you very much for writing to me about this...I sincerely appreciate it

I too want people to be able to freely share information and resources,

that is one of the main functions of the Original Kombucha list.

Here's the thing though,....for all these years some folks with commercial

Kombucha businesses would post to the list primarily to add their links to

their sites and get people to their sites and also to advertise in their

signatures, this increased their business considerably,.....there were also

some other commercial Kombucha businesses who never even bothered to post to

the list at all.....they just stuck their links and ads in the Files or

Links section of the list where I would discover them when looking for

something else. Needless to say this became increasingly frustrating to me!

I have put In _several hours, every day, for years_, working both to answer

questions on the list and privately and behind the scenes to maintain the

Original Kombucha list as well as to host and maintain the Kombucha Center

and FAQ. I am very glad to do this service but when those who are in direct

competition with my Kombucha Manna Drops business post every so often just

to get people to their sites over and over again, it does take away from my

business. I sell only Kombucha Manna Drops and Manna Green and White Tea

Extract. The other commercial Kombucha businesses have put in most of their

time and energy over the years to create and enhance their businesses,

websites etc. while I have put my time and energy, daily, into building up

the Original Kombucha list from 600 people to over 3,000 people. I have been

a member of the Original Kombucha list since it's inception in 1995 and I

have participated either as a Moderator or owner for a many years. All of

that is done gladly for free. The former list owners were both collecting

disability so they did not also have to earn a living, but I also have to

earn a living! I have chosen to serve the Kombucha Community and hoped that

would in the end serve everybody, but increasingly, I find that is not

working out.

For over three years, I gave everyone, including all the commercial Kombucha

businesses free advertising on the Original Kombucha list and listings on

the Kombucha Center and FAQ at the same time that I was paying to host it on

trib.com and maintain it. When trib.com closed their web hosting I moved the

entire Kombucha Center and FAQ to bestweb.net, my IP. Needless to say all of

this took a great deal of my time and energy. In recent months, I offered to

provide listings on the Kombucha Center Sources page for a very minimal fee,

instead of for free, and none of the commercial Kombucha businesses that had

the free listings for years, decided to purchase a listing. No support

whatsoever,

When they did not offer even their minimal support after all the years of

free listings on both the Kombucha Center Sources page and the Original

Kombucha list, I decided to stop giving them free advertising any more. I

noticed that Dom on the Kefir site has the same policy: that no one but the

list owner can advertise on the list and that is where I got the idea to do

the same. You can see it right in his list description on the Kefir list on

. It had been bothering me for quite awhile that others were

taking advantage of my labor and time, but not willing to support it, even

in small measure.

I agree with you, I am not happy with the way this is working on the OK list

either but I am not sure how to resolve it. I cannot go on doing all the

work and having my competitors take advantage and take business away from me

at the same time. If I had lots of money, I wouldn't care, but I don't, and

that has been hurting my business. If I can't earn some money from either my

business, or donations, I will not be able to continue to keep the Original

Kombucha list and Kombucha Center and FAQ going.

Please give consideration to this and if you see a way that would work

better for everyone concerned please let me know. I am here to serve, but

not to be taken advantage of, and I do need to eat as well as drink

Kombucha:-))

Peace, Love and Harmony,

Bev