My Slop Could Beat Your Slop

Photo by Fruggo

Let me tell you about someone on Quora, someone we’re going to call J. J had requested my answer to a question regarding YouTube videos. Here is the question verbatim: 

My YouTube channel talks about self development, I currently use stock videos from Vecteezy (I give attribution as instructed), motion graphics and Ai voice over narration to make videos. Will my channel get monetized?

I see questions like this all the time. They’re all worded slightly different, and they don't all involve using AI, but my brain hears it the same way every time:  I want to participate in the Boston Marathon, but I’m really, really slow. If I show up on a dirt bike, will I be allowed to race? 

We can probably have a very deep and thoughtful conversation about the future of AI and how it could potentially be used as a productive tool that aids people in their chosen endeavor. I don’t doubt that. We could probably also have a similar discussion about steroids, albeit the public attitude about those seems pretty clear. Remember when we stopped calling them steroids and simply referred to them by the blanket term Performance Enhancing Drugs? That wasn’t to broaden the definition to include other drugs so much as it was a way for those using said drugs to not sound like they were taking the easy way out. After all, it’s only ENHANCING their performance. They’re still working out and training, they just need that little extra edge because they’ve plateaued in their routine. Is that really so bad? 

Of course, doubtless at least one of you has raised a hand in objection and pointed out that content creation for social media platforms is not a competition like it is with athletics. To that I can only say, “Fair, but when monetization is involved and stated as a goal, you’ve made it into one.” We can’t all be Jimmy Donaldson any more than we can all touch the FIFA trophy. Even if we take monetization out of the equation, you’re trying to gain an audience, and that audience only has so much time in the day to consume content. As a wise man said, time is money. It’s even called the attention economy. 

Before I could answer J’s question, I needed a little context, just to see if I was possibly missing something fundamental. I asked why he couldn’t narrate the videos himself. Maybe there’s a good reason. I mean, I don’t like the sound of my voice, so who am I to judge? Maybe he doesn’t feel it would be a good fit for the subject matter. Maybe he’s got a really thick accent and is difficult to understand. 

J answered in two separate replies, the first being, 

“But with the ai voice over is it monetizable?”

J, I asked you why you couldn’t do the narration yourself so I could understand your circumstances that are leading you to ask about the AI voiceover. I asked as a comment on your question so I’d have more information upon which to base my answer. Repeating the question to me isn’t very helpful. The second was, 

“Usually my voice over produces unclear audio”

This doesn’t really answer the question, either. “Unclear” isn’t terribly specific. In hopes of coaxing a little more detail out of him, I offered the following advice, “That’s an easy fix. Even voice notes on an iPhone can produce clear audio. If your emphasis is on self-development, you need to demonstrate that you’re developed enough to share your message more directly rather than hiding behind a machine voice. It’s all about authenticity. Visuals are one thing, but audio is what can really make or break a video.” There was no response from J to this. What’s “unclear” remains unclear. 

Going back to the response about monetization, this was when I decided to check out J’s profile. There was only this one question on his profile, and he had given only one answer to another question. 

Here is that other question verbatim: 

If I use an AI generated image in my video and add voiceover to the video and upload it on my YouTube channel, will it get monetized?

Here is J’s answer to that question: 

“It is best if you go through YouTube's monetization policy.
From your question, your videos might fall under -LOW EFFORT”

So, for those playing at home, we’ve got one content creator that is using stock videos and wants to use an AI for narration, and another content creator that is using AI generated images and a potentially non-AI voiceover (that’s important). The daylight appears to be measurable in seconds, doesn’t it? Curious if J has actually gone through YouTube’s monetization policy to know that this particular combination of sound and vision is ineligible. 

When I brought this up to J, this was his response, 

“Yes but there was a significant difference in our content type
That person said they wanted to use still images+ai voiceover only in their videos
But my videos use videoclips, edits and motion graphics+ai voiceover
Our content type is totally different”

Actually, J, that person didn’t say their narration would be rendered by AI. They said they’d “add voiceover to the video” after mentioning using AI-generated images. You made an assumption and tried to insist that using stock assets was more effort-intensive than using AI-generated ones, which is a healthy enough discussion we could have. After all, you’re both using something you didn’t personally create. Someone else did the work and offered it willingly to be used for other people’s videos. The AI-generated assets are a product of data scraping the work of others, regardless of their choice in the matter, but those results are also tailored to a specific input prompt. We could split hairs over who’s putting more effort into the visual portion of their videos until doomsday, but it’s certainly fair to say they’re both low effort compared to people who produce their own visual content, from the humble vlog to the elaborate and collaborative animated story time video. 

I should point out that there are many content creators who integrate stock assets into their videos along with their own video and audio content. The important distinction to make here is that the stock footage is not being used as a crutch, much less a foundation. It is supplemental to the original portions of the content. The same goes for something like music from YouTube’s audio library or other stock music resources. These are parts of larger works and their contributions are ultimately secondary to what the content creator brings to the table. 

The problem with what you’re doing, J, is that you want the backup band to be more than backup. You’re trying to pile up enough supplemental material that there’s no longer any primary content from you beyond possibly the barest bones of a script and overall vision. Given that, this is why I point out there’s barely any daylight between what you’re trying to do and what you called out that other content creator for asking. 

The point I’ve been trying to make to you is that you need to put more of YOU in what YOU are producing for YOUTube. It’s all about authenticity. The reason you’ll hear so many people complain about AI Slop content is that it’s all so impersonal and lacking in heart. It’s designed to chase a trend and feed an ever-changing algorithm, not actually appeal to anyone. It’s junk food, and it’s not even good junk food. The flavor’s gone in an instant and if the calories were any emptier, they’d collapse in on themselves and form little black holes. If that’s the best you can bring to the table, then all you’re doing is getting yourself lost in the noise. Why should anyone give your work attention if you’re not going to give it your own attention and leave a machine to do nearly all of your heavy lifting. 

My advice to you is that if you can’t take that step to make your content more personal, then don’t make your content. If you can’t be yourself, why should anyone care about you? 

I Am The Alphabet And The Omega

Google has declared my site unfit for advertising. I imagine it's due to a low level of traffic. I'm far from an influencer, and if I had to guess, my WordPress blog probably gets more views than anything I've written here in the past year.

And that's fine. 

The upshot to all of this is it means there are no ads on my site, which is how it should be. Contrast this with YouTube, where a channel can be demonetized, but still have ads all over it. The channel in question simply does not get the money. Maybe that's how it should be, though. After all, what advertisers were most afraid of when it came to YouTube was their money going to content creators who they disagreed with or otherwise didn't want to be associated with. The platform still got the support it needed, and users were free to share what they wanted to (within reason). 

Of course, I'm sure Blogger takes a lot fewer resource to maintain than a data hog like YouTube, so Google didn't have much of a choice when it came to their "advertiser friendly" policies. It's what makes Elon Musk's recent middle finger to advertisers so frustrating. He's both right and wrong for more or less the same reason. Businesses have a right to decide who they will and won't do business with, just as consumers have a choice with where they spend their money. That's called the free market. However, just like George Carlin said about the American Dream, you have to be asleep to believe it. Right now, big businesses hold more power than they deserve and the average consumer is in no position to do anything to their bottom line and therefore effect change in an unfair market. 

When consumers boycott, it takes a town, so to speak. When businesses boycott, it's usually a handful of guys in suits sitting around a table, never mind the hundreds or thousands of employees who may feel otherwise. This is the fundamental flaw with voting with your wallet, something I used to advocate for quite vehemently. When people vote, it's one vote per person. When dollars vote... well, they can't actually vote. The people holding the dollars do. As Douglas Adams said, "On the whole, it was not the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." 

As for Blogger, I intend to stay; monetization wasn't the goal... not really, anyway. I've been comparing WordPress with Blogger for a few weeks now as the former keeps sending discount codes my way. Blogger technically offers a lot while asking for "nothing" (besides your data) in return. The only real paid feature on Blogger is registering a domain name. WordPress, meanwhile, offers a more streamlined user experience, but only if you play their paywall game. Automattic is not Alphabet; they can't afford to give WordPress away for free. They want money, not data. 

As of now, WordPress is my after show for Blogger. Anything I don't feel like posting here usually ends up over there. At most, WordPress is my back up if Google decides they don't like keeping Blogger around. It wouldn't be the first time I've had to migrate from a blogging service, and if the Muskrat's acquisition of Twitter has affirmed anything for me, it's that no platform is permanent. 

Two Great Techs That Tech Great Together (part one)

This was going to be a single entry, but it ran a bit longer than I meant it to, and the flow got lost along the way. That other half is an impression of the recently-released Microsoft Surface Duo. I bring this up because I want to make clear that I do in fact consider ink and paper to be technology. I'm even going to be that hoity-toity type and stake the claim ink and paper is the most important technological breakthrough in human history. Simply put, we found a way to make words easily-transferrable from person to person across time and space. If that's not a breakthrough, I don't know what is. 

I forgot my wallet today at breakfast. Fortunately, I was with my roommate and the place is practically down the street from us, so I was there and back again inside of 5 minutes. My French toast had just arrived and my coffee was still hot. When it came time to pay at the register, I noticed the tap symbol on their card reader and asked if they took Apple Pay. They did not. From what I understand, it's some kind of opt-in feature on card readers and most restaurants simply don't bother. By contrast, the place we used to go to for breakfast before the pandemic claimed they took Apple Pay, but it never worked. 

Over my life, I've had many different types of wallet. The one I probably had the longest was a chain wallet. They're sometimes called skater's wallets, but the first time I had ever seen one, it was labeled as a trucker's wallet. It was a good, sturdy little number whose only serious issue was its button closures as they would bite off the corners of the cards placed in it, including my driver's license. The chain was useful for keys when I was still working retail at the electronics counter. I even had a convenient little pen on a carabiner. Overall, it was secure, durable, and versatile to the point it almost made up for eating cards. 

The wallet I had immediately after that one was an old neoprene case for my MiniDisc player. It was a bit bulky, but at least if I had to put it in my back pocket, I could sit down without feeling like I was sitting on a brick. That's probably the best example of something being repurposed as a wallet this side of an Altoids tin. Some time later, I remembered a cigarette case my brother had given me and my fellow groomsman. I didn't smoke, neither did he, nor did most of his friends, but they're just about the size of a credit card, and the little straps or springy paddles used to hold the cigarettes in place was a decent way of keeping cash folded. I gathered a small assortment of those, but rather than a daily driver, they ended up being storage for rarely-used cards or business cards I'd gathered over the years. A Gerber knife served as a money clip for a few years before I got sick of the clip scratching up the cards. It was a bad situation; either you had the numbers of your cards partially visible, or you wound up erasing the signature off the back (along with those 3-4 little numbers you need to verify your purchases). 

Fortunately, when it's holstered, it doesn't look like a knife, meaning far less nervous looks when I reach for my wallet to pay for something upon hearing the total. 

I don't carry cash with me anymore. If I ever do have cash, it's because someone's given it to me. The last time I had cash, I ended up making some Girl Scouts very, very happy. I feel embarrassed asking if their parents have one of those card reader add-ons for their phones. I've been seeing those more often at fairs, conventions, swap meets, and the like, but I imagine it may create some liabilities for the Girl Scouts if parents are effectively becoming the middlemen in the transaction as opposed to the cashbox being the intermediary. 

Sidenote: I don't buy into the whole conspiranoid narrative about a cashless society. For all intents and purposes, we've been living in a cashless society since the 1960s when the Gold Standard was phased out by Nixon. Call me paranoid, but the only reason I can see for anyone to insist on cash in this day and age is not wanting a paper trail. Maybe I'm simply not enough of a thorn in the government's side to be worried about waking up an unperson with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. You say Doubleplusgood, I say Viddy Well. 

This is Holst. Everyone assumes he's named for a holster. He isn't, though that does tend to be a common nickname when we just don't know what to do with him sometimes. 

This is my current wallet. I bought it from the Rooster Teeth website a little over 2 years ago and it's been great. I only have 3 cards in it including my driver's license. I like how lightweight it is, even if it does occasionally mean leaving it in my other pants. 

Instagram has been a surprisingly big influence on nearly all of my major purchases of late.

Lately I've been seeing advertisements for something called the Sketch Wallet. It was a very successful crowdfunding campaign that's surprisingly still going strong this long after the campaign ended. The typical story with crowdfunded projects is once the initial production run of the bright, shiny object is sold out, the creators have scattered to the winds and moved on to other bright, shiny projects. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; clearly whatever niche needed to be filled has been left a happy customer. Those who were on the fence or wanted to wait and see missed the bus and simply have to wait for another one. Such is life. 

I doubt those lukewarm would-be customers would have to wait especially long, if at all, since there's nothing all that special about the idea of this wallet. It is essentially a travel journal. You could find its cousin in any office supply or stationary store as it's simply a small notebook with a leather (or fabric) cover that just so happens to have a slot or two for some cards and maybe cash. 5 minutes of searching could probably land you a half-dozen DIY patterns to breathe new life into that old purse or those the legs from your cut-offs if you were feeling adventurous. Speaking of adventure, try looking up "passport covers," though the real adventure may be trying to find a notebook that fits the standard 125x88mm size.   

What the guys behind Sketch Wallet have done to stand out from the crowd is appeal to artists. As I said, pocket (refillable) notebooks are nothing new. Similarly, pocket sketchbooks are nothing new, but applying the "it's also a wallet" label is admittedly a not-too-well-worn path to tread. That said, I'm going to try and read all of your minds and guess your impressions of this product thus far. 

"It's too big and bulky to be a wallet and too small and insubstantial to be a sketchbook." 

Was I right? 

Credit where credit is due, it is abundantly clear that the crew behind the Sketch Wallet knows their audience. They're not simply appealing to artists to stand out from similar products, but because they understand those products don't quite tick all the right boxes that artists may need in a small, refillable sketchbook. For starters, travel journals are typically for writing, an informal iteration of the classic reporter's notebook, or a less ephemeral take on Post-It notes. The Sketch Wallet, by contrast, offers their refills in a small variety of styles, including blank (obviously), dotted (the minimalist's graph paper), and tan-toned. 

There are currently three sizes of wallet. The smallest size has pages about the size of an index card folded in half, distinctly rectangular. The medium wallet (arguably the most popular given most of the available options are sold out) is almost square. This was the marketing blurb that convinced me without question these dudes were on the level: 

"great for Instagram"

Albeit pickings are slim on their happy medium, the refills are still readily available and even without the cover are a decent value. They come in packs of 3 with 60 pages (30 sheets) apiece for around 10USD. For comparison, the Moleskine Cahier style notebook also comes in packs of 3 for around the same price, though offering 80 pages (40 sheets), the major difference being not square and not offering any sort of toned paper option. We could entertain a healthy debate about which is the better value. However, just like the awful truth about your precious, precious cash is that the value is in the eye of the beholder. Indispensable to you is redundant to me is intriguing to her is useless to him. 

I've been a card-carrying member of the man-purse club since at least November of 2017 as I take my iPad with me everywhere. Along with the iPad is at least one Moleskine notebook (typically graph paper). This is completely, 100% normal for me. 

The patch does serve a distinctly practical purpose. It covers up an old employer's logo.

A term that often gets brought up with many new gadgets and life hacks and the like is "A solution looking for a problem." it's one we hear more and more, but it also seems to be losing some of its stigma. As our avenues for communication spread and grow, direct feedback and specialized manufacturing allows for a more tailored end user experience. While I have little to no use for a less-than-agreeably-sized sketchbook pulling double duty as a wallet for my shrinking library of embossed plastic and laminated paper, it's obvious there are people out there who have been waiting their whole lives for this little gizmo. 

Speaking of which:

Next time, Gadget... Next time.

Ad-Friendly, User-Enemy

Hopefully, I don't have to dump a bunch of links to get everyone up to speed on what's recently transpired on YouTube. I will, however, drop a quick summation of events so we're all on the same page. As we know, YouTube is supported through advertising revenue. Companies buy ad space in the form of banner ads, overlays, and pre-roll ads which give the option to be skipped if they're over a certain length. The revenue paid is based on something called CPM, or cost-per-thousand views (Roman numeral M). In the early days of this setup, only a select few users would be allowed in on this revenue. There was an application process, with judgment based primarily on the size of this potential partner's audience, the number of subscribers. Average views per video can count as well, but this is generally the exception. Over time, as YouTube grew, the partnership model was abandoned in favor of something more freeform; sharing in advertising revenue was an opt-in setting available to any user. Despite this freedom, the ad-revenue model came with a few provisos as to what content a channel can show. This has mostly to do with copyright, use of music, video clips, and gameplay footage, as well as product placement. Enforcement has generally been loose, with fair use doctrines keeping it that way as best they can. 
A few months ago, however, YouTube revised their terms of service to somehow be even more broad yet more restrictive. Now, copyrighted material was secondary to the overall nature of a channel's content. To that end, channels deemed "not advertiser friendly" would be stripped of their monetization. No one seemed to notice this change until about a week ago when YouTube personality Phil DeFranco posted about a dozen or so of his videos being demonetized virtually overnight, and with seemingly no appeals process. 

Naturally, this has led to people announcing the proverbial death of YouTube, which seems to crop up anytime anyone anywhere says "YouTube" and "money" within two full sentences of one another. It's a plethora of various concerned parties all talking past one another, but we'll try to compartmentalize the cacophony for clarity's cake.... sake. First and foremost, there's YouTube itself, a subdivision of Google that costs billions of dollars to maintain, yet offers little more than a hole in Google's pockets for their trouble. The act of hosting videos on servers made available to stream at will to anyone in the world consumes a massive chunk of change and as far as most viewers go, this costs them nothing out of pocket. Next, you've got the content creators, who seem to come in two distinct flavors and even bring two very different audiences with them. Here's the most concise way to put it: if I go to YouTube right now, without logging into my Google account, and browse the front page for trending videos, the ones that seem to get the most circulation, views, comments, and overall traffic, tend to come from content producers who frankly don't need the ad revenue, like CNN or ABC or some larger corporate entity who's using YouTube to supplement their other venues like TV, radio, and even print. If I log in, however, my browsing is a little more... inclusive. This is mostly due to interests in things like gaming, 3D printing, obscure movies, etc., generally the stuff which flies under the radar of the bigger guys. When looking at YouTube through these ruby-tinted goggles, it seems like a fantasy world, where John Q. Average-Guy can set up a webcam and have an audience of thousands upon thousands entirely by virtue of being himself. While I don't think this concept is a total fantasy, and I'll certainly never let it stop me from making it a reality, we have to face the current reality head-on. 

Film critic Bob Chipman said this of comic book geeks and I think it holds true for the overall dynamic of YouTube's audience. Die-hard fans of comics, games, and old toys get a lot of attention from Hollywood, as evidenced by their presence at conventions and similar events. However, beyond that, the sum total of these super-geeks do not represent even 1% of the average film-going audience. Michael Bay's Transformers is not made for people like me who grew up with the cartoon and never totally outgrew it. They're made for everybody. Now, why that seems to mean the franchise in question has to be watered-down, homogenized, or retooled from the ground up is another discussion entirely that we won't get into. The point is, however big these smaller channels like Armoured Skeptic, Boogie2988, Tested, and MrRepzion get, however many views their videos pile up, they do not have what it takes to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Team CoCo, Electronic Arts, BBC, or Viacom. Prove me wrong, please, but it's more night and day than David and Goliath between these two sides of the coin. It's at this point that content creators need to step up their game, assess their plan, weigh the pros and cons, brainstorm, and make some incredibly difficult, executive-level decisions about why they're doing what they're doing. None of these decisions are wrong, whether it's walking away or kicking in the afterburners, but choosing not to decide is not making a choice (sorry, Rush). 

If you're relying exclusively on advertising revenue from YouTube to support yourself, you are setting yourself up to fail, you will fail, and no one will ever feel the least bit sorry for you over it. I hate being the guy to say that; I never want to stand between someone and their honest living, let alone kick them when they're knocked down from it. The sad reality is this is the big leagues, where the pros play, the wild west, where angels fear to tread. When you make a public figure of yourself, even as an iconoclast/vigilante/anarchist/pundit/pirate/whistleblower, you become a brand, a service, and even a product. You adopt an identity, a character, even if it's only a distillation of yourself. That identity becomes your life, and it's up to you to control who lives it and when. 

What am I saying with all of this? What's my solution to this problem? It's simultaneously simple and complicated, so try and keep up. 

You need to give yourself as many options as possible and pass as many of those options on to your audience as possible. Can your videos only be seen on YouTube or do you also embed them on a Wordpress or Blogger page? Do you have a Patreon? Do you sell merchandise through Etsy, Redbubble, or eBay? Do you have a Paypal, Ko-Fi, or even Amazon wishlist set up? Basically, whatever it is you're doing, you have to do more of it, and you need to give your audience as many ways to show their support as possible. People aren't unreasonable, and while many are greedy, plenty are more than understanding enough that the entertainment they consume is the result of someone else's time and energy, which is only fair to compensate in some way. The web is a great big toolbox, and there's no reason to only use a hammer to build a house. 

Goodnight, and good luck. 

Crowded Potato Salad Bowl

Before I get a bunch more questions like "what about __?", my opinion is the same: socialism has no place in for-profit business and hobbies
— Buckley (@ADoseofBuckley) July 13, 2014

If crowdfunding was truly a socialist concept, people wouldn't get to choose which projects get funded. It would all be one, gigantic co-op with funds being evenly distributed to everyone involved regardless of a project's merits. 

Recently, a comedian I follow on YouTube named Adam Buckley made a video criticizing the recent "Potato Salad" Kickstarter campaign and its tens of thousands of dollars. For those of you who don't know, a man started a crowdfunding page asking for ten dollars to fund his first attempt at making potato salad. A cynic would say this was a joke, a sort of litmus test to see how low standards can get on the site. An optimist would say it's a social experiment in empathy. Either way, I don't think anyone would dispute that at least 90% of that money could be put to better use elsewhere, like helping a little girl get plastic surgery for her facials scars resulting from a pitbull attack. Of course, that brings us to the seedy underbelly of crowdfunding: scams. 

Like any other great tool, it can be misused. As a hammer can bash in a skull as easily it can drive a nail into wood, so can a crowdfunding campaign provide a smokescreen for a cut-and-run operation as easily as it can help an indie film get distributed to theaters. In between these lay the gray area of e-begging, projects that aren't scams by any real definition of the word, but aren't exactly a commercial venture or a pre-order system. For example, the potato salad guy isn't making this salad to hold some huge block party to feed the homeless (Kickstarter wouldn't allow that, anyway) or teach some at-risk youths to cook so they can become productive members of society. Sure, a party is listed as one of his stretch goals, but there's still nowhere for this project to go. Indeed, it makes me sad people would rather give their money to this than something else, but I completely disagree with Buckley that it's an example of socialism. 

Frankly, his writing off of crowdfunding as a socialist concept because the system can be abused is not merely throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It's drowning the baby in the bathwater and then suing the water company for damages, claiming they made a hazardous product... and it's not even his baby. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I identify as an Objectivist. If you don't know what that means, it is, in broadest terms, a liberal capitalist. We believe in certain conservative values such as the free market and smaller/limited government, but we also believe in more liberal causes such as civil liberties and secularism. It has nothing to do with socialism; practically a polar opposite. To wax philosophical on the distinction, I'm all for equality, but find it works better as a starting point than an end goal (Equal opportunity is not equal achievement). Furthermore, I have supported the Kickstarter campaign for Wayforward's upcoming Shantae game, and the brush/stylus I use for my digital paintings is the result of a Kickstarter campaign. 

Yes, a business should be left to succeed or fail based on its own merits, but in terms of covering startup costs, donations from supporters (with or without incentives) is no more or less valid a means of fundraising than an investment bank, a loan, or self-financing. People having as many options as possible to decide for themselves where their money goes, how much they can give, all the while having a full and informed understanding of what, if anything, they will receive in return for their contribution (in my case, a copy of the aforementioned game upon its release), is not an example of socialism. 

I have played Wayforward titles before and have been very impressed by their work. If they want to bypass normal funding means and appeal directly to their fans rather than unreliable marketing that's been proven to be ill-suited to the games market, then why is it wrong for me to support their effort in return for a copy of the game? How is it e-begging to offer a product or service for a fee simply because there's a little more trust required and less red tape to cut through? It's not putting the cart before the horse to let your paying, consuming audience decide via dollar votes whether or not a product or service is viable. It's practically the very definition of laissez-faire capitalism. Calling it socialism because it doesn't always work out or gets abused by greed isn't simply a conflation, it's shortsighted, reactionary, alarmist bullshit, and shaming people for supporting it in spite of its flaws isn't simply petty, it's hypocritical. I've lost a lot of respect for Buckley on this one. Normally, even when I disagree, I still respect his opinion because it's rational and informed. This time, though, he's done himself and his fans a great disservice, which is ironic because he recently shamed a contemporary for more or less doing the same, only with an accolade instead of the offer of willing financial support. 

PayPal Update (Surprisingly Good News)

I probably owe PayPal something of an apology. In my defense, they were as baffled by what's gone on with my account as I've been. The skinny on the situation, it turns out, is that all the way back in February I maxed out the number of times I entered my password (I forgot. You ever forget? It happened to me.) and was locked out of the system. At least, I was supposed to be locked out, and by locked out I mean I was supposed to be taken to a screen to verify some additional information if I ever logged in again. Instead, I got a vague error screen that looped no matter what I did. On top of that, I actually could log in to my PayPal account through the mobile app. My access was limited, but only limited, and quite possibly exposing a major security leak. 
Remember in Office Space how Milton was laid off years prior to the events of the film, but no one bothered to tell him, yet he still received a paycheck through a software glitch? That's more or less what happened to me. Speaking of paychecks, I got a very pleasant surprise out of all this. As I mentioned, I was in the middle of a transaction on eBay. I put in an offer on a lot of paperback books, not expecting for the offer to be accepted (at least not within a few minutes), and got locked into paying what I owed. Obviously, I was more than willing to pay for the books, that wasn't the problem. I had enough to pay for the books. Again, not the problem. The problem was that the mechanism by which I would have paid for the books had a wrench in the works. I attempted a transfer from my bank to my PayPal account, only for it to basically sit in limbo for way longer than these things should take. In fact, at the time of this writing, it's still processing. 
Here's the pleasant surprise: I looked at my PayPal account and saw a positive balance. My bank transfer was still in limbo, but I had a balance that was not there before, for exactly what I owed the bookseller. At first, I thought, "Great, now it's lying about my balance." Then, when I checked my e-mail (where I've been talking with the support staff), I learned that the guy who was handling my case issued me a courtesy credit. Essentially, it was to make up for all the fees I'd been paying by only being able to use my debit card to transfer money, but it just happened to be enough to cover my literary IOU. 
As of now, I can access my PayPal account, update information, and many other things I couldn't do before. On top of that, I had an eBay purchase completely covered by a tech support guy, and I appreciate that wholeheartedly. I appreciate it because he didn't have to do that. I've worked customer service jobs and I know for a fact no one likes issuing credits. Companies rake their employees over the coals for issuing credits to customers, however small and justified they may be. No one wants to open that can of worms. No one wants to give that potential mile-betraying inch. 
This was not a small favor. It was a small amount, but it was not a small favor. 
So, not only props to PayPal support, but specifically their Twitter support. As I said, the phone support was a complete dead end. Twitter got me results. 

Why Can't More People Just Take Debit Cards?

I got in the habit of using money orders to pay for important things after one of my checks bounced thanks to some bad timing that left me about 5 bucks short. It was a rent check, and while I don't believe it's left me on bad terms with the complex, I've just stuck to using money orders. Yeah, they're not quite as convenient as checks, and there's those little fees that they come attached with, but I only write twelve checks a year (guess what they're for) and rarely more. Plus, I don't have the situation I had before where someone doesn't cash a check right away (or sooner than I expect them to) and I'm slapped with a returned check fee.

Just recently, however, the yang to the yin of money orders has surfaced, and it all started with a movie called The Darkest Hour. Short review of the film: An intriguing premise and promising start gets marred by an almost unwatchable follow-through heralded by a man in a chainmail vest made from house keys on horseback. I bring this movie up because on my first trip to see the movie, I got pulled over on account of my license plate having expired the previous month. Things would have been left at that (as I said in detail on my DeviantART journal), except that I'd also forgotten to change out my insurance card, which expired, I kid you not, less than a week earlier. I was running late as was, and getting pulled over meant I would basically have to wait another day to see the film.

My court date was set to this week in the middle of the afternoon, which meant I had to take a half-day at work, which I hated doing just because it's apparently not enough to mail in a copy of my insurance card to dispute the second ticket. I stopped by my bank and took out two money orders. The reason for this is that, while the cop couldn't answer my questions about appealing the tickets, someone at the courthouse whom I spoke to by phone (to confirm whether or not I actually needed to come in or if this could be handled by more convenient means) told me that if I got my license plate updated within 30 days of the ticket, I could get the fine reduced to 55USD (down from 85). I was weary of this too-good-to-be-true info, so as a precaution, I got one order for 55 and one for 30, so I could just hand in both if they couldn't reduce the fine. If 55 was indeed the real fine, I'd just save the 30 for something else, namely combining it with another money order for my next month's rent.

Admittedly, this sounds tedious and complex, and it gets a little bit worse.

Despite stopping at my bank, I ended up at the courthouse about a good two hours earlier than I was set to, but thanks to a prosecutor and police officer not showing up on time, I got bumped up and got to hand over my paperwork within about 20 minutes of arriving. I handed them the insurance card, getting that ticket waived outright, and surprisingly they took my word on getting my license plate updated (I had a receipt in a folder, which I guess the judge spied as I was fishing for my other documents), but instead of reducing the fine to 55 (as I'd been told), it was reduced to 40.

Backing up a bit, while waiting, I'd filled out the money order for 55, complete with naming the payee.

I explained to the clerk sitting at the judge's side that I was told 55 when I'd called in earlier. The judge gave a puzzled look and the clerk said, "Um... this is a better deal." as if I was eager to pay more. I showed them the money order I'd already filled out, and the two of them traded (ironically) guilty looks and tried to work out if they could refund me the difference. In the end, they decided to just extend my payment deadline to 30 days so I could return the money order and get the proper amount. This all seemed well and good, until I actually started the process of getting the money order refunded.

I called my bank, who told me that any issue with refunds had to be handled with the issuer directly, which struck me as a bit of a bad sign. I called the 800 number on the back of the slip and learned that it can take at least 30 day to process a refund. Well, that was cutting it a bit close for my taste, so I had an idea: get another money order for 10USD and just mail that one along with the one for 30 into the court's office. That way, the refund on the one for 55 can take its sweet time and I don't have to worry about late fees or possible warrants. I got the other money order (along with one for my next month's rent, much to the bemusement of the bank teller, to whom I explained that the people I was sending money to didn't take checks), set them aside, and got to work refunding the 55.

It turns out that in addition to the 30 days, the issuer requires a 15 dollar processing fee.

Seriously? I could see 3 or 5, but 15 is just absurd, and I told them as much in a complaint e-mail. I think I'll wait to see what they have to say to that before I actually fill it out.

What's more, the return form I have to fill out to get my reduced-refund is rather vaguely worded about whether or not they'll deduct it from the refund amount or if I need to (ironically) write them a check. Also, I've somehow lost the little stub that attaches to the money order, albeit I've got the money order proper. The return form seems very insistent on having the stub. It's understandable seeing as how this form is meant for "lost or stolen" orders. Then again, the automated message at the 800 number mentioned "damaged" and there's even a small section on their website's FAQ about "wrong amounts" which all just refer me to the refund slip.

So, it's going to cost 15 dollars because I took a court clerk's word for something costing 55 dollars when in reality it turned out to be 40. The funny thing is, the court mentioned that the deduction was 25%, which even led the judge to give a questioning look to the clerk when she mentioned 40 seeing as how the math didn't work out. She explained that the original 85 is actually two fees combined, so the discount is applied to the different parts. I'd ask why one crime carries two fees if they're summed up into one on the ticket, but I just don't care anymore.

The moral of the story is, even if you don't write that many checks, order some anyway.