Pledge Now!

January 31, 2013 6:32 AM

Got an extra wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket, but that NPR fund drive doesn't start for another two weeks? Run out of useful Kickstarter campaigns to back? It's Pledge Weak on the internet!
posted by backseatpilot (5 comments total)

Huh. I find this entry a little problematic. And the comments... Don't make it any better? Is this the year I become too old for the internet? (I can't handle Regretsy, either, FWIW.)
posted by BrashTech at 7:00 AM on January 31, 2013

NPR pledge drives are the ne plus ultra of concentrated groveling and begging, they make me want to jam an icepick in my ear. Here in Colorado they have pledge drive two weeks every quarter which means you have a one in six chance of being assulted with their groveling...no thanks! When you give a panhandler on the street money they go away, when you give NPR money the godawful sniveling goes on and on and on....
posted by Confess, Fletch at 7:34 AM on January 31, 2013

Nah BT, I think there are better websites out there and there are shorter, more lucid arguments to be made about how some of the projects on KickStarter are just glorified spam n' scams.

And on preview, Confess, did you know that NPR lets you download podcasts of specific shows you like? It's nice because you can just load them up to your smartphone/mp3 player and listen to what you like on the road. And I imagine that their pledge drives are justified given how local costs and funding. They're not the kind to ask just because they want higher salaries. And I'm not sure the negative panhandler analogy is exactly the kind of thing you want to do here on MetaFilter.
posted by dubusadus at 7:43 AM on January 31, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well, just to keep this derailed train a rollin', KALW here in San Francisco has seemingly had success with pledge drive messages that just replace little between-show segments like events calendars and such. It's great! It also forces them to limit their pleas to, "help us run this awesome radio station that counts on you for the majority of its funding; we also have some swag listed on the website."

What drives me most nuts is when the pledge drives include the interminable descriptions of the emergency radio, or the memory–training DVD rom, or the [food] of the month subscription, or whatever else. Like I want to hear the people I trust for news desperately running through all of outstanding qualities of a travel coffee cup. Which, I think, almost brings this comment back around the topic at hand...
posted by intendedeffect at 12:44 PM on January 31, 2013

I Pledged.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:05 PM on January 31, 2013