CounterPunch Radio co-hosts Joshua Frank and Erik Wallenberg.
The old adage, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” could be the theme of this annual fund drive we’ve got going on.
I wish I could say it’s going well, but it’s not.
The problem isn’t that we don’t have readers. We have more readers than ever. Scores of new eyes on this site every single day. More of our articles are being shared, and more people tell us how important our work is as the world becomes more dangerous.
The problem is that fewer and fewer of you (especially those who can afford it) support our work.
Which means we are kept afloat by the few, but enjoyed by the many.
Let’s get back to missing things.
It’s not an idle threat that we may need to cut back or, heaven forbid, stop publishing altogether.
We were forced to cease our print magazine when things got too expensive, and we may be forced to do the same with the website one day if we don’t hit our modest fund drive goal.
As Becky Grant wrote last week, the internet has changed, and never more rapidly than it is right now. The AI boom threatens society on many fronts, but for us, it means a constant barrage of bot scrapers combing through our archives and slowing our site so they can steal our content and regurgitate it later.
It’s relentless and overwhelming. On top of this, we are always under assault from entities (we have our suspicions about who) that don’t like what we publish. These attacks are well-funded, sophisticated, and severe.
Andrew, our guy behind the scenes, is doing his best to fight these constant problems. It’s a Whac-A-Mole at best, and a minefield at worst. And the defenses we employ to shield the site from all of this are very expensive. Inflation is very real, and like so many of you, we are feeling it very directly.
It’s hard to imagine CounterPunch not existing. It’s difficult to comprehend an internet where columns like Jeffrey St. Clair’s brilliant Roaming Charges have vanished, or where CounterPunch Radio has gone offline. I don’t think that’s a world any of us want to live in.
So, if you can spare a few extra bucks, please consider donating to keep us alive a little longer. We’re hopeful that if enough of you pitch in, it will buy us time to build a digital fortress around the site so we can keep doing what we do best.
There are many ways to help, including planned giving, monthly donations, CounterPunch+ subscriptions, regular donations, or buying books or merch.
Every dollar matters more than you can imagine.
The threats are real, and it’s up to you to keep CounterPunch alive. Because the old adage is true: you don’t miss it until it’s gone. And by then, it will be too late.
