Echoes of demented ancient Rome resonate TODAY

Written by Michael E Dehn

Founder and CEO of Metro Pulse a continually running enterprise since May 1980.

July 2, 2023

The Upside-Down Fig Tree

The tree sprouts from ceiling of the arch it grows inside, which was allegedly part of Emperor Nero's private villa.

No one is quite sure how the tree ended up there or how it survived, but year after year it continues to grow downwards and bear figs. pic.twitter.com/0UZbhOGAJK
— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) June 27, 2023

← Prev: Yes indeed. We see need to monetize platform and from a strictly mercenary standpoint (read keeping banks happy)forcing restrictions on the hundreds of millions of "free" users in hopes of converting to paid subscribers is a FLAWED mentality.Our flagship @metropulseusa was shut down over speaking truth on Twitter (posted on metropulse.com website) and when we rejoined platform later under a different platform we were astounded at the different "feel" of it. We were getting many porno bots that never happened before and many of the influencers we were acclimated to seeing were muted by THEIR choice.The disaster that is paywall for media content (except for a select few (WP, WSJ, NYT) has proven to us conversion is possible but only on miniscule percentages of viewership.We cite the Daily Herald here in Chicago, a strictly suburban focused newspaper that has instituted a strict paywall on their content, a move that has created a more than viable competitor in Patch. Patch has no paywall and the vast majority of content at the Daily Herald they provide for free in a better targeted local focus by community. We deleted our Daily Herald email alert because every time we access an article they force a paid subscription option which in our humble opinion pisses people off if they have not already decided they want it.And they migrate to Patch which has seen explosive growth over the last few years because of that flawed mentality cannibalizing on what Daily Herald thought was their "territory". Creative writing aside, The Daily Herald has little content NOT ACCESSIBLE elsewhere for free. As we develop our news aggregation to the next level, we WILL NOT be instituting a paywall for this very reason. This concept ABSOLUTELY applies to Musk and Twitter as well as lack of discourse on site undermines embedded concept instilled from the beginning of the "TOWN HALL" effect and massive amount of eyeballs to in theory support an advertising infrastructure now crumbling. Of course Musk a shrewd operator in financial space and monetizing Twitter in the brave new world of NFTs and bitcoin related ventures an option news media does not have.(PS we do and are robustly looking at it as alternative monetizing element to our expansion, more on that later) Next: Popeface #265 stumbles yet again in window dressing the RAMPANT sex abuse internally crippling his church for centuries. →

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