they get to talk to a Flat Earther
We hire out indian contractors
I think we can pop that idea in the bin, straight away. If we aren't honest about our methods, why would anyone think we are honest in our answers?
I would be happy if a machine could copy and paste the answer, but an indian contractor would have to do. If I was personally sitting there in the chat room all day I would just be copy-pasting answers anyway. Does it really matter if we hire people to do it?
They get to see the answer that a Flat Earther made. "Ask a Flat Earther" is not false advertising. I don't see why it matters who is copy-pasting the answer.
Honestly, I'm not really feeling this idea. What are we trying to achieve? Are YOU going to go to Antarctica? Personally its a bit cold and I'd struggle to get the time off work. Ignore the method of transaction, I don't know why you'd collect money for a grand experiment? What would it prove? That the earth is flat? What experiment would achieve that?
As I said, this would just be a general fund-raising tactic. I don't care about Antarctica. But I am interested in funding large projects for the community to work on. The community would decide which direction we go by democratic vote.
Many thousands of people from all over the world come to the Flat Earth Society website brimming with questions and curiosity. How could this or that work. You know the questions are endless. They look at the main site and leave confused and disappointed, with none of their questions answered. It takes an especially interested person to find the forums, register an account, and fight for a flat earther to talk to. If we could somehow turn those questions into money it would be the perfect way to fund this society.
If we were going down the route of selling people's zip codes or e-mail addresses (trading personal information for monetary gain) and harassing people to interact or divulge interests and data, why wouldn't we just put ads on the site? Get click money? Or up the price of our T-shirts 50 cents? Or ask for $50 donations when we get requests for interviews?
Banner money is insignificant compared to forcing $1 or more out of every visitor with questions, as I described. The price you get from every banner view is often on the range of 10 cents per 1000 views in a pay per view model.
We wouldn't be selling people's data. We never have their data. The companies running the offers might. But getting your information tracked somewhere that you are interested in a aerospace engineering degree from a quick "Back to School" survey you did is simply the price you need to pay if you want personalized attention..
In summary I think there are smarter and less intrusive ways to monetise, but I'd only be interested if TFES became an official charity and used its name and power to raise money for something I'd deem worthwhile. Sending you and Pongo to Antartica may be amusing, but its not a good use of funds. Sorry Tom.
If you have a better way of funding the society I would like to hear it. I can tell you straight away that banner ads can't even pay for hosting, raising t-shirt prices by 50 cents won't provide any significant funds, and reputable news organizations don't pay for interviews.