Is The Bubblews Website Over Now?

I have to admit, I took the old adage to heart about not putting all your eggs into one basket and I decided to look for another way to make money by writing on the Internet. I still wrote for reputable, good companies like Textbroker. And, even though I don't make much money writing there, I always know that I will get paid.

Now Textbroker has something on their website that says (they've been in business for) "10 Years"... I know that I've been writing for them for five years and I have ALWAYS, consistently been able to trust them to pay whatever I've earned. My experience is that they are a business that seems to be run with honesty and integrity.

I also love writing here on HubPages. I have met SO many fascinating, amazing people here! And I love that I can choose my own topics and receive passive income from writing. I've been writing here for over eight years now, and I have always been paid here as well. Both of these websites provide good ways to make income from the comfort of your home. Textbroker is good for shorter term "now" income, HubPages is great for a longer term, more sustained source of passive income.

It's funny when I began writing this, I thought about saying that I think (in my opinion, NOT accusing them of anything) that Bubblews was a pyramid scheme. After researching the definition of that, though, it might not have been. I still have a tab open here about Ponzi schemes as I'm writing this, so now I'm thinking maybe that term would be a better fit!

I looked it up! A Ponzi scheme tends to entice people with promises of big returns that are true in the beginning, but as time goes on, the returns lessen or disappear. In the case of Bubblews, I'm not sure if this was the intent all along, or whether the people who began the website with big promises found later that they couldn't sustain what they had originally promised people.

Eventually it seemed that Bubblews was using writers for free content and not paying any more. At one time, it seemed like they were paying out to anyone and everyone. They just couldn't sustain that pace over a long term.

I can remember reading stories of people in other countries, the Philippines comes to mind, about people who were actually using Bubblews to supplement their income and to pay daily bills. It became a way for people living in countries with bad economies to supplement income. I read about entire families who would "work" around the clock writing and earning money, just to bring in as much supplemental income as possible. Now, however, that source of income has dried up. I had a feeling it would.

The website just couldn't keep up the promises originally made about their writers getting one cent for every like and comment. Then it became the way they would pay people was through clicks on the ads that were placed on the pages. And with that, the income people were making at one time shrunk down to almost nothing.

One big problem that Bubblews experienced was the dishonest way that some so-called writers would try to cheat the system. They found that people were cutting and pasting articles and snippets from other sources, usually from things that were already published on the Internet, and they would try to pass it off as their own work. There was a huge problem with plagiarism.

I think some of that may have been due to some of the writers not being native English speakers. Some people from other countries who couldn't speak the language, or write it either, still found a way (albeit dishonestly) to make money. Other dishonest actions on the parts of writers, like forming groups to like and to comment on each others posts to make more money, also helped to bring everyone down.

Working together in groups using strength in numbers like this also contributed to the website's downfall. I know that I noticed patterns where the same people would comment on each others posts. Eventually, Bubblews put a stop to people earning from these social interactions of liking and commenting on posts. This is when the payment amounts that everyone received went WAY down!

To give Bubblews some credit here, it seemed like they DID try to get rid of people who were found to be cheating by either plagiarizing or by forming groups to help them get money they didn't actually earn. I did hear about accounts being deleted and people not being paid if they cheated, but it must have been incredibly difficult to catch everyone. Some of the cheaters probably slipped through the cracks or got away with it for a while before they were caught. Then cheaters would simply open a new account using a new user name and cheat until their account was deleted again.

Eventually the higher-ups at Bubblews said that people were paid from ad revenue alone (from what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong!). I noticed that I went from making about $1 a day without a lot of effort to earning literally pennies a day for the same amount of effort. It soon became not worth it any more, and I left.

From what I've read, real Ponzi schemes often begin as legitimate businesses that begin to sink into Ponzi scheme territory when they lose money unexpectedly and can no longer keep promises they made, which may or may not be what happened to Bubblews.

In a way, I felt that they lured writers in with promises of money. No one had to actually invest any cash to participate on the website, that was all free. But I do know that a lot of people felt that they were working for nothing and finally left. What honest people did lose is their time, and some would say that time is money. Good people, and some very good writers have left.

This was actually part of the problem, too. There seemed to be either no, or very low, standards for people's writing, and it seemed as if anyone could self-publish there. Much of the writing there I found to be trash (for lack of a better word) that was full of grammatical errors, spelling errors and some of the writing just simply didn't make sense!

I think Google may have found this to be true as well, but I'm not sure how all that works. I don't know how the Bubblews website was "ranked" on Google, but I think it would be interesting to find out. I think if Bubblews keeps this up, not paying writers or paying them a lot less than the "bank" on their account says they've earned, eventually people will leave in droves. This might be already happening. I know that I've left because of non-payment and I'm sure others have too.

For the record, I cashed out through the Bubblews website to get a payment on July 16th of 2015 for $50.03 because you need to have earned over $50 to cash out, and with today being October 6th, it's been well over the 60 day window they said it would take to get paid. It's more like 80 days now, and I haven't been paid or heard anything from them. And I don't expect that I'll hear anything either, especially after I publish this! (Laughing!)

Let me know what your experiences were below in the comments. I'm curious to see if others had the same experience I did. For those who have never written for Bubblews or have never tried earning money by writing there, my advice would have been to pass on this one. There are other, more legitimate ways to earn money, from reputable companies, from your freelance writing on the Internet.

UPDATE

I did finally receive the payment that I cashed out for back in July of 2015, for $50.03. First, I was shocked that I actually got paid the full amount. I had heard so many stories of people who cashed out at around $50 and were only paid a portion of that, like $25 or $35. How they came up with the lower amounts that they paid, I have no idea. It had something to do with advertising.

I received payment on October 23rd of 2015, so it took over three months to get a payment. When I think that it took me over 6 months to get up to the $50 threshold to be able to cash out, then another three months of waiting for payment, I still think that writing for Bubblews was not worthwhile. That's just my opinion ~ you can draw your own conclusions and do what is best for you!

ANOTHER UPDATE

The creators of the Bubblews website closed down the site on November 15, 2015 without explanation. It was a business model that was no longer able to be profitable or worthwhile. The owner of the site, a person named Arvind, decided to disband and remove the site.