The
Faceless Crowd
by Stephen Brennan
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The Internet has brought the world
closer. It has made it an even smaller place than most could
possibly have imagined as little as ten to fifteen years ago,
even when satellites were beaming the worlds highs and lows into
our lounge rooms every day. Even the venue has become smaller.
The world isn’t appearing in our lounge rooms so much now as the
corner of our bedrooms or, for those fortunate enough, home
offices. The Internet has changed our lives by giving us new
words and new ways of speaking. While eating the evening meal,
some of us find ourselves asking for the ‘www.salt.com’. It has
brought benefits to every single person who has the ability to
access it but with those benefits, the new language and the
information at our fingertips, it has also brought danger and
risk.
There is much written about the dangers of hate, racism, some
aspects of pornography and just plain ‘unwholesome’ content.
However, those that are serious about ensuring that they and
especially their children are protected, there are programs and
settings, which will block out all but the most harmless of
websites.
It has brought the virus, spam and spyware, which for a time,
threatened to make a complete shambles of the whole arrangement.
But technology, awareness and the law have stepped in and,
although these ‘evils’ will probably always be with us, they can
be controlled.
One of the benefits that the Internet has presented is the
proliferation of products and services, which can be bought
online. This has spawned a whole new industry, other than those
that manufacture and sell these items in the real world. The
Home Based Business. People to make, promote, market, refer and
sell anything that can be bought. The Internet Payment
Facilitators have arrived to make sure the banks don’t get a
‘look in’ and spoil the fun, with their exorbitant merchant
credit card account fees and crippling trading costs. No,
accepting all manner of payments over the Internet securely is
easy and virtually free, compared to what the banks would try if
they had the opportunity. For the person seeking a Home Based
Business opportunity, things have never been so simple and less
expensive, from a business point of view. |
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People have
always worked from home, that is, lucky people have always
worked from home. It is now possible for anyone who has a PC and
a quiet corner of a room. It’s not as easy as that but it’s
possible for people who never imagined that they could enjoy
such a luxury as earning their living (or even more) at their
leisure, at home with their families, regardless of who they are
or what their background. But sadly, this last aspect is part of
a major problem. ‘No matter who they are or what their
background’.
In the real world it matters who you are and what your
background is. Admittedly, due to discrimination, this can often
be unfair but at least we know who and what we are up against.
Not so on the Internet. Everyone is a faceless, nameless
‘non-entity’. Someone can take hundreds or even thousands of
dollars for a product or service and simply not be there
tomorrow, leaving the ‘out of pocket’ very little recourse when
it comes to recovering their money or even justice.
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When you combine the faceless dishonest with the millions
seeking a way to make a Home Based Business a reality or
maintain an existing one, you have a recipe for many tears.
Consequently, people have become far less trusting and, in turn,
the dishonest have become more cunning. The result is that those
who are honestly seeking to make a living online are having to
invent more genuine and convincing ways to assure their
prospective customers that their website is one of the ‘good’
ones, that their product is genuine and worthwhile. They have to
use testimonials, money back guarantees and expensive
memberships of associations to vouch for their trustworthiness.
But the dishonest use exactly the same things, so where do we
all stand? In a ‘faceless crowd’, not knowing who is honest and
who is not. Not knowing if we are dealing with, or even
communicating with who we think we are, if we have any idea at
all.
There is no solution other than for the law enforcement people
and the ‘watchdog agencies’ to do what they can do with their
limited powers. For penalties for such behavior to be severe
enough as to serve as a deterrent, but that will probably work
as well as it does in the real world, where at least, we have
more of a chance to face and judge for ourselves, the level of a
person’s sincerity or reliability.
The only other means to combat the dishonest is awareness. There
is advice aplenty for how people should go about starting,
maintaining and succeeding in their Home Based Business. I am
one of those who give that advice via an affiliate guide ebook,
but I am inclined to place one particular tenet above all the
others, one that I have placed in my book however, I fear
perhaps I have not expressed it well enough or pressed the point
home solidly. I’ll do it here – PLEASE BE CAREFUL, BEWARE – we
are each one in a crowd of millions of faceless, nameless, for
all intents and purposes unaccountable entities and even though
I know in my heart that ninety nine percent are honest and
genuine, sadly, it’s not enough.
** This 'Author's Resource' must be published intact with links
active when copying or publishing this article **
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