No, Kiva lenders DO NOT make interest. If you lend $25, you get back a maximum of $25. The person taking the loan out pays interest to the local field partner (some local financial group). Generally, the more dangerous the country, the higher the interest rate. So in Mongolia it's like 25% and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo it's 80%.
The real strength with Kiva versus donation charities is the long term involvement. With a donation, you send $25 once and usually forget about it. With Kiva, you donate $25 and get repaid over a year, usually with an email update once a month. This keeps you involved and really makes it feel like you're personally invested in helping the individual out. You want them to succeed! You stay updated on where your money goes and how it's being used. And once your $25 is repaid, you're encouraged to find someone new to lend the money back out. Accountability is probably better with the micro-loans. You know exactly who the money is going to.
Listen to nutnics. His design is pleasant and clean. And [i]professional[/i].
I can't articulate how much I dislike the new design without going on another rant. Some of the new back-end features might be nice, but they're useless without a decent UI. I'm honestly considering pulling all my content from this website, and I've submitted a lot under other aliases other than blommer.
You know, I've tried to provide constructive criticism on every change you've implemented. And your usual response is dismissal or something along the lines of, "Your criticism is exactly what's making YTMND worse!" You know what? Fuck you. I've spent hundreds if not thousands of hours making content for this website. I've been disappointed in the direction (or lack thereof) you've taken this place, and my comments have been blunt but honest. I've cared about YTMND for way longer than I should have. It's obvious that your target audience is the random visitor from Google who accidentally clicks on an ad, because this new layout is terrible. And no one will want to become a user or frequent this site unless it's out of some strange feeling of nostalgia.
Is this a late April foosl joke? The update is awful. The layout makes no sense and the color scheme is horrendous. Parsing anything on this site is an exercise in futility (also YTMNDs won't open in a new window). If you don't change the layout to something usable, expect new visitors to the site to plummet to 0.
According to Google Cache, there was a site called "DeNiro turns into a dummy, explodes" made by airbornebryan. It was alive as of March 9, 2010, but appears to have been deleted. http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:BVMuPEOSWYIJ:ytmnd.com/search%3Fq%3Ddummy+airbornebryan+DeNiro+turns+into+a+dummy,+explodes&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Max has been spending all his waking time writing a backend that is converting all the GIF + WAV/MP3 sites to H.264 video. He will be submitting iYTMND to the App Store but it will be rejected within a week due to malicious mobile ads.
Users disable AdBlockPlus to make YTMND a couple extra pennies. Users tell Max that his ads are malignant. Site owner ignores concerns. It's seriously f*cked that when a security issue is brought up, the best answer is to use a Firefox Add-on.
blommer's recent comments:
The real strength with Kiva versus donation charities is the long term involvement. With a donation, you send $25 once and usually forget about it. With Kiva, you donate $25 and get repaid over a year, usually with an email update once a month. This keeps you involved and really makes it feel like you're personally invested in helping the individual out. You want them to succeed! You stay updated on where your money goes and how it's being used. And once your $25 is repaid, you're encouraged to find someone new to lend the money back out. Accountability is probably better with the micro-loans. You know exactly who the money is going to.
I can't articulate how much I dislike the new design without going on another rant. Some of the new back-end features might be nice, but they're useless without a decent UI. I'm honestly considering pulling all my content from this website, and I've submitted a lot under other aliases other than blommer.
I can't stand the look of this place.