Disclaimer: This is one of a series of articles which contain my personal opinions, based upon my own experiences, about various money-making programs. You may have had difference experiences which give you different opinions.
Recently a survey asked me if I would give out my email address in return for an entry in a contest. I thought about this for a few minutes, thinking back to all of the times that I have done exactly that. In the last couple of years I would say I've given out my email address hundreds of times in the hopes of winning a small prize.
You know what I mean ... so many sites seem to offer something to try and get you to leave them your email address. Sometimes the "free gift" is useful, usually it is as worthless as the fake jewel you can get for ordering something from certain catalog outlets. What I've found is the most worthless "free gift" is the entry into a contest.
So I answered to the question on the survey as follows.
"No, I would not. I have in the past and my experience is the chances are so incredibly small it is not worth the trouble to even bother. I've even removed myself from all of those lotto-type sites because they just never seem to pay off. Incredible waste of time. I don't even fill out those surveys anymore that say, "fill this out and get a chance to win $500" as I've filled out dozens of surveys and no money yet. I've got better things to do. --Richard Lowe"
Which brought to my mind a bigger question. What about all of those sweepstakes sites? I had a number of them listed on my site in the hopes of gaining some referrals. I actually believed that I might make a little money off referring people to the contests.
The actuality is these sites are a fantastic waste of time. I am sure that people do win the prizes, but the chances are incredibly remote that you will win anything of any value. Look at it logically - the sites make money from banner ads. These ads pay extremely small amounts for each view or click. Because of this fact, the sweepstakes site must get you to view their ads thousands and thousands of times before they can even consider giving you a prize.
My advice? There are far better ways to spend your time on the web. You could, for example, put the time and effort you spend playing sweepstakes into creating a quality website or product, and I'll bet you are more likely to get a good return.
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Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.