[DoreenMichele]

My time, knowledge and expertise in developing an idea is not cheap and I need to eat. A local organization has been stealing my ideas and actively shafting me for absolutely no reason other than they are awful people.

They nominally do economic development. I was happy to freely provide ideas but I did expect it to be a networking opportunity and a means to build my professional reputation and local contacts and thereby enhance my income.

That has not happened.

I quit going to meetings because I was tired of their abusive treatment of me and now they cyber stalk me and continue to steal my ideas, give me zero credit, etc so some local cretin and his awful bosses can pretend they are worth the money that the city pays them.

I am getting nothing out of this at all. They can't even be bothered to tell people where they get their ideas so my reputation would be enhanced.

I continue to be dirt poor. I have done everything in my power to play by the rules as I understand them and the result remains the same both online and off: People think I'm wonderful. They think I have great ideas. They also think I should do everything out of the goodness of my heart instead of for pay and everyone turns a deaf ear to the fact that I am dirt poor, going hungry and desperately need more earned income.

I have a real problem here, your platitudes not withstanding.

[cwkoss]

An idea that no one is willing to pay for is effectively worthless.

Nobody gets rich from ideas, they get rich from execution.

An unexecuted idea which is kept secret has zero impact on the world except inflating the ideators ego. If you can't execute it yourself, put it out into the world for someone else to.

[DoreenMichele]

Or I can stop working on this domain and go try to find some means to spend my time that will actually adequately support me.

The problem with that is that I appear to be talented, which is why these immoral, abusive rat bastards keep stealing from me. Without my ideas, these losers got no game.

And that means the town I live in is worse off and letting the town I live in be worse off makes me worse off.

Regardless of your callous disregard for the stated problem that I need to somehow eat, some problems are actually hard to solve and this has proven to be one of them for me.

I'm apparently good at some things, good enough that other people will jump on stealing from me.

I'm not so talented at monetization and the world is filled with horrible people who feel zero qualms about benefiting at my expense while going "Not my problem that this person whose work I'm stealing is poor and going hungry."

I actually need to find a means to survive and thrive here and stop helping horrible, horrible people for free. But the problem space in question is such that a "Fuck you, got mine" attitude isn't a clear win or ready solution.

It would be nice if other people had morals and a conscience. Sadly, that appears to rarely be the case.

[cwkoss]

Get in touch with whoever is paying the rat bastards for your ideas and try to sell your ideas yourself. If the value is in your ideas you should be able to steal business from them. If you can't then it indicates the economic value is in execution and not the ideas themselves: and you should build your execution skills so you can compete with the rat bastards.

EDIT: sorry if I seem harsh, but believe restricting the free flow of information is morally repulsive, so have a strong reaction to arguments that intellectual property needs more draconian protections.

[DoreenMichele]

Their execution sucks.

There are factors I'm not interested in trying to explain to an internet stranger hellbent on schooling me about how wrong I am about my life.

Don't get me wrong: I sincerely wish I had more people in my life who could help me poke holes in what I think of the problem space and find a path forward that works for me.

I think a lack of such constructive feedback is a major overlooked barrier to female business success. The problem is men seem to have access to such constructive feedback privately. Doing this publicly in this way is not optimal.

[DoreenMichele]

In reply to your edit, which I'm only just now seeing and can no longer edit my other comment:

I'm not arguing that. I run multiple blogs and I am very much on the record as wanting my blogs to remain free to read. I don't want paywalls or subscription newsletters and I no longer have ads on my sites.

I try to support them with tips and Patreon and I don't get enough money that way while other people clearly use the info and, in some cases, have a history of intentionally shafting me by not only not leaving tips, they also do not give me any credit nor promote my work.

I need money. People "value" what I do but don't want to pay me for it. Copyright and even the Nobel Prize are intended to solve the problem that it isn't actually true that "Ideas are nothing. Execution is everything."

Ideas are not nothing and actively screwing over people who generate new ideas -- like, say, Einstein -- is an excellent way to incentivize your best and brightest to tell the world "Fuck you. Got mine."

This is not in the best interest of humanity as a whole.

[csdvrx]

Do like Atlas: shrug, and start working on what you perceive to be important problem within the right environment, a set of people that recognize your value and share their own values with you.