i wonder if he planned this with paracast all along as a cash cow to support him
when it didn't work out the way he wanted he got desperate
started begging like a poor sap
Hmmm. Only my opinions -
There are (imho) troubling reports going back to at least 2006 of Gene being comfortable asking near-strangers for hundreds of dollars. I believe he claims that he was soliciting funds at the time to support his sister-in-law's lawsuit but, to me in light of how things have gone subsequently that seems unlikely. He seems to have no governor installed in him to regulate his shameless begging. I keep wondering if his begging is not compulsive behavior.
Pre the 2008 housing bubble crash I think a lot of people likely had more money to donate to enterprises such as the Paracast, and there was just more spending going on in general. Also, a lot of professional / semi-professional talent had yet to discover podcasting. The Paracast was there early on and I will bet things looked pretty rosy to Gene. Then you had the economic meltdown, and Biedny bailing out, but hey, Gene could still sell ads and they got picked up by GCN I believe. Eventually you had the podcast field become way more crowded and while I imagine the Paracast's audience grew, it never became anything like a phenomenon. It is however a great way for Gene to have a ready supply of potential donors to his never-ending cause.
Chris O'Brien made some statement about Gene "living beyond his means" and "Gene's wife having him by the short hairs" in comments at the UFO Trail blog. Biedny referred to Gene eating every meal out and buying to-go coffee instead of brewing it, and then there was the infamous Kia lease. And personally I doubt that Gene's podcasts with their online presences pay for themselves. Maybe some months? And also at the UFO Trail people turned up several past financial judgments against the Steinbergs, and evictions.
I don't know when Gene last had a 'real' job; Jeff Ritzmann says Gene told him he was fired from a job for... asking a co-worker for money. We can believe all this or not (I think the court record stuff you can't argue with, but interpretations of those could vary, and I suppose further activity could've followed that we are not seeing). I feel it all paints a picture of a guy who has had serious money trouble for a very long time. More concerning to me is my overall impression that Gene is dishonest, unethical and doesn't care for anyone but himself. Of course to hear Gene, he is the perpetual victim, fighting the good fight, and anyone pointing out problems with his claims or behaviors is just an obsessed hater who is inexplicably trying to "destroy Gene" by preventing him from "earning a living". Does anyone think that even the slightest outside effort needs to be expended at all to keep this man from earning a living? If your fear is that Gene might actually earn any money, trust me, that worry will take care of itself with no help from you.