In the summer of 2009, I shared some ideas, which made their way to the CEO of helium, that I felt could help improve the site and the business model of helium. Some time after that, helium began making some changes in the direction of where I felt it had to go and others in the opposite direction. Over the last year or so, helium has abandoned several initiatives, including marketplace, I felt were in the wrong direction while pursuing watered down versions of my concepts. Not only has helium neglected to pay me a single penny for my concepts, which I never explicitly gave them permission to use while I noticed helium was sold a few months ago, they kept me out of the development process and failed to give me any sort of recognition, probably for legal reasons. Given helium is a nonprofit and works in a copyright driven industry, I thought helium would have respected my rights to my ideas. After all, helium even gives royalties for signing up new users, so I had no reason to expect helium would thoroughly neglect my interests every step of the way with such disrespectful and unethical behavior. Businesses do not innovative; innovative people do. When businesses fail to reward individuals for their ideas and work, they undermine innovation. It is this type of unethical behavior that hurts people like me, which it has in many ways, our economy, and the business community. In light of News Corp scandal this summer, it is clear the media industry is just another business in need of ethics. Why is professioanl journalism dying instead of thriving in our changing world. Writer sweat shops and hobby sites, such as helium, are only interesting in selling a large volume of low cost products, i.e. user contributed freebies, while the overall industry excludes innovative individuals and embraces business models that pay writers pennies. Thanks for following the status quo helium.

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