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Most of your posts in this thread seem to be complaining about people consuming your content without giving you any value in return. If this is the case, they w

Most of your posts in this thread seem to be complaining about people consuming your content without giving you any value in return. If this is the case, they why keep giving away your content for free?

DoreenMichele 9y ago
I am speaking from firsthand experience here. And your reply is the same tired argument I hear every single time this comes up that boils down to "You need to either stop writing or accept that you have to do it for free." On the one hand, I am reluctant to tell you my reasons for my choices because it winds up being an opportunity for people to just make this about me and ignore the wider issue that is under discussion. It makes it all too easy for people to act like "it is just one dumb writer making stupid choices" and then pick apart everything I say to justify their existing position. On the other hand, perhaps it will be illuminating, though a single comment here can't do justice to years of me trying to find a good answer. I have considered other options, like trying to do an e-book or a subscription or something. I don't think that works. One of my sites has information for homeless people. They can't afford to pay me. Another has information on alternative health approaches. Ads in that space are notoriously terrible in terms of touting unproven cures that can be downright dangerous. That site has no ads, in part because I have no desire to be inadvertently hawking colloidal silver. These are problems I feel I have good solutions for. Everyone acts like they can't be solved. I think they can. People are endlessly critical of the fact that you can't trust a person telling you do X for your health if they are selling X or you can't trust your doctor when he is in the pocket of big pharmacy, etc. But if you try to just put out information and that's it, you can't monetize it. So we have this situation where serious problems are growing worse because you can't monetize an effective approach. People keep doing stuff that is making the problem worse because that is all the system supports. And maybe someday I will cave and throw in the towel and stop doing something I believe in and go do something that pays better, thou it makes me feel I am selling my soul. But so far I am not there yet. I would still like to try to make a difference putting out independent information about things that work. But I also would like to stop living hand to mouth.
- CogitoCogito 9y ago
  > "You need to either stop writing or accept that you have to do it for free." This is not what my argument boils down to. My question was clear: "why keep giving away your content for free?" I never said you need to stop writing _or_ accept that you have to do it for free. In fact you already know that since you state this later in your post: > I have considered other options, like trying to do an e-book or a subscription or something. I don't think that works. Honestly I don't know what to tell you. I guess the world doesn't work the way you'd wish. Artists have always had it hard in this world. I don't see why that will change now. In fact, I think it'll get worse since it's so easy to distribute digital art and people like myself are willing to give away content for free. Just as I'm willing to post for free. And willing to do almost all I do outside of formal work for free. It makes me fundamentally disagree with this claim you make: > So we have this situation where serious problems are growing worse because you can't monetize an effective approach. Not everything can be monetized. Not everything deserves to be monetized. You shouldn't do everything simply because it can be monetized. (In fact, you _don't_ do everything because it can be monetized as you've explicitly stated in this post.) > These are problems I feel I have good solutions for. Everyone acts like they can't be solved. I think they can. I honestly don't understand what you consider a problem. > And maybe someday I will cave and throw in the towel and stop doing something I believe in and go do something that pays better, thou it makes me feel I am selling my soul. But so far I am not there yet. I would still like to try to make a difference putting out independent information about things that work. But I also would like to stop living hand to mouth. Why is an either or? Why can you not work to support yourself and put out independent information?
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Why can you not work to support yourself and put out independent information? The extremely short version is that good quality anything takes substantial time, energy and other resources to produce. It really isn't reasonable for the world to expect good quality content completely for free. That is the essence of the ongoing presence of articles like the one under discussion here: the internet has historically been financed by advertising because everyone wants it for free and now we see ads as evil and messing everything up. But we still want it for free. That's the issue here. You can't really have it both ways.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

I am speaking from firsthand experience here. And your reply is the same tired argument I hear every single time this comes up that boils down to "You need to either stop writing or accept that you have to do it for free." On the one hand, I am reluctant to tell you my reasons for my choices because it winds up being an opportunity for people to just make this about me and ignore the wider issue that is under discussion. It makes it all too easy for people to act like "it is just one dumb writer making stupid choices" and then pick apart everything I say to justify their existing position. On the other hand, perhaps it will be illuminating, though a single comment here can't do justice to years of me trying to find a good answer. I have considered other options, like trying to do an e-book or a subscription or something. I don't think that works. One of my sites has information for homeless people. They can't afford to pay me. Another has information on alternative health approaches. Ads in that space are notoriously terrible in terms of touting unproven cures that can be downright dangerous. That site has no ads, in part because I have no desire to be inadvertently hawking colloidal silver. These are problems I feel I have good solutions for. Everyone acts like they can't be solved. I think they can. People are endlessly critical of the fact that you can't trust a person telling you do X for your health if they are selling X or you can't trust your doctor when he is in the pocket of big pharmacy, etc. But if you try to just put out information and that's it, you can't monetize it. So we have this situation where serious problems are growing worse because you can't monetize an effective approach. People keep doing stuff that is making the problem worse because that is all the system supports. And maybe someday I will cave and throw in the towel and stop doing something I believe in and go do something that pays better, thou it makes me feel I am selling my soul. But so far I am not there yet. I would still like to try to make a difference putting out independent information about things that work. But I also would like to stop living hand to mouth.

CogitoCogito 9y ago
> "You need to either stop writing or accept that you have to do it for free." This is not what my argument boils down to. My question was clear: "why keep giving away your content for free?" I never said you need to stop writing _or_ accept that you have to do it for free. In fact you already know that since you state this later in your post: > I have considered other options, like trying to do an e-book or a subscription or something. I don't think that works. Honestly I don't know what to tell you. I guess the world doesn't work the way you'd wish. Artists have always had it hard in this world. I don't see why that will change now. In fact, I think it'll get worse since it's so easy to distribute digital art and people like myself are willing to give away content for free. Just as I'm willing to post for free. And willing to do almost all I do outside of formal work for free. It makes me fundamentally disagree with this claim you make: > So we have this situation where serious problems are growing worse because you can't monetize an effective approach. Not everything can be monetized. Not everything deserves to be monetized. You shouldn't do everything simply because it can be monetized. (In fact, you _don't_ do everything because it can be monetized as you've explicitly stated in this post.) > These are problems I feel I have good solutions for. Everyone acts like they can't be solved. I think they can. I honestly don't understand what you consider a problem. > And maybe someday I will cave and throw in the towel and stop doing something I believe in and go do something that pays better, thou it makes me feel I am selling my soul. But so far I am not there yet. I would still like to try to make a difference putting out independent information about things that work. But I also would like to stop living hand to mouth. Why is an either or? Why can you not work to support yourself and put out independent information?
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Why can you not work to support yourself and put out independent information? The extremely short version is that good quality anything takes substantial time, energy and other resources to produce. It really isn't reasonable for the world to expect good quality content completely for free. That is the essence of the ongoing presence of articles like the one under discussion here: the internet has historically been financed by advertising because everyone wants it for free and now we see ads as evil and messing everything up. But we still want it for free. That's the issue here. You can't really have it both ways.