It's about commercialisation. (don't yawn)
All this while, my stand on capitalism, commercialisation etc has been...mixed, to put it short. At times, I feel that's its a necessary path to take to improve living standards of the average Joe. At the very least, it's a better option than communism or things like that. Other times... see this post to know more.
Hail, Hitler! No, wait....
But how about when it comes to the individual? In other words, let's take politics out of the picture and ask ourselves: How far can we go before being counted as 'selling out'?
You know that Youtuber who found started small, making homemade videos that were actually pretty funny in their own way? That small startup company with that great free service that you found so useful? That not-so-well-known-blogger whose straightforward, tongue-in-cheek views made you keep coming back for more every time?
Then, things change.
That Youtuber suddenly finds that his videos are going viral. People love them. That startup company now has a base of more than a million users, with the number increasing every day. That blogger wakes up one day and finds his blog's page views and comments have risen to an unimaginable level.
With that, of course, money flows in. It's inevitable; all the above had plans to make money some time or or other. And after this, with the fame and glory - and money - pouring in, some of these people, or others with similiar stories, don't change much. They go on improving, continuing to delight their audience, users or readers.
But, and this is a big but, some don't.
Some of you have felt this in yourselves. When some of these people, your very own little idols when they were still small and relatively unknown, suddenly grow distant and far away after hitting fame. Why? Money. They get a windfall, and find themselves wanting more.
So they use their power to get it. Their audience, to be specific. The Youtuber isn't all that funny any more, simply because he keeps promoting unrelated products in his videos. Users of that startup's service find themselves with a "friendly" notice that they will be charged $4.99 a month from now on. That blogger? His posts are now hard to read, simply because of all the ads in them.
Now, don't get me wrong. In this difficult day and age, I can see the desperation to earn money. And if this is the only way, to them, what can we say? It's their product, their choice. We'll be angry or at least upset, but in the end we have to remember that people have got to eat too.
However, this doesn't mean I condone it. Oh, no. Not by a long shot.
Earning to sustain yourself is one thing, but finding more and more way to earn money at the expense of your users/audience is another. Now, look-I have ads on my blog too. Being a reader you would've noticed them, even if you only visit once or twice...*cough*
However, I always, and I mean always, keep you all in mind. Let me give you an example, that's just a month old actually...
Now, let's make this clear first: I'm not earning much from this blog. I never really expected it to at all, but it would have been nice if it did. But it doesn't pay. Fair enough. But I wondered, was it because I had the wrong type of ads? There were many kinds of Google ads, but I picked the normal text ones because I didn't want my readers blinded with animated flash thingies that got in the way and destroyed my blog's minimalist look.
Then I discovered Infolinks. This company had a nifty way to implement ads: it used the certain words in my articles and attached ads to them. So these words would be underlined, to show they were links, but instead of plain ole' normal links to elsewhere, this would be paying, actual links to ads! Wonderful idea, eh? I could even adjust the colour of the links to fit in with my blog.
So where are they now?
They're gone.
Why? Simply because I felt I was cheating you guys. The readers. Sure, these links provided a image summary of the ad when you hovered your mouse over them, so readers would know it's an ad before they clicked. Sure, these links were underlined in a dotted way, so readers could see it wasn't any normal link. The colour wasn't even the same.
But still, I decided against it. I didn't want to 'sell out' just to bring some profit. This blog was created for me and all of you, and anything else is a mere bonus. I shouldn't be greedy, and I won't be. So there.
If only everyone thought like this. Then we won't have to face flashy animations every time we visit some of those websites.
No comments :
Post a Comment