Do note that this is a slightly negative post, there is alot of negativity on the internet at the moment. Take a moment to reflect if you want to expose yourself to more negativity. There are plenty of positive posts out there aswell :)
Something that puts a bad taste in my mouth are blogs with this text:
Did you like this post, please buy me a coffee?
Buy me a coffee, it helps keep the lights on :)
This irks me primarily because I'm so tired of rampant capitalization and constant advertisements. That's why I'm here on the indie web, to get away from all of that, and now you are here, begging me for my money.
Look, I also think that creatives should get compensation in the same way as everyone else, but that doesnt mean that every instance of creativity should be a venue for profit. I think it's shameful that programmers get such higher compensation compared to artists, but this is not the place to equalize it.
Blogging should be free, free as in beer and free as in speech. Of course, neither are reachable in the literal sense, because nothing is ever absolutely free. Hosting costs money and everything is moderated in some sense, by your blogging platform, by the aggregators, by your ISP.
However, compared to the rest of the internet, blogging is relatively free. This site is self hosted, and my domain costs me 4€/year. I can write anything here, the only way I would get in trouble would be if I actively tried to be hateful. In relativistic terms, blogging is free.
But it still costs 4€ per year, is it wrong to expect compensation from the people consuming what I produce?
Let's get into how cheap blogs are. Now I'm a bit of slumlord, and most blogs are more expensive. Let's say that you spend 10€ every single month on your blog, idk you have a really overprovisioned VPS or something. How much is 10€? About as much as I would spend on gas if I were to take my car to work for a single day (hence why I take the bus nowadays).
There is this romantic idea of having a self-sustaining service, especially hobby services. The vast amounts of money we throw around today are hard to grasp, my house mortage costs multiple hundered euros per month, my salary is multiple thousands. But when we got down to these small amounts, they are alot easier to grasp. I can't really intuit how much salary I get, but I know how much 4€ is, that's about two icecreams, or three beers.
There is this satisfying feeling with having a service break even, something you've built by yourself providing a passive income. That feels like success, but in blogging, you will always have a very limited potential. Let's say you manage to achieve a minor profit margin on your blog, something putting you in the 0.01% of top earning blogs, you'll get a sweet sweet income of... tens of cents. Do you know another way to earn tens of cents? Invest the minimum amount into the lowest risk fund your bank offers.
I do understand that this gameification of breaking even that our capitalst world is enticing, but you need to be aware that at the end of the tunnel, you'll just be left with pocket gravel of no real word value. Hobbies cost money, you need to accept it. Turning them into a net gain is a fools errand, there are magnitudes more effective ways to turn your time, effort and money into income.
Let our little corner of the internet, shaped by freedom and connections, be a place where we can forget the draining nature of capitalism.