Monetization

There's been a short run of ads lately and there are more to come and I mention this because I know some folks in the Blogosphere consider it a "sin." They see it as "selling-out" and all that horseshit and they're wrong.

This blog, as well as all of my others, are "monetized," meaning that I offer advertisers space on them in exchange for money. Sometimes, they pay me according to how many people see their ads or how many people visit their site, sometimes they pay me to post about their goods or services. I always use the "This is a Sponsored Post" tagline at the top of ads so that readers don't feel like I'm roping them in or leading them on, but some people insist that no matter how it's done, it's a bad thing.

Those people don't pay my bills. In fact, no one reading this blog except me pays my bills - none of you ever have and unless I get extremely lucky (or maybe hopelessly desperate), none of you ever will - so disagreeing with the practice is fine, but if you don't have a better way for me to be compensated for the time I spend here, then you and I just disagree. No, I don't have to blog, but comic book artists don't have to draw, either. I enjoy blogging and I want to be compensated for it, and there's nothing wrong with that, no matter how you look at it.

And, just for the record, I don't take just any offer, no matter how badly I need the money. I had one for Aruba the other day and, even though I desperately need the money thanks to that asshole who stole from me, I could not, in good conscience, place an ad for Aruba. Aruba collectively covered-up a crime and there is no question (in my mind) as to that. In fact, I feel that more and more people have since become complicit to this crime for the furtherance of international tourism, and I will not be party to that. Technically, I could always say that nothing's been proven yet, so I had no idea and so on and so forth, but I could not, in good conscience, use such an excuse because I don't believe it and I'm simply unwilling to compromise myself on that point for any price. And just to appeal to the cynics who may dismiss that, it's not like I personally benefit from international tourism and trade, so what do I care? Their inexcusable actions (or lack thereof) are what got them "in Dutch" (ha!) and not only do I agree with the boycott of their little rape-fantasy island, I have no incentive to lessen the blow (that pun unintended).

Besides that, the non-advertisement posts are worth the price of admission and I doubt anyone who disagrees with that is reading this anyway. And like I've said before, placing an ad for a company on the blog is no different from placing a little "Please Donate!" button along the side.