This is not free

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Right. I’ve had it with you lot, it’s all take take take. Time to pay. £1 each will do. Leave it at the door as you leave. Thanks.

I am, of course, joking.

I know you lot are too tight to pay anything, don’t worry, I wouldn’t either.

But the thing is that I DO get paid for this blog. Not (just) via the adverts either. I get paid in the richness and kindess of your comments and emails, by the fact that I’ve been lucky enough to meet many of you and the startling revelation that you are all really nice in person too!

I only mention all of this to frame my next statement.

The internet, and the social networking aspects of it are not there to be leveraged. They are there to be participated in, and if you don’t choose to join in then, quite simply, you shouldn’t be surprised when you don’t get any benefits and you will continue to remain one of those people who don’t “get it”.

I could go on but I think that covers things broadly enough.

Why am I mentioning this now?

Because over the past 2 weeks I’ve received 3 separate requests for me to advertise something on this blog. No offer of payment just the presumption that I’ll happily promote their latest product for them, help gather ideas or content or photos for their book and so on.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like 2009 at all. Don’t they get it yet??

Comments

  2. “For me to advertising something on this blog”?

    Are you outsourcing your blogposts to an agency in India or somewhere?

  4. Dammit! graybo I predicted that comment and didn’t say so now it seems like I’m just making it up but I really really did!

    And Lyle – yeah I need to get paid to hire an editor or at the very least a proof reader.

    And, no, they don’t, do they.

    P.S. Lyle – gravatar much? 😉

  6. Oh, that makes me angry. To be honest, I haven’t actually been asked to advertise anything of a commercial nature. English Touring Opera did offer me free tickets, which was smart, but the dates weren’t convenient.

    My particular bugbear is people who think that because I waste a bit of my leisure time writing a bit of rubbish that somehow I am willing to travel to, say, Birmingham to participate in a TV programme and when I ask how much they’ll pay me, they get all flustered and explain it’s just train fare and lunch money.Maybe some people are flattered that it’s telly, but me, I believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

  7. ” if you don’t choose to join in then, quite simply, you shouldn’t be surprised when you don’t get any benefits and you will continue to remain one of those people who don’t “get it”.”

    As you mention it, what *are* the benefits?

    I really struggle to find any, but I would like to know.

    Just in case it’s more interesting than interacting with real local people, and doing real things 😉

  8. Well that’s the thing BW, the benefits are different for everyone. I learn a lot about myself and a huge variety of other things, and I’ve gotten to meet some lovely people.

    Anna’s recently article touches on some of the benefits as well.

    But, ultimately, what I get from this hobby, and what you get are always going to be different.

  9. I can just about keep up with the few blogs I read (which is probably a tiny fraction of what most people read) – if I had Twitter, Facebook et all to contend with too I’d never do anything but sit at a computer.

    I was talking to a girl today who got her first laptop last month. She told me that she gets in from work (picking orders for T£$co home shopping) at 1.30am every night, and had to go and see her GP yesterday because she was too tired to function because Facebook keeps her up until 6am every day. The GP gave her sleeping tablets and Prozac. That’s a life?

  11. BW – so you get out what you want from it. Like most of us have found, there is a balance. Or, you know, the off switch.

    And the comments thingy is based on your email address. You can get your own Blue Thingy but signing up to gravatar.com but I’m guessing you probably won’t! 😉

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