I'll Happily Pay To Keep This Place Ad Free

Rereading this, I realized I got a little worked up here. Hopefully the tone doesn't come off too weird. Just got all fired up about something, made an important decision, and decided to force myself to share it and hold myself to it.

I was listening to a podcast today at work (The WAN Show), and they were talking about how the ad supported online world works. The main host, Linus, said what needed to be said: people got used to everything being free online, got spoiled, and then got upset when companies had to push ads really hard to pay the bills and support people having free stuff on the internet. Upsetting, of course, but absolutely true. It's a fact of doing business online. The vast majority of stuff is paid for by ads because the business model is either unsustainable or built around ad revenue. Either way, you get ads. Even newspapers, which were paid for, would have ads in them. The newspaper owners charged people to put ads in the newspapers. I suspect that was more profitable than the price of the paper.

That all said, I hate ads. I hate them so very much. They've taken over the entire world, with some companies even trying to put satellites into space to show ads in the sky...I wish I were joking. If I weren't working, I'd go track down all of the sources for such nonsense and just slap a ton of proof into this post. I've got to make it quick though.

This site is my playground and online test bed. It's just a place to learn how to run a business and share useful stuff. My plan is to pay for this site, out of pocket, forever, if needed. I pay $40 a month right now, and that will go way up if I ever manage to get some cool stuff for sale and need to scale up. I could put ads all over the blog, or run another blog and try to monetize it, but that seems pretty crappy to me. I know it's basically impossible to make money on a blog without tons of SEO (search engine optimization), click bait titles, intrusive ads, bugging people for donations, pay walls, and crappy practices, like making a blog post multiple pages so that people are forced to go to another page with more ads. I know the game and refuse to play it. You're welcome, assuming you find anything of value here. And yes, I will absolutely promote this blog in certain places, but I won't pay to have it rammed down peoples' damn throats. We all get enough of that nonsense. 

The goal of this blog is to hopefully help people not make the crippling life mistakes I did, spread some joy, report on some useful news, post reviews and make informed recommendations, and generally be helpful, like the websites of the old internet. No ads, no nonsense. Just me giving back to the world that helped me limp along through life. I'm sitting on a ton of really obscure knowledge, experience, and life lessons. I don't have many people to share them with in my personal life, and if I don't get them out, they die with me. I'm also in a unique position in life, since I don't actually really have to answer to anyone. I've got life and wilderness survival skills, all season survival gear, ebikes and strong legs, and the confidence to tell anyone to piss off, if needed. There isn't really anyone forcing me to do anything. I can say and do whatever I want, and decide if I'm willing and capable of paying the consequences. In almost all cases, I can. It's uncomfortable, but survivable and teaches valuable lessons.

If I test something and it turns out to be a piece of crap, I'll happily say so. If someone were to send me something that turned out to be crap, I'd report that as well. If they tried to force me to give a fake good review, I'd call them out, publicly, and show any conversations I legally could. I'm also very hesitant to ever sign legal agreements, so I can't be sued into oblivion for speaking out against asshat behaviour. I'm tired of being screwed over, and tired of watching others win at life by screwing others over.

Well that was a rant...Sorry. Been a weird day so far. With all that said, I can always go sell some of my own plasma, for around $45 a visit, which will pay for this site. I also work. I find side work. I'll foot the bill to keep this stuff up and running and actually free. And no, I don't track and sell user data. I don't know how, and I think it's creepy and gross. Pathetic. Just charge for your work and take pride in it. People take the easy way out, almost every single time. Very predictable.

In the works, I got reviews on an unlikely ebike build that's survived over 6,000 miles of straight up abuse as a car replacement, a dirt cheap ebike that replaced a car, a $4,000 laptop that sets the stage for how tech and business should be, a rugged computer system that could help make modern computing super affordable for most people, a custom cinema camera for making my future YouTube videos, some deep thoughts on human psychology, some interesting travels, and a bunch of behind the scenes stuff required to start a business and build the life I truly want to live. I'm planning a move to Illinois, an adventure vacation to California, ebike life in the desert, and eventually a trip to Africa on a very special safari to help heal the crippling trauma I've accumulated over the years. I'm going to be very busy, working on cool stuff I find I portant or just fun.

I was amazed to see a few email subscribers recently, after only posting a few blogs here. That was a pleasant surprise. Best not to let them down. I've got a ton of written work coming up, but am also trying to get video versions up as well. Stay tuned for some interesting life experiments from someone full of endless weird ideas, and the freedom to take big life risks and see what happens. Enjoy and wish me luck.

Dustin