Finally Selling Out

I’m finally monetizing this place! Sorta. Actually, I’m hooking up all my amazon links to their associate program, and any money I make from that I’m donating to charity(less the taxes I have to pay on that income-I’m not even looking into 501c3 stuff because that seems like wayyyy to much work). 

Also I plan to keep paying for hosting myself, I won’t be using any of the affiliate income for that. Right now it costs a couple hundred bucks a year to run this blog. I write here because I enjoy it, and I keep learning from people who I get to interact with. So yeah, I’m cool with paying for something I enjoy. Plus I’m like FI or whatever, and I have no desire to turn something I like into a job. That said, I did not get to FI by being a complete idiot with money. On the extremely off chance that this place starts to drive in so much traffic that I have to pay more for hosting, then I’ll either monetize this place to offset the cost, or I’ll just shut it down. 

Why now? I really enjoyed working on Mental Health & FI talk, and the accompanying Mental Health Resources guide. Made me realize I’d like to devote at least a little bit of my energy to making the world suck less.

Story time: 

Over the years I’ve probably downloaded a few dozen free e-books covering a variety of topics. Some have been worthless, and just a blatant play to suck you down their marketing funnel. Many have actually been helpful, and the attempt to monetize was at least upfront and classy. When I was working on the Resource guide with some other totally awesome people who wish to remain anonymous(BTW, if you find anything of value to the Resource Guide, it is totally due to their efforts), I realized we had compiled like 30 links for books on amazon on something that had essentially turned into a small e-book. I laughed as I realized we had accidentally made an e-book, and now had all these links that most would turn into an affiliate marketing play. 

But that thought kind of caught me. I like learning new stuff and messing with things on the internet, since way back when I learned to write HTML before I could drive. Plus this affiliate marketing thing has intrigued me since that Doug Cunnigton guy talked about it on Mile High FI. A lot of it seems spammy and gross, but done well it seems like a cool win-win business model.  Done right it helps people sift through the overwhelming amount of crap out there to find what they’re really looking for. 

When it comes to books, I think the library is always the best option. But sometimes they don’t have a book in their catalog. And it’s not like this associate thing from Amazon charges you more money to buy stuff. If you click on the normal link to buy stuff and not go through an associate’s link, Amazon just gets to keep more money. I figured why the hell not sign up for their program, and then chuck that money at some charity?

I’m hoping the talk and accompanying resource guide will help some people. I will be extremely surprised if this affiliate thing makes more than $3.50 this year, but what the hell, better than nothing. While I’m at it, I’ll go ahead and convert all the other links on this site to this Amazon associate thing. Maybe make an extra buck for starving kids in Africa or whatever. 

That’s pretty much that. Selling out, sorta.

Oh yeah, what charity you ask?

Wheww..we could go off the deep end there (and in rereading this, I once again did). A while back I read all the stuff surrounding Effective Altruism. I’ve interacted with quite a few non-profits over the years (holy shit. I just thought back to all of my non-profit experience; in one way or another I’ve been unintentionally immersed in that world since I was like 10. Ooodles of random volunteering, some advising to boards. My Master’s thesis was an impact analysis of a multi-million dollar endowment, evaluating the dozens of different non-profits it had funded. I have never considered myself a do-gooder, all these interactions were just the most efficient way for my lazy ass to get something done. Never really thought I had any expertise when it comes to non-profits, but looking back……I guess I do?) .

Man, that was a long parenthetical run-on. Anyways.

So in all of that experience (???!!!?) I’ve seen a few really good non-profits that do what they say and have an impact. I’ve seen some which are essentially tax-shelters for someone’s hobby, and even more that mean well but are either ineffective or contributing to the chaos. I’ve also dealt with a few that were borderline money-laundering schemes. Almost makes me want to throw up my hands and say “fuck it”. But, you know, whatever. Gotta at least try. 

The Effective Altruism (EA) world doesn’t seem perfect either. You remember that one Star Trek DS9 where Bashir gets with a bunch of other genetically enhanced geniuses and all these super smart people come up with a stupid plan where the Federation should surrender to the Dominion? Them EA peoples kinda remind me of that quirky genius pod; mostly good, occasionally stupid.

Despite their issues, in my very rudimentary understanding, they seem to have the right idea. So instead of falling into another paralysis by analysis, I’ll contribute whatever money comes from this place(less taxes) to the GiveWell’s top charities fund. 

Jeez, that sure was a lot of writing about what will probably be less money donated than I spend on coffee in a week. But it was a fun journey, was it not?

So yeah, that’s that.