Buy Your Own Coffee

Based upon my obser­va­tions and expe­ri­ences, I would say that there are three basic types of bloggers:

• The Pro­fes­sion­als These folks claim to earn their daily bread solely via blog­ging and expend a lot of effort study­ing and writ­ing about “SEO,” niches, mar­ket­ing research, ana­lyt­ics and all sorts of other con­cepts I nei­ther under­stand nor want to under­stand. The also write exten­sively about how to blog, attract and keep read­ers, etc.
• The Dab­blers In this group I include all those blog­gers who do not claim to sus­tain them­selves finan­cially solely with their blog­ging efforts. Rather, they sup­ple­ment their incomes with some adver­tis­ing or paid con­tent that is inte­grated into an oth­er­wise per­sonal site.
• The Fun Seek­ers The vast major­ity of blog­gers are, like me, folks who just want to have fun. Blog­ging is not a money-making propo­si­tion but, rather, just an enjoy­able hobby, espe­cially for peo­ple like me who do a lot of pro­fes­sional writ­ing but want a plat­form where we can write cre­atively and dab­ble in other genres.

So could some­one please explain the alarm­ing pro­lif­er­a­tion of blurbs like “If you enjoyed this post, why don’t you buy me a cup of cof­fee?” or “How about buy­ing [Blogger’s name] a Star­bucks?” on strictly per­sonal sites where no ser­vices are pro­vided, no advice ren­dered and no goods sold? One cou­ple asks read­ers to donate to their build­ing fund — they are attempt­ing to move from a trailer to a custom-built home.

I’m not refer­ring to sites oper­ated by “techies” who pro­vide invalu­able blog­ging tips, guid­ance, plu­g­ins or hacks in exchange for which a Pay­Pal link is pro­vided for the con­ve­nience of read­ers who found the infor­ma­tion par­tic­u­larly help­ful and wish to make a “dona­tion.” Frankly, I don’t mind mak­ing a mod­est con­tri­bu­tion when com­puter indus­try pro­fes­sion­als or stu­dents pro­vide me with free advice or soft­ware. After all, I don’t, for the most part, pro­vide legal ser­vices free of charge. Fair is fair.

On the con­trary, in the past week alone, I have vis­ited at least ten purely per­sonal sites where the own­ers have opted to extend the cyber equiv­a­lent of a Dick­en­son­ian tin beggar’s cup to their readers.

Some blog­gers worry that trans­form­ing their blog into a semi–com­mer­cial ven­ture might “cheapen” it and alien­ate some read­ers. If their fears are well-founded, what can be said about this new phenomenon?

I will be very curi­ous to read your feedback.

For me, the answer is very sim­ple and straight­for­ward. When I dis­cov­ered the new cam­paign launched by the blog­gers in ques­tion, I was repulsed and, after click­ing upon the ver­biage or graphic in ques­tion to con­firm that it was indeed a link to Pay­Pal, closed the browser win­dow. I will nei­ther visit nor link to those sites in the future.

Why?

For one thing, I know noth­ing of those blogger’s per­sonal cir­cum­stances, i.e., whether or not they need finan­cial assis­tance. Sec­ondly, they have not pro­vided me with any goods or ser­vices. There­fore, they have not earned my busi­ness. In con­trast, I worked my way through under­grad­u­ate and law school, and work hard to sup­port myself and my fam­ily. I give reg­u­larly to deserv­ing, rep­utable char­i­ties. The blogs I am refer­ring to do not meet the criteria.

Most impor­tantly, the blog­gers in ques­tion have done exactly what some fear: They have cheap­ened them­selves in my eyes. I can­not imag­ine just walk­ing up to a stranger in the street, hold­ing out my hand and ask­ing for money. But that is what is tak­ing place on those sites. It is offen­sive con­duct and I will nei­ther con­done nor be part of it.

So to the blog­gers in ques­tion, here is my response to your plea: “Buy your own coffee.”

Tech­no­rati Tags: Col­lo­quium on Writ­ing, Ezine Arti­cles Expert

On the Same Topic:

• Does Blog­ging Make You a Bet­ter Writer?
• The Value of a Diary
• When Did You Know You Were a Writer?
• Con­nected Lives (Part Six)
• Con­nected Lives (Part Five)