Those who have spoken up over the past…oh, however long it’s been…about the “dangers of do-follow” are focused on the evils of spam and the increased maintenance side of things. Yes, if you’re going to manually monitor and approve blog comments (as I still do), it adds a bit of time to your daily routine. But I think this perspective is missing the point. Blogs are about self-expression, yes…but they are also about community. For me, if you don’t want community on your blog…TURN OFF THE COMMENT FUNCTION and just use it as a newsletter.
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Despite their slowness to adopt new technologies and business models in the internet age, I’ve still found myself mostly on the side of the record companies when it comes to the file-sharing debacle. The grounds for my position have been both legal and moral: Legally, the record companies own the rights to music that is created, produced and publicized as a result of their investment (no one forced artists to sign with record companies, and if you go that route, then they control your music for the most part)…and morally, because it’s wrong to steal. And file sharing is theft…no matter what fancy semantics or logic you attempt to employ to argue otherwise. And besides, I would argue: the record companies are getting better. Just look at iTunes, Amazon, Walmart…for 88 cents to $1.29, you can buy a decent copy of virtually any song…and that’s a lot better than the way things used to be.
I guess I’m writing this point for one good reason: I just want to make sure it’s written down somewhere, so that I don’t have to keep repeating myself (because I will, and that gets old for me and for you). It’s easier to just refer folks to a single spot if they want to read more.
For me, this whole “make money online” thing is growing a bit old. I think that’s mostly due to the same reason that most music and TV bore me these days: People are so busy reinventing the wheel that we only rarely see anything new, much less anything new that’s worth seeing. I have a degree of respect for the scrappy, creative thinkers who not only think outside the lines, but invest the energy to study what they’re doing and pass along some of the results (i.e., Shoemoney and John Chow), but even moreso for those who seem to have made it their mission to instill some ethics and conscience in an industry that’s sorely lacking (i.e., Darren Rowse, Rand Fishkin, John Reese).
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