One of the interesting side-effects of writing a blog on the internet for over 16 years now is the responses and follow up questions after these posts go out. The vast majority of these stay as email exchanges. Today, however, I thought I’d write about two responses to the post from day before yesterday on what I loved about HP’s Instant Ink subscription.
One shared that it felt like an ad. Another asked if I was becoming a product shill.
The answer is no.
But, in the spirit of “write what you repeat,” I thought I’d take the opportunity to lay out how I approach writing here.
(1) This blog has a simple “no ads” policy. I don’t monetize anything or plan to. It is pure cost – an investment if you will. The primary “cost” of this investment is time. The secondary costs are those that go to WordPress (domain/hosting) and Feedblitz (emails).
And the return on that investment is simply the joy of getting to keep this blog going.
The best part about this “bright line” rule is that there are no *asterisks or conditions that apply. No sponsored anything.
(2) I also don’t do guest posts. I share posts I love from the internet from time to time – typically with full credit to the author. But I’ve never done a guest post where I work with an author to post something here. Again, never have and don’t plan to.
(3) The reason I’m able to enforce (1) and (2) is because of an idea I describe as “writing for yourself” vs. “writing for others.” When you do the former, you can simply focus on the upside that matters to you. In my case, it is teaching myself to pause everyday to write about something about I’ve observed, learnt, or been inspired by.
I don’t write every day to grow subscriptions – I barely know what my numbers are and don’t promote these posts elsewhere either. I did this for a while in the early years but soon realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do. It is also why you don’t see any reminders to forward or subscribe.
I spend enough time optimizing metrics at work. This is a pure joy and learning zone. I show up every day, write, and go back to living my life. I’ve come to appreciate that meaningful outcomes in life are best when they ensue vs. when they’re pursued. As a result, I’m left with gratitude for you/ the community of folks who’ve been on this journey – many for over a decade.
(4) I do write about all kinds of products and businesses I love. This happens from time to time. If I had to guess my frequency, it would perhaps be one every month on average. In the past couple months, I wrote about Instant Ink, Schwab, Perplexity, and Designer Discount Club. These are the ones that come to mind at this moment at least… and there have been many more over the years.
Sometimes, I write because I’ve learnt something from how they operate. Sometimes, it is just because it has given me joy. But perhaps most of all, it is because I build technology products for a living. And I’m fascinated by great product/service experiences.
All that said, I’ll close with a thank you as always for your feedback and notes on these posts – especially those that inspire follow ups like this.
