In light of recent events in the internet and tech business, I’ve been doing some serious thinking about the future of my sites. Many mistakes have been made, and I do my best to try to learn from others’ and not make too many of my own.
So I’ve given some thought to the balance between entrepreneurship and service to my community. As some of you know who’ve been reading me for awhile, I don’t politically commit to either western pole of socioeconomic utopianism. I don’t consider myself either a hard capitalist or socialist, conservative or liberal, neither do I see myself as “centrist”. Middle of the road is a bad place to be when the path still leads nowhere one would want to be.
I am an ubuntu-ist, meaning a realist about humanity and human nature, and the fact that, as the Kongo say, no one births themselves or buries themselves. Humans need each other to survive and harmony is a necessity, not an option. If we don’t learn to get along, we will all die. We need to make sure everyone who isn’t hostile is fed, housed, clothed, and able to build a life within their truth.
Misogyny, racism, homophobia, and religious extremism are not just hateful, but stupid. They are wastes of energy and resources that politicians use to distract people from holding them accountable. They give haters an illusion of superiority and proxy power, and a sense of belonging to a group that is going nowhere but alienation and extinction.
So I see these wealthy people who have all the material things a person could ever want, falling into these traps because they feel personally powerless and must latch onto fascists to feel worthy. It’s sad and pathetic. I don’t want to ever be that. I don’t even want to be at risk of becoming like that.
I took a look at my business plan, and though no such risks appeared, it did get me started in handling some of the minute details. I am not interested in wasting my time or yours out there. I curate content. Occasionally I create some. Most of what I curate and create is of no interest whatsoever to “white” American men. Even if I had some hope of attracting that attention and therefore the money they hoard (supposedly 85% of the total wealth of the U.S. is just in their hands) I have no desire to do so.
I don’t even live in the U.S. or want to. I’m in Israel. My government relies heavily on the U.S. for way too many things, and most of the americanization that happens as a result is either a nuisance or a danger to me. So I am here for the rest of the world, and the sectors of the U.S. who are aware that there is a world that is mostly not “white” people, and even those who would make the American “race” cut to qualify, don’t usually think like them.
I’ve noticed y’all aren’t very into building websites. I get that. It’s a chore. I also get that paying someone else to do it is expensive and out of reach for a lot of people. I can’t compete with larger companies who can hire people and underpay them, or lie to people that it’s easy and before they figure out it’s not they’ve already got their money. I am going to be more expensive than Wix or Squarespace. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against them. If you feel they are worth it for you, then go for it. Just understand building a site and getting it seen are different things. It’s not my or other independent webmasters’ fault that the big companies don’t deliver on their promises to small business.
So I’m in this situation, out here, succeeding in getting seen and getting those I curate seen. A few friends and associates have benefited from what I do. I’d like there to be more. So I have to ask how can I help you and what are you willing to pay me to do it?
I am braced for the fact the answer to that may be nothing and nothing. I can deal. So for the meantime I’m going to do what I do and make that make a living regardless.
The membership option has been discontinued because there are only 24 hours in a day and I was spending way too many of them trying to make membership here more attractive than microblogging and social media posting. I can’t. It will take people some time to realize that you have to pay them or be extremely lucky to gain any visibility, and posting your content in them is voluntary obscurity.
I can’t convince you that for the same amount of effort posting on your own site, you can get a thousand hits on the few likes you get buried underneath someone else’s ads. You have to experience that to understand it.
I can wait.
Until then, this will just be a cool entertaining site bringing you awesome videos.
If you don’t want to wait those years, you can hire me to build your site. I’m also an African spiritualist, so you can get a reading if you need.
I’m here. Maybe not in the way I’d hoped when I was imagining a larger group of Africans breaking the algorithm, but I’m here. I am here for you, not who I hope you will be or for what I may have hoped you would do. I love you.
Ashé!
