While organising a collection of old bookmarks today I ran across a folder labelled “Business Online.” I seriously doubt I’d have called it that, so I presume I lifted them from another source. Anyhow they were largely links about blogging and a couple about affiliate marketing. Frankly I’ve always thought this was a somewhat sketchy area. What interests me about it thought is it’s the one area where the internet hasn’t disintermediated, quite the opposite in fact. A classic example of that was a page I read advocated the idea that you could buy ad’s on Yahoo and point those ads using an affiliate code to the vendor’s site. This is a good example of where I’d be uncomfortable operating because essentially you’re competing with the company who you’re affiliated to, assuming they are running ad’s of their own which seems pretty likely.
I suppose I just don’t like the idea of making money for myself without adding any value, yet there seems a goodly proportion of the internet that seem happy with that as a business model. Doubtless someone who doesn’t know me might choose to interpret that as some kind of sour grapes on my part, but you’d be wrong; it’s more that I genuinely don’t understand how you’d be comfortable making money in that way, but I certainly don’t project my ethics on anyone else and frankly how you make your money (assuming it is legal) is really up to you.
Actually in reference to my comment about adding value I wish I could accurately measure “internet value” because to quantify is to comprehend at least to some degree. Quite a few years have passed since I watched the last “gravy train” from a distance and scoffed at the stupidity of it all and how it would soon be derailed. On the one hand I was proved comprehensively correct; it did indeed come to a grinding halt, but unlike many others I chose not to make money off it while the party lasted. That was ten years ago, and I find myself wondering if knowing what I do now, would I treat such an opportunity any differently?
Honestly, I suspect not. Whether that is ethics getting in the way of money, or cowardice before cash I really don’t know.