{"id":17405,"date":"2015-09-26T08:23:34","date_gmt":"2015-09-26T15:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=17405"},"modified":"2015-09-26T09:46:03","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T16:46:03","slug":"for-purity-in-blogging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=17405","title":{"rendered":"For Purity in Blogging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/681\/21731126775_b7585fa536_m.jpg\" alt=\"one weird trick\" width=\"240\" height=\"198\" \/><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>I&#8217;m having a hard time relating to, or even understanding, this: a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2015\/sep\/23\/heather-armstrong-leaving-dooce-mommy-blog-advertisers?CMP=fb_us\" target=\"_blank\">popular blogger throwing in the towel<\/a> because advertisers were taking over.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of a sponsored blog is alien to me. A blogger is an individual with something to say and the\u00a0time and energy to set up a domain and website, right? True, some bloggers\u00a0put ads in their sidebars, looking to earn a few pennies from readers who click through, but many resist the temptation and don&#8217;t have ads at all.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, over time\u00a0this woman&#8217;s\u00a0super-popular blog became dominated by a\u00a0corporate sponsor, to the point where the sponsor was telling\u00a0her what to write. Somewhere back along the line, though, she&#8217;s the one who invited that sponsor on board. She made a bargain with the devil and &#8230; well, we all know how <em>that<\/em> story ends.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite blogs are the ones with no ads. No ads doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean those blogs\u00a0just got started and have only a few readers; some ad-free blogs have been around since the blogosphere&#8217;s big bang and have legions of loyal readers:\u00a0Digby&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/digbysblog.blogspot.com\" target=\"_blank\">Hullabaloo<\/a>, for example; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unfogged.com\" target=\"_blank\">Unfogged<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/mimismartypants.com\" target=\"_blank\">Mimi Smartypants<\/a>\u00a0&#8230; I could name dozens off the top of my head.<\/p>\n<p>Not that my blogs are in that league, but I don&#8217;t have ads either.\u00a0I&#8217;ve been blogging for more than a decade now and have never been tempted. I bear\u00a0the cost of putting what I write\u00a0online, but it&#8217;s a small cost. I may not\u00a0have legions\u00a0of readers, but I have some, and once in a while they\u00a0tell me they like what I write (and\u00a0when they don&#8217;t, too).<\/p>\n<p>I blog because it makes me happy. Isn&#8217;t that enough?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m having a hard time relating to, or even understanding, this: a popular blogger throwing in the towel because advertisers were taking over. The idea of a sponsored blog is alien to me. A blogger is an individual with something to say and the\u00a0time and energy to set up a domain and website, right? True, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-a-series-of-tubes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17405"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17414,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405\/revisions\/17414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}