Re: No, I Won't Buy You A Coffee
1 min read
Well, not to be left out of the great buy me a coffee debate, I thought I'd add my two cents.
The original, at HakkerBlog, No, I Won't Buy You A Coffee, is a pretty cynical take on the topic of asking for contributions. I hardly think that someone posting their buy me a coffee link on their blog qualifies as "rampant capitalization". That's silly.
Gordon posted a response, Yes, buy me a coffee which takes the other position.
The Buy Me a Coffee links in general feel a bit like a throw back these days. It's something I'd see a lot 10 years ago when everyone was trying to do the 'grow your audience' thing. I think I've only ever sent a coffee once or twice myself.
Today the links feel a bit archaic to me and slightly off putting but I'm not offended nor discouraged from coming back to the site. I don't include them on my own site because I just don't care about any of that. My writing isn't going to make any money so I'd rather just use that real estate on the page for something else or nothing!
As The Dude might say, that's just, like, my opinion, man. What's yours?
G
Surely for the Dude reference, I'll buy you a co... White Russian!
Wojtek Powiertowski via Mastodon
@michaelharley I find my reaction to it intriguing. On blogs, I perceive it as unnecessary (but harmless), yet simultaneously find it useful within free/opensource applications (provided the app doesn’t nag about it) or in YouTube-like channels. I’m curious about the reason behind this dichotomy in my thought process. It likely stems from the old web era when every page was free. However, I often use those features within apps to support the developers, especially OSS apps
gowron89
The original author you mention is wrong for all possible reasons. Whilst I agree that "help to keep the lights on" is emotional blackmail (in my own wording). I blog and publish all my stuff free as in freedom with FSF approved licenses for one reason: I only write for myself.
My Github repos are "Operations Research" aka how did I get there with my projects, what pitfalls did I resolve. It's a how-to written from a less knowledgable me for a future me that wants to re-try something or re-visit a subject or project.
Thus I can re-factor code and get better and always leave myself starting points. Outdated information is marked as obsoleted but not removed, in case it becomes important again due to regressions.
Edit:
For some reason I thought I can literally reply via email, like a mastodon bridge.