What's It Worth To Me?

 I will be honest with you: If Blogger, or its cybermom Google ever gets it into their collective heads to charge me for this platform, you might not see me much longer. My daily musings, that is. There is something profoundly ratifying about having a little corner of Al Gore's Internet where I can pontificate and expound on this and that. Recollect, reconnect, respond and relate. It's all free.

With the possible exception of the time it takes me to sit in front of the keyboard and bang one of these bad boys out each day. And you, dear reader, your time is worth something to me as well. That's why I try to make each heapin' helpin' of my online hospitality a thrill ride you won't forget until you read something else. 

I am still quietly impressed by the fact that this little slice of heaven does not require you to read pop up ads or wade through a myriad of hoops and background checks just to find out what Dave has on his mind. I should point out that there is the tiniest bit of intent in that. When I signed up for the dubious honor of having a blog here, I was asked if I wanted to "monetize" my page. I said thank you, no. 

And that was it. Going on eighteen years, I have had my way with this space without paying a nickel for the privilege. I'm sure that there is some algorithm somewhere that suggests how the clicks that got you all here helps drive traffic to other more lucrative corners of the web. There's got to be a catch, right?

Which is why I continue to watch anxiously as Elon "Gate" Musk continues to mine ways to make his forty-four billion dollar investment in Twitter pay off. For just eight dollars a month, the man with the exploding cars and space rocket wants to sell you a blue check mark that will live next to your name to show that you are both "verified" and "gullible." I suppose he has to find a way to keep making new cars and rockets to blow up. 

Don't get me wrong, if any of you out there reading this would like to throw eight bucks a month at me for the unique opportunity I am offering here at Entropical Paradise, I would not turn it down. But I have way too much integrity to keep it. I would reroute it to a local animal shelter or the World Food Program. It's no blue check mark, but I promise to keep fighting the good, free fight until the bill comes due.