Pay for what you believe in

Like I mentioned before, when I planned to start blogging again I seriously considered going the route of a self-hosted WordPress website. Nothing against WordPress, but I decided to not start there. Instead, through a bit of a rabbit hole, I discovered micro.blog…which is doing things a bit differently.

Back when Twitter started, and everyone was trying to figure out how they could make money, I always said that they should just charge me/users monthly or yearly to use the service. I enjoyed the platform, enjoyed the community of people I met, and wanted to see it remain the way it started: community first.

I believed then, and I believe now, that if we want to see something or someone succeed/last money is required. Nothing is free. Money is being made somewhere and I’d prefer to keep the relationship simple: I pay you, you provide a service/product. Period. End of discussion. Nothing murky about it.

And so, after a 7-day trial of using micro.blog, I am happy to begin spending $10 each month to publish on the platform. $10 provides them with what is needed to support my site each month (I hope!) and it provides me with a simple yet flexible/powerful site that I can use to publish and own both short-form and long-form posts, including photos, videos, and even a micro-podcast if I choose.

Plus the community here is awesome. Just seven days in I already see the value in this community, and the quality people it attracts. I am happy and excited to be here and to contribute whatever I can to keep micro.blog going strong. I am also excited to be publishing again :-)

Aaron Aiken @aa