I was in conversation with a person that blogs on Facebook. When I said I write on my own website, she was endlessly baffled as to how I have readers. I Explained my RSS fee gets submitted to directories, and people share my stuff in forums and indie social media and she just could not comprehend it. Since my audience is not a built in audience with an algorithm, she doesn't understand how I can maintain an audience. She kept asking me, if there's no algorithm, how do people find out about you and keep up with what you do? I explained that I have a mailing list for the folks that don't use RSS. She asked me how I monetize my content. I said, for the things that's on my website, I don't aggressively monetize it. I ask for donations if people like it. But your work is open for everybody to read it? She asked.

I explained that the reason why I keep my work open access is so that everybody that's in non-privileged countries could access it and read my stuff.

I'm sorely convinced that the Internet has ruined itself.

#IndieWeb #Blogging