A small social experiment

I have never had a Facebook account, partly because I object to their cavalier attitude towards their users’ privacy, partly because I do not like to put up significant content anywhere on the Internet unless I retain ownership of it – which you don’t, on Facebook. I was not surprised, but rather was grimly confirmed in my expectations, when I read about FB’s decision to impose fees for any and all posts that might be deemed ‘commercial’ – including, to take a not at all random example, any post by an author announcing that he has a new book out.

There is a very old rule in the writing game: ‘Money flows towards the author.’ If no money changes hands, of course, the author should be expecting a fat percentage of nothing. If someone is making money off of a writer’s or artist’s work, then the writer or artist ought to be receiving a cut, unless he chooses to waive payment. To post on Facebook is to waive payment, per their terms and conditions; and not to waive payment for some prescribed purpose or period of time, but for all purposes and for ever. So it is a good thing, for us mercenary inkslingers, to have alternatives that allow us to retain ownership of our own work.

This blog is one such alternative. Another, possibly, is Tsū, which professes to pay 90 percent of its advertising revenue to the members who post content there, divided up by a somewhat byzantine algorithm that owes something to multi-level marketing businesses. No matter; the money, what there is of it, is flowing in the right direction. I signed up for an account this afternoon and began to look around. So far I am regarding the place as an interesting curiosity, but we shall see if anything more comes of it.

If any of my 3.6 Loyal Readers have any experience with Tsū, I would be more than happy to hear about it.

Meanwhile, you can find my Tsū page, such as it is, here:

https://www.tsu.co/tomsimon

And if you should want to sign up for Tsū yourself, you can do it from that link; which would be peachy, for it may eventually put pennies in my pocket. (Thanks to Nancy Lebovitz for being the first!)

Comments

  1. I opened the URL, and all your images were blurry (but not the site header, which means it’s deliberate). So I enabled scripts… and the site put a modal sign up box in my face. Modal. As in, I can’t see your page or navigate anywhere else on Tsū unless I sign up.

    So much for using that page to actually, you know, market to anyone not on the service.

    • Yes, that’s not only a drawback but a stupid way of doing things. (But I have the same problem viewing people’s Facebook pages, so it’s not unique to Tsū.)

      What this means, in practical terms, is that Tsū (if I do end up using it at all) will just be a place where I can propagate little news bulletins and promotions to drive people to this site (and to my books). Unlike FB, I shall be able to do this (for what it may be worth) without paying a fee, and I may even earn a nickel or two somewhere along the line. So I’m willing to give it a bit of a try.

  2. I followed you here from The Passive Voice discussion of ADD/ADHD and creativity. I was amused to find that you’ve earned the grand sum of one cent on Tsu. It seems that we’re both on our way to getting rich sometime during this century.

    • Thanks for coming by!

      I should report, for the sake of completeness, that things are looking even better on Tsū now. I have now got colossal wealth in my account, to the amount of (drum roll, please) three cents!

      This, I think, is what is called ‘riches beneath the dreams of avarice’.

Speak Your Mind

*