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!)