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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being a useful resource doesn't have to be miserable though, especially if your role is more akin to a chainsaw or rocket engine than a stapler.
there are thousands of chainsaws and rocket engines ready to take your place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for posting those, they're really insightful I think the whole premise of relying solely on Amazon Affiliate links might be the weakest link of the chain > I received applications from over 30 writers, did paid trials with about 10 of them, and never managed to bring costs below $46 per article. There certainly are writers who work for $15 per article, but they churned out barely-intelligible garbage Yup
There was a comment here few weeks ago, from someone in Africa. They are making 6000 a month from a quiz site, of all things. The most important thing in that comment is - for the first two years, the site made no money. Then one of their quizzes went viral. Maybe this person gave up too soon? The keto site looks good and is useful, maybe if it sticks with it, it might make decent profit?
Each article is costing him $50 or so.
So that article has to convert 200 times before it breaks even. Assuming 1% conversion, which is very optimistic, you would need 20,000 visitors to that page.
Ignoring the costs, 200k visits a month would turn $500. 2M would turn 5k.
It's pretty easy to see this isn't going to pay the bills. He didn't seem to do the math.
It appears it isn't going terribly well so far: https://mtlynch.io/keep-growing-never-profit/ https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-1/ But, he doesn't seem discouraged. I'm guessing whatever equity he had means he has a fair amount of time to figure it out.
“People have asked me if I’m still happy with my decision to quit and start my own company. The answer is definitely yes.
As someone who has always valued independence, I love being a solo developer. It makes a world of difference to wake up whenever I want and make my own choices about how to spend my entire day. This is how I want to live the rest of my life.”
From a life-satisfaction perspective, it sounds like it’s going extremely well! (And that’s WAY more important, at least to me.)
> Wait a second. I was in a business relationship with Google. > It may sound strange that it took me two and a half years to realize it, but Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. To make us feel that we’re not just employees, but that we are Google. > That conversation made me realize that I’m not Google. I provide a service to Google in exchange for money. People, and espe…
My dad had just one job all his life, for 33 years. While he didn’t become rich, he did enjoy relative peace of mind, pension etc. Of course everything is relative, but there was a time where companies had a little bit of concern to their employees, however small it was. Those days are gone. These days, companies don’t even pretend. A very small percentage of people are going to do well, for the vast majority it is j…
Calling an employer/employee relationship slavery after a Googler complains he wasn’t promoted fast enough is peak self-importance.
> Wait a second. I was in a business relationship with Google. > It may sound strange that it took me two and a half years to realize it, but Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. To make us feel that we’re not just employees, but that we are Google. > That conversation made me realize that I’m not Google. I provide a service to Google in exchange for money. People, and espe…
It appears it isn't going terribly well so far: https://mtlynch.io/keep-growing-never-profit/ https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-1/ But, he doesn't seem discouraged. I'm guessing whatever equity he had means he has a fair amount of time to figure it out.
20,000 pageviews / month vs $75 in revenues and a full time occupation + costs for having articles written. That's harsh.
> Wait a second. I was in a business relationship with Google. > It may sound strange that it took me two and a half years to realize it, but Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. To make us feel that we’re not just employees, but that we are Google. > That conversation made me realize that I’m not Google. I provide a service to Google in exchange for money. People, and espe…
Sadly, this trap is designed quite well, while warnings about it are not designed nearly as well, and many fall into it for n years.
If there's a position, businesses expect it contributes to their profit. If the position pays $200k/yr, you can rest assured in the long run, they expect your work (or at least an average of your team, branch, etc. over that time) to produce at least what you're being paid in value. That's optimistically speaking but realistically speaking, more value must be produced than your total compensation (you're always worth more than you're being paid or compensated if a business is doing its job well). That's labor in general across the board ("skilled" or "unskilled").
The catch is when businesses overestimate a worker's value... that's when we plebeian workers are actually pulling money/value from the relationship--we're getting back more than we contribute in.
For some reason, culturally, this scenario for the laborer to pull more value than a business is taboo and seen as laziness, fraud, theft, etc. but it's somehow not taboo when the direction of the relationship changes: for a business to make money off its workers.
> Wait a second. I was in a business relationship with Google. > It may sound strange that it took me two and a half years to realize it, but Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. To make us feel that we’re not just employees, but that we are Google. > That conversation made me realize that I’m not Google. I provide a service to Google in exchange for money. People, and espe…
What always gets me about these statements is that, yes you're in a business relationship with the company, but that relationship is obviously highly profitable to you. What's the point of giving up that income just to "stick it to the man"?
IMO, too many people see their company as a family, but the company does treat them that way and knows the mistake that the employees are making.
I think it leads a lot of people to burnout by giving their all to the company while they just receive an average paycheck in return. Instead of putting that effort into their job, they could be enriching their own lives instead.