What has your personal website or blog deprived you from?

Little did I know when I thought about starting a blog focused on people ranting about their shitty days at work, horrible bosses, and backstabbing co-workers, that it would evolve into so much more. I'd solicit people for their stories and so many wanted to tell so much about it. From the webcam model, to a woman whose boss took advantage of her and gave her an "advance paycheck" in exchange for sex, to an undercover FBI agent, etc. The stories are endless because everyone has a story to tell about something that happened at work. The evolution is the focus on jobs, careers, and the workplace.

While the blog has been very successful over its 10+ year history and will probably demand I keep it going for the rest of my life, I'd say my blog has "deprived" me the ability to have the choice to walk away and do nothing with it anymore. In other words, when I first started it, it was me writing blog posts and soliciting stories from anyone and everyone willing to send them my way or let me write it for them. Nowadays, the blog has attracted seo marketing agencies, freelancers, small companies, and an audience that reaches anywhere from 2 to 3 million a month.

So each time, when I was ready to give up, stop blogging, and let it go by the way side, I kept getting emails from people wanting me to publish on the blog for them. So ultimately, it became the people's blog... and I keep it going. I have my daily contributors, but every month, it's many new people sending in more articles to me. The fortunate thing about it is learning to value my time. I used to spend 2 or 3 hours a day on it, but this has amounted to about 5 or 6 hours split across 2-3 days on the weekends answering emails and scheduling articles.

I have only seen one other similar website pop up, got featured on the news, and then fell into the abyss, where I saw they hadn't posted in weeks, months, and then years. I've never stopped publishing since I started almost 10 years ago. Unfortunately, I've also never gotten the publicity of news, but it somehow keeps being discovered. And so... I'm married to my website for the rest of my life. And why not keep it going? Especially if there are curious eyes from all over the world.

On one hand, I feel people YEARN for places to express themselves more than they are currently able to, and they really want alternatives to the established platforms. Nicer places. But damn, if you intend to provide such a place, be prepared to police it, and expect every functionality to be used for other things than its intended purpose, and to be misused and/or abused.

Quality drops to the level of its lowest member. If it's a personal site, you don't have to tolerate idiots. People tend to not say nice things on a place full of graffitti.

Also my experience, but it's not too bad, the ratio seems to be about 1 in 10000. But if you have a million people, I can see it going bad fast.