For the first month or so, I accepted paid ads from EntreCard here on my blog. I did this because I know how managing a site such as EntreCard can be. Places that offer free services aren’t money making places. Rackspace isn’t cheap. Hosting isn’t cheap. Domain management sure isn’t cheap. I’m assuming a place like that needs constant monitoring.
Back in March of 2001, there was a site called theendoffree.com (it no longer exists–a porn company has purchased it. If you’re interested in what was on that site, an archive exists). It illustrated on how the free services of the web were disappearing. Even for a while Blogger.com offered a paid service. It removed ads from blogspot hosted blogs, and allowed people to alter the time stamp to their posts. Much of like it is now, only for a fee.
What sparked this change of mind? Several things. I was conversing with a friend of mine, and they commented that Geocities.com is closed. All the free sites hosted on Geocities will be removed at the end of the year. I think they were the most popular free-hosted site, probably because they’ve been around for over a decade. I had a Geocities site in high school. I was one of the first people who signed up with them. This conversation led to the prices of “free” services on the web, and how costly they are for their owners, in both time and money.
As much as I support these free services for communities, especially the ones that bring together bloggers, and if I can, I contribute financially, I can’t condone some of the paid ads or the rotation that’s going on in EntreCard these days. I will continue to use it, but I probably will never accept another paid ad again. Especially since I know that I won’t be seeing any of that money. If I want commercial/paid advertising on my site, I can offer ad space from Google Ads. Other than that, I believe paid advertising is prohibited on my web host, so I cannot continue to have the paid ads here, even if I want them. So as of today, May 1st, no more paid ads. I feel so … free. =)