“Buy knowledge, and sell it not.” (Proverbs 23:23)

I love the process of creating this website. I love absolutely everything about it. But it does take a great deal of time, energy, and money every month to sustain it.

Over the years, I have struggled with how to balance these costs with my deep, internal drive to create. Do I charge for content? Do I pursue sponsors or advertisers? Do I just continue to let it be a fully self-supported pet-project that I dabble with in my extremely limited free time?

To be perfectly honest, none of these options ever fully appealed to me. On some deep philosophical level, I just never felt right about charging for content or selling space to advertisers. Yet I also didn’t feel it would ever become what I believed it could be without some sort of support.

So, I thought, why not make all of my content completely free and open – just give it away. And make a way for readers to donate if they were so inclined. To make the site 100% reader-supported through 100% voluntary donations.

It was a scary thought. I wondered what would happen if someone stole my ideas or my content. I was called crazy and told that it would never work. But something inside me said to just do it anyway.

Was it a risk? Yes. But I didn’t see any better alternative. Or at least not any worse one.

  • Why not charge for content?
  • Why not advertise or seek sponsorship?
  • What’s wrong with self-supporting?
  • Thoughts on Faith, Trust, & Creating something of Value