Re:Be where your business is
by waprin on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @08:30PM
(#34333900)
“Salespeople” are just people and people can be an authentic community member even if they happen to have something to sell the community. In fact most in-person communities historically would consist of people who sold things to each other, trade is a foundation of civilization.
Let’s just use this site as an example. If you self-promote too much, you will get flagged. But if you regularly comment , submit some variety of stuff, then occasional self promotion is fine especially if it’s relevant and you’re transparent about it.
Different communities have different rules so figure out the rules.
Often times in the right context, selling something isn’t just an occasional faux pas you earned from other good behavior but itself a genuinely useful community contribution. You can sell useful stuff people want and are happy you offered.
Spamming, obnoxious drive by self promotion, sketchy non transparent astroturfing is annoying. But many developers go way too far in the opposite direction as evidenced by attitudes you see often here on Hacker News or Reddit. People act like if someone could possibly make a dime off something, it’s somehow morally abhorrent and must be stopped at all cost. FOSS is in many ways a blessing but had unfortunately perpetuated this bizarre mindset. With this mindset, everything you do should be for free, trying to make any money in any way is awful (except 99.99% of the time these same people will flock to high paying employers regardless of whether those employers follow these unwritten rules).
Money and authenticity are not incompatible concepts. Yeah sometimes they are , people “sell out “, especially when it comes to art. But on average you can be an authentic person who
also offers a good or service for money.
One last quick note, the most well known festival for banning money is Burning Man . There’s a festival called Lightning in a Bottle that’s inspired by the burn that burners sometimes condescend about because it’s not as pure because it has food and vendor stands. But I’ve met a few talented artists who said they vastly prefer LiB because they can sell their art there and - shockingly- artists need money to provide themselves with food and shelter and they can’t make money at Burning Man.
It’s ok to make stuff then sell it and still interact with other humans. Selling stuff does not mutate you into an alien who can no longer authentically connect with another human because that dirty lucre completely compromised your soul.
Let’s just use this site as an example. If you self-promote too much, you will get flagged. But if you regularly comment , submit some variety of stuff, then occasional self promotion is fine especially if it’s relevant and you’re transparent about it.
Different communities have different rules so figure out the rules.
Often times in the right context, selling something isn’t just an occasional faux pas you earned from other good behavior but itself a genuinely useful community contribution. You can sell useful stuff people want and are happy you offered.
Spamming, obnoxious drive by self promotion, sketchy non transparent astroturfing is annoying. But many developers go way too far in the opposite direction as evidenced by attitudes you see often here on Hacker News or Reddit. People act like if someone could possibly make a dime off something, it’s somehow morally abhorrent and must be stopped at all cost. FOSS is in many ways a blessing but had unfortunately perpetuated this bizarre mindset. With this mindset, everything you do should be for free, trying to make any money in any way is awful (except 99.99% of the time these same people will flock to high paying employers regardless of whether those employers follow these unwritten rules).
Money and authenticity are not incompatible concepts. Yeah sometimes they are , people “sell out “, especially when it comes to art. But on average you can be an authentic person who also offers a good or service for money.
One last quick note, the most well known festival for banning money is Burning Man . There’s a festival called Lightning in a Bottle that’s inspired by the burn that burners sometimes condescend about because it’s not as pure because it has food and vendor stands. But I’ve met a few talented artists who said they vastly prefer LiB because they can sell their art there and - shockingly- artists need money to provide themselves with food and shelter and they can’t make money at Burning Man.
It’s ok to make stuff then sell it and still interact with other humans. Selling stuff does not mutate you into an alien who can no longer authentically connect with another human because that dirty lucre completely compromised your soul.