Being "on the internet" means that you're going to see some crazy shit.

While I was in Montana I got an email that was crazy shit indeed. Somebody sent me an invoice from Blogography to pay for Blogography that was sent by The Blogography Support Team...

   
The fact that they decided to look through my blog to find a photo to make it feel authentic gets big bonus points. If I wasn't Blogography, then I might have fallen for it!

Even if they spelled my name with a lower-case "d" in the opening.

And so...

No. I will not be paying portal me with payment me from support me. Though I was tempted to click on the link to find out exactly how much money I was asking myself to pay me.

But not tempted enough to risk a virus for looking.

Sorry to me about that.

Oh boy.

Every October for years I've changed my Facebook profile picture to my goth look for Halloween. It's kinda a tradition and nobody is hurt by me looking awesome for a month. OR SO I THOUGHT! But more on that in a minute.

Here is the photo...

Long time Blogography readers might recognize this as a still from a video I made fifteen years ago for a video edition of "Bullet Sunday"...

But anyway...

I've started increasingly commenting on posts that are racist, bigoted, antisemitic, hateful, or stupid. The reaction is mostly what you'd expect. And I'm used to the hate... this is not my first time on the internet. But now the comments are all about my profile pic, not my comment. I have been called absolutely every name you can imagine. Because I'm wearing black makeup. For Halloween.

This is weird to me because I don't think much about my appearance (which should be obvious to anybody who meets me). The idea of having perfectly matching clothes or dressing in the latest style or looking "cool" or whatever just doesn't interest me. Except when it comes to Halloween, apparently.

I'm fascinated how people don't bother to make an actual argument about what I've said now. They don't like what I'm saying and how I look in my profile pic, but it's how I look that's what they choose to comment on. Which just reinforces the fact that ignorant assholes are ultimately bullies above everything else. Hating people for how they look or how they choose to dress is their priority.

I am trying to be unshocked, but this is not remotely surprising. It's the easiest shot to take, because forming an argument in support of your opinion is hard. And the easy shot is all they know.

Not that I really care. Goth Dave is the hottest Dave.

I am really torn on this whole "link tax" bullshit that's getting signed into law by certain countries.

Essentially this boils down to governments forcing major media companies like Google to strike agreements with news organizations. That way, when you search for something on Google (or Facebook or any company that monetizes results based on another company's content) and a result from a news organization pops up, Google has to pay them money because their content has been monetized by Google.

On one hand, it's like... okay... Google is making money by serving ads in their search results or news feeds, so why shouldn't the news organizations showing up in those results get paid for making Google rich with their hard work?

On the other hand... why the fuck should Google be held responsible for other companies not monitizing their own content? If you don't want Google to make money off of you, then no problem. Add code to your website's HTML instructing Google bots to not crawl your content. Problem solved. Why in the hell are governments getting involved in this? And if you're going to pass laws for news organizations to get paid for making Google money... why not everybody? Why not bloggers? Blogography is heavily indexed by Google, and I have a lot of content that gets looked at by Google search referrals. So where is my money??

I have to say... I am kinda on Google's side this time.

Which is something I haven't said very often.

Google is merely refering people to your content. It should be up to you to monetize everything once somebody clicks through to visit your site and read your stories. Run ads. Offer subscriptions. Whatever. Just be grateful that Google is sending you the business. How else will people even find you if you're not getting Google search referrals?

With the recently-passed "link tax" law in Canada, Google is telling the Canadian government to fuck off. They will just remove all Canadian news sources from appearing to Canadians who are now legally required to be paid. Sure Google will have less content in their search results to monetize... but they won't have to pay anything out either. I'd argue that this doesn't benefit Canadians at all, but what do I know? Google said the same thing to Australia and France, but eventually capitulated. It will probably be the same for Canada.

And the USA is likely going to be adding a "link tax" soon.

If I were Google, I'd do some things...

• Stick to their guns and not capitulate to governments requiring them to pay money to news organizations. Let the news organizations monetize their own shit. See how long it takes for news organization to come begging for Google to add them back to their services and tell the government to abandon the law.
• Put a badge saying "PAID CONTENT" on all news sources that charge people to read their news articles. That way, when a search result includes a story by The Washington Post, for example, people will know that if they click through they'll have to pay money to read the full story. Because, hey, why isn't The Washington Post having to pay Google for sending them new subscribers? Fair is fair, after all.
• Extend an olive branch to all official news organizations by offering them free ads on Google services, especially on their news page, based on how much of their content ends up in search results. This is kinda a no-brainer compromise.
• Extend another olive branch by offering revenue sharing to companies or individuals who agree to NOT have paid content, with the amount received based on actual clicks. That way sites without the deep pockets of The Washington Post to set up a subscription service can have a mutually-beneficial relationship with Google. If they are making content which is interesting enough for people to consistently click through, then they are helping to make Google successful and can be rewarded. Set a threshold of how many clicks you need to get payment, then extend it to everybody. If sites like Blogography are getting a million clicks a month (HA!) then why can't they be considered along with "official" news outlets? I work just as hard on my content as they do, and consider my hot takes on things just as valid as "editorial" content, so why the fuck not? Hopefully this will allow cream to rise to the top and auto-generated, inflated, and artificial crap fall off of Google's radar. Ain't nobody wanting to read that shit anyway.

Ultimately I think it's important that news organizations get paid for their work. But to put that responsibility on Google is outrageous. That should be up to Google. And if people don't like it... then everybody can tell Google bots to not crawl their site until Google agrees to fork over the money and share their success. That's how the market works. If governments wants money to go to news organizations, then have that money come from the government.

Regardless of how this all shakes out, to have governments jumping in the fray is a terrible precedent. Today it's Google... what's tomorrow? Me? Every time I share a news story I'm going to be responsible for paying them money? I call bullshit. They should figure out their own monetization just like I do (which is $0 since I don't charge for anything, but still).

Have a government-mandated monetized weekend, everybody!