Everything feels dishonest on the internet now.

I’m not sure when it started, but I can tell you that everything has gotten much worse over the last few years on the internet.

Everyone is trying to sell you something, whether it be a course, a product, or even just your data. They want you to subscribe to their channel before they start the video, or you find out it’s just another ad for whatever sponsor they’re trying to push.

What makes it worse is that the few content creators who don’t participate in this, they’re simply just recycling someone else’s work by way of a reaction video or a cheap rip off of another original idea.

And while i can’t blame the people who do this because I know how tough it is to be a creator out there, I still can’t help but feel betrayed. I feel betrayed by the people who create a flashy headline, a clickbait title, or a sneaky ad only for me to be dollar sign in their sea of potential customers.

It all feels like they didn’t want to provide me, as the reader, any value, but rather do the minimum work required so they can get their paycheck, and I’m simply an after thought.

It feels like they stopped caring about why I originally followed them and only care that I click their link or sign up for their course. And to be honest, this has made me cynical.

I no longer assume the creator is doing what they do out of passion, but out of greed. And I know this is the wrong mindset because it’s not everyone, but it feels like it’s everyone.

I think this comes from the fact that once you reach a certain level of size you’re granted opportunities small creators will never get purely due to the fact you now have influence, and that influence has value.

When Lebron James endorses a product, we can usually tell ourselves that he’s only doing it for the money, and we’d be right. But when our favorite Youtuber promotes something, at one point, we used to believe them. We felt like we could relate to them. They’re just a guy with a camera and a few thousand subscribers. He or she is like me: just a regular person.

And like I said, there was a point in time this might have been true, but that reality has long passed.

Almost every video I watch now I’m just waiting for the ad read so that I can skip it or close the video. I’m waiting for them to tell me what course to sign up for and how that course will change my life. It won’t though.

And here’s the worst part. The people I once followed because they did have that genuine desire to share their knowledge and their perspective most of them now have begun or long have long begun to become the thing they tried to fight against.

I’m writing this article with a bit of humility though. I don’t know if I could keep my values. I don’t know if I could hold on to my integrity when I know that the money could change my family’s life. I’d like to think I’d sit here and give all this vice, but the thing is, I’ve never been tested. So I don’t know.

Years ago when I started this blog I purposely kept ads away. I didn’t try to sell anything, I didn’t ask for donations, I simply left it as it is:

A place for me to share my thoughts to strangers on the internet without any motive.

I would like to think I do this out of genuine desire to hopefully help those who may be reading this to find some value. And maybe they did, and I hope they did.

But it’s hard to find people who share this goal of mine nowadays.

I just hope one day this age of attention will revert back to real authenticity where we seek creators who do this through passion and not greed.

Chances are, we’re here now and there’s no turning back. Let’s just hope it’s all worth it with the choices we made.

thanks for reading!