We’ve become accustomed to things on the internet being free.

When something’s free, that just means the cost is hidden.

Everything has a cost.

Someone’s paying the cost to create and maintain that thing, and it’s probably more than one person. If it’s free, you’re probably paying with your time or attention or your personal information. Someone’s probably working diligently to make sure you rely on that thing and keep providing that time or attention or personal information. They may try to upsell you, or force you to pay for it one day, or even change shape or disappear when business people decide you’re not providing enough of whatever makes that thing earn them money.

Someone may be paying for you as an act of generosity, which is beautiful and often fragile.

I’m sick of this.

So I’d rather use fewer things, create some of my own things, and pay for the rest of the things I decide I need to use.

My paying a little bit doesn’t amount to much, but when enough people join me and pay for what they use, whoever’s responsible for it has a clearer indication of value and hopefully a sustaining stream of resources to keep making that thing. They’re incentivized to care for the people using what they’ve made rather than a rich few who want to grow that thing to become more rich.

By paying for things and not using them for free, I have to stay on the wheel. I need to regularly have money to offer.

But that’s already a reality I’m tied to. I don’t know if there’s a way around it.

I live in a house, and I like living in a house. I drive a car to a grocery store to buy food. I like driving and making food. I get curious about things I pay to own or play with or learn from. I need things to keep my car and my house and my body from falling apart.

In more meager seasons of income, this sucks. I want to cancel the things I choose to pay for, which is easy when it’s entertainment and subscriptions for services offered by massive companies. But that’s exactly when I can‘t cancel on the writers and developers and designers making the little things I love most. If I need to struggle harder to find income, all the better that it’s for those people and those things they make. That’s a healthy pressure, given that I need to be on this wheel anyway.

I’m tired of big ideas. I want to support all these thoughtful, smaller ones that are driven by curiosity and heart more than a lust for revenue.

I can always do with fewer things. I don’t have the attention or the time or the money for all of them, so it’s best to find the ones I care most about and want to pay for.

I need the math to be simple because there are so many hidden costs and I just can’t afford all of them.