Do we have to monetize everything?

monetise comic

Do we have to monetize everything as a society? When is enough money enough?

Yesterday I was testing old links as I regularly do and it went to a blog that was now marked private. It wasn’t private when he shared it, so I removed the link. Then another link went to a paywall. I don’t share content from paywall sites, so that website must have seen the high traffic and put up a paywall for it. I deleted that link as well. I have deleted countless videos that were linked to documentaries that were free and then later said “Banned in this country” based on copyright claims. I don’t think anyone thinks that a random youtube video owner is trying to assert copyright over a work. If they remix it or change it and want to charge, why not?

I am not against people trying to make a living, but do we have to make everything about money? Artists of course should be paid but what we see is corporations benefitting from artists’ works, and not the artists themselves. It is insulting how little music/tv/other creative authors get. I have no problem paying an artist directly and would do so if there was an easy way to do it. Trying to track them down and send them cash is a difficult and time-consuming venture.

Personally, I am disgusted when people try to charge. There are so many people in this world who need the information you know or the things that you no longer need that I think greed is probably the worst fault people have. The sheer indifference to others’ suffering is so foreign to me. How can anyone feel good about the world when the majority of people are suffering and dying in it? What right do we have to buy luxury goods when others don’t have what they need to survive?

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Please don’t misunderstand. I do not feel guilty that I have the ability to survive. I feel concerned that we allow such injustice to continue. I don’t like slavery no matter if it is economic or through miseducation. I don’t like that we think that being happy and having pleasure is more important than being concerned about the well-being of all of humankind. I don’t like that we focus on profit, rather than the growth of a healthy state of humanity.

I have met rich people and they are not ideal. They are an aberration of humanity, of concern for others and the environment. We have nothing to learn from them.