Someone might pay tens of millions of pounds for a piece of artwork another person finds a joke. A book may change someone’s life, and to another be a load horsesh*t. This reflects the uniqueness of each human, a fundamental element of our humanity that standardisation and commodification erodes.
To ask people to pay the same amount for a piece of writing, when the content will provide vastly different levels of value to different readers, honours homogenisation, and dishonours our uniqueness. I therefore seek to offer whatever I create as a gift, and if someone receives value, and has the means, they may, if they feel inclined, donate accordingly. Another person who finds reading my material a waste of time will not have to pay to waste their time.
In the case of products that cost money to produce, the point is different - I wouldn’t expect a car manufacturer to give cars away to people and ask for donations, because there is a huge network of people, costs, products and so on, involved in the manufacture of a car.
With online digital content the case is different. Content online can be replicated twice or a billion times at no cost. Or in other words, an article on substack can be viewed by two people, or a million people, and it will not cost the creator anything extra.
Online content creators therefore, have the ‘luxury’ of being able to offer their creations as gifts. Which is the luxury of creating beyond the limits of monetisationism1, enabling them to express the truth their heart calls on them to express, rather than a performance of words beholden to economic imperatives.
A cynic may say that one can only afford to do that if one is wealthy/has another source of income etc. I must prioritise profit and money making, otherwise how do I eat?2
I am not saying ‘everyone should offer their creations as gifts’, nor am I denying money is an imperative in our society (ironically due to rampant monetisation). If you want to work as a copywriter, great. I am not holding gift ideals as ‘higher’.
I am simply choosing, as far as I am able, to align my actions with the desires of the… (insert feebly inadequate word such as soul, god, heart etc.).
‘How can I monetise my ideas and insights?’ feels much further away from my deeper self than ‘How can I honour and share my truth freed from profit-motivation?’
Yet isn’t the former question precisely what almost every single creator sets as the raison d’être of their work or career? i.e. How can I make money from this? How can I make a living out of this?
They are certainly rational and intelligent questions to ask amidst today’s ultra-monetised society. I am therefore finding this path of exploring ‘gift and donation’ requires faith and surrender. By faith I don’t mean…‘oh I have faith when I post this people will give me money so I don’t starve, I have faith I will get money from this’…
But more… ‘I have faith that at the core of humanity is a desire to live in generosity, that this generosity gives rise to a fulfilling life. I trust that without coercion, people generally do give back when they receive value. I can trust in life. And if I receive nothing whatsoever, it is safe to conclude I am not offering anyone any value and should reevaluate my life… again.
An additional factor is that donation based content is anti-exclusive, supporting the notion that people with less money shouldn’t be denied access to well-being. By ‘access to well-being’ I mean access to things such as counselling, healthy foods, materials that help cultivate wisdom (living in ways that give rise to well-being), clean water, and so on. Although not relevant to my output, I’m sure there are content producers whose expertise/quality/insights and so on could reach those who really require it, but don’t because they charge large fees, create pay-walls, etc.
And though we don’t immediately associate valuable gifts with digital content, I believe it would be illuminating to listen with our hearts to where content is coming from. Feeling out ‘is this person’s creation done just for money and status’, or are they offering me and others a gift?
This ‘gift economy’ has been demonstrated to me through a number of instances I’d like to share here, gifts that were otherwise inaccesible to me at the time, had they required prepayment. I was blessed with a Hakomi counsellor who operated on a ‘dana’ (donation) based system when I had no means to pay. I have received healthy, delicious, free food from Sikh temples (Langar) when struggling. I was taught a formless meditation technique for free that has transformed my life. I have received tens of thousands of hours of insightful, helpful information from free articles, reddit, quora, youtube3 etc. I have been deeply moved by music on soundcloud, spotify3, and so on.
They say that gifts are given, not bought. Is it not possible for the majority, if not all, of humanity’s creative works to shift from profiteering, to gifting? If everyone answered yes, then yes. In other words, it is possible only when we collectively shift into such an economic model. For now, I hope my efforts contribute to such a moment.
Footnotes:
1 By ‘Monetisationism’, I mean a trend to monetise one’s skills, as if it were a virtue, or an automatically assumed ‘good’ thing.
2 I have spent most of my life in this category and still find it very difficult to stop empowering these sorts of beliefs in myself. I have found it very revealing though to inquire into truly - where are my motives coming from when I create, write, or similar.
3 Of course even if content is offered in a spirit of gift, they are often intermediated by profit-focused making companies such as youtube, spotify, social media, substack etc. Personally I feel if many more people were more receptive and awake to the notion of content being ‘a gift’, rather than mindlessly streaming it, there would be a increased reverberation that would cause many more ‘gift oriented’ platforms to spring up, e.g. patreon, gofundme, ko-fi etc. And yes, in a sense these companies also must profit or die, but they are a step away from the priority being only profit.
