Food for thought!

byNoteboom

1.9K followers

5 days ago

I would like to mention two things. And I want to strongly emphasize that this is just food for thought for each individual — I am not telling anyone what to do. But I myself took a stand more than 13 months ago!

I will almost certainly cancel at the next renewal. It’s extremely painful, because I had everything riding on this and I don’t know how I will solve it. But even though I was doing — and had been doing for many years — exactly what Google asked for, in the great mess of 2023 they destroyed my two sites.
One of them had finally started working after many years.
I am losing enormous amounts of money because of this, and it is incredibly painful.

1. There is one more issue that has also been a big problem since this decision: remembering where I have subscriptions so I don’t get charged for nothing.

A lot of energy and time has gone into this, and also a lot of frustration. So whether people think they will quit or continue (I hope everyone does well), I recommend that everyone keep in one place a list of where they are subscribed, payment dates, and so on.

2. Many years ago I owned shares in a company whose owners I couldn’t stand. The reason was that it was in a market where I was trying to reduce risk — in other words, from a business point of view it made sense.

But this is about the owners/management side. I remember reading advice at the time, I think from Buffett, saying that you should never own shares in a company if you don’t trust its owners or managers.

And that was absolutely right, and it bothered me for several years to own those shares. It was resolved when the company withdrew from the stock market and things turned out fine.
However, I learned an enormous amount from that experience.

Let’s keep clearly in mind that life is not just about money, and it matters where the money comes from!
So since then I have never had my money, my websites, and so on, in a place where I oppose or do not trust the owners. Without exception.

Now I live in a country that was possibly threatened by a crazy man — possibly because everything suggests it was a mistake, but you can never trust that person. I also live in a country where a neighboring nation and close friend has been threatened in a disgusting and completely open way!

These threats have affected people so badly that health in both countries has measurably worsened. You can decide for yourselves whether 2 + 2 equals 4 or something else.

This is a good example of what I mean, because some supporters own companies that support that person and/or the same ideology, and have been active in doing so.
Think about whether you want, in good conscience, to support such people by having your sites in business with them — because by doing that, you are providing support, even if indirectly.
For example if a support of men similar I talking about own social media, would you be there?

I would not have the conscience for that, and I am speaking in general; this case is just such a good example because it shows exactly what I mean.
I can give another example: a nation that lives right next to us took it to an international court claiming they had exclusive rights to my nation’s name! The result, of course, was that the court asked them whether this was a bad joke.
Why should I buy food products from such a company? I would be supporting them.

What I am advising is to give yourselves time to think about whether it is right — and worth it — to support companies or people that you have no respect for as individuals, or that follow an ideology you oppose.
I personally made my decision many years ago! And this is not a question about politic, this is to be a human!

I hope you all do well. This is a good place to gain knowledge and help, but you still have to remember that in a crowd like this, people vary greatly in credibility, even if they speak loudly. At least for me, it took time to figure out who really knew what they were talking about and who didn’t.

But I wish you all well. I still have at least 10 months left here!