What does this have to do with Strange, Far, and Fantastical, Inc.? Well, in my first blog, I wrote about the SF&F Vision. Our company was created to enable creators to create more content. And we believe that we cannot do that successfully if we deceive you.
Please note that word, deception. We think that a deception is very different from a lie. For example, I just wrote the words “we think”. Here’s the truth. I do not really know, with 100% certainty, who that we is. Is it my co-founders and what they think? Does it reference you as the reader and all readers? And how could I possibly be certain of any group, especially when I don’t even know what group it is.
Now! I have a strong suspicion that the we I reference does, in fact, agree with me. I suspect my co-founders agree. I also suspect, but have no data, that the majority of my readers agree or will come to agree. But, I just told you a lie. A lie is telling you something that is inaccurate.
To deceive is, per Oxford Languages, “cause (someone) to believe something that is not true, typically in order to gain some personal advantage.” So, here is the thing. We (and I am once again fairly confident in my assertion) are suckers for Top 10 lists. It might not be the Top 10. It could be the top 3, 5, 13, or others. But when we are drawn to those stories on the web.
The truth is that these articles are written and their titles are selected for the personal advantage of the author. Heck! I used Top 10 List in my title just to entice you to read it, and I ultimately hope you reading it will be to my advantage. But, advantage is not deception.
I am writing this and titling it as I have in the hopes of giving you something of value to you. It is my intent. I hope that I will accomplish that for a sizable chunk of the readers.
Here is, in my humble opinion [Wait? You think your opinions are humble? Ahem! Maybe consider rewriting this. – Ed.], where these types of articles start to ease their literary toes into deception. Many of these articles use affiliate links in the discussion of a product or service. For products and services we think are really good. But, that is not deceiving.
What I really hate, and I hope you hate too, is when you read something where you either know the author doesn’t believe it, or they are just sending you there in the hopes of a little financial gain.
The truth is that affiliate links only work in huge volumes. Any specific individual affiliate link use is likely to produce very little actual gain. What I, and I hope we with my co-founders, believe is that the slight financial gain of deceiving you with bad info or bad links is inconsequential in relation to doing our best to help you succeed.
If we give you consistently good, or at least useful, information, our network of creators and consumers will grow. As it grows, we have the chance to develop those volumes. As that happens, we have the opportunity to invest that into providing better content, more opportunities, and better tools. It’s a feedback loop.
If we are really lucky, we are going to turn our feedback loop to 11. Wait? Can feedback loops be dialed up to 11? We don’t know yet. We’ll get back to you later in this blog post for an update. Stay tuned.
So here’s the deception-free deal. We intend to put in the hard work to collect content, information, expertise, community, products, and services that will make us worthwhile to authors, readers, and those who support authors. We believe that if we do this that you won’t begrudge us making money.
How refreshing?! An online company that is honest about how it intends to deal with you. We believe that you will value that honesty. We hope you will. Because honestly, the vast majority of those free online services we all use are secretly making piles of cash without telling us how they are using us to do that.
So, the next time you read a “Top X things you can do to achieve Y” list, pay attention to the links they include. They should have an FTC notice, if they are U.S.-based, that informs you about their affiliations. But, there are more than a few websites that conveniently overlooks these requirements.
They are playing a numbers game. They hope that by providing 10, 20, 25, or more, links that you will eventually click on one of them and earn them money. In some ways, there is nothing wrong with this. They didn’t cost you anything. But, are they behaving well? Are they really acting as if their interests are aligned with yours? Hmmm… We don’t play those games. We make recommendations, and we narrow down the choices to two (2) most often, and sometimes three (3). We disclose our affiliate links. And, we give you a choice to use links that don’t include affiliate codes. Even though using those codes doesn’t cost you. We think our expertise, and the time to actually consider and write about a recommendation is worth something. But if you don’t think it warrants clicking an affiliate link, we respect that. It is our signal that we need to do a better job.