Once upon a time there was a young man, his name was Paul. At around age 6 Paul discovered the wonderful world of computers when his big brother was bought his very first ZX81. He was instantly taken with these fancy new toys that gave him far more interactivity than his He-Man toy figures ever could. But he was a selfish little sod and rather than playing the games that other people “wanted” him to play Paul thought he rather play his own games. So at age 7 he decided to learn how to make-up his own games for his Vic20. By age 9 Paul had written several adventure games in Basic, these were fun but what he really wanted to do was move things around on the screen, like the pros. So at age 11, on the pride and joy that was his commodore Amiga he taught himself Assembler. He then became an anti-social little git as he spent years knocking out program after program. From that point on Paul only dreamt of writing computer programs for a living, that was his destiny.
Jump forward a few years and Paul is now 17 and looking for his first job. He’s got several more languages in his locker and can write pretty much anything he wants. He’s offered the choice of 2 jobs, 1 as a developer in the government, one as a programmer in a small software house. He’s offered both jobs on the basis that he shows them 100 lines of the maths behind his recently finished GPS system. He KNOWS deep down that even though the pay is much less, the benefits are non existent and it will be much harder work he wants to work for the small software house. He LOVES programming, writing applications is his life, be it games, database systems or just the fun little applications that make peoples lives easier. It’s been his thing since he was 6 and he’s bloody good at it. He’s better than good, Paul is only looking for a job because he’s recommended to leave college a year early after one of his lecturers sees the game he writes in pure C to demonstrate how a processor works. To sit in a government office programming exactly what he’s told is not his idea of fun.
At age 27 Paul finds himself in a position where he can work for himself. His programs have become so popular over the internet that just the traffic on his software site creates a good income. He then gets his moment in the spot light when one of his programs appears on PC Pro as one the 100 greatest freeware programs ever. This is great, he now has all his time to write what he wants. BUT this is where his mindset changes. Seeing the potential money that can be made online Paul’s concentration starts to wander. Rather than doing what he loves he starts to spend more and more time doing something that he hates, writing! Before he knows it Paul has that many websites that need fresh “text” content that he’s spending all day every day just writing. He’s being a dickhead, he’s forgotten the one thing that he was truly good at – top notch software. What software he does write now is rushed and jumbled together. Paul has the freedom to do anything he wants at the moment and instead of doing what he loves, instead of writing programs that people download by the tens of thousand, instead of writing software that people link to in their thousands he’s writing this shit and trying to game links using ping backs. Yes he makes a very good living online but is there really any need to tell the world about it? He spends his time reading about affiliate marketers and MMO bloggers who with no actual “real” skills or talent at all, are millionaires. He finds himself defending affiliate marketing as a “legitimate” business when in reality he knows that it’s for scum. Tricking the stupid into parting with money for what is 99% crap. He looks up to these people, Chow, Cow, Shoemoney, Rowse, Johnson, Cruz and wants to be like “them”. From being brought up with fuck all he’s some how gone from the mentality of working your ass off for everything to just wanting the easy way. “Why write software (which requires a brain) when I can just churn out this brainless shit?” If he stopped to think for one minute he’d realise that all these people just had ONE lucky break. They’re not clever and it’s certainly not repeatable. He knows that the real “clever” marketers are people you don’t see or hear from. Paul has become a fucking joke in his own mind and his so far from happy it’s not funny.
To be brutally fucking honest this shit stops here. From now on I’m not an internet marketer, an affiliate marketer, a SEO or anything else that wank. I am somebody who makes his living writing software, not words.
For those that have read along with me for the last year, thanks. It has certainly been a step outside my comfort zone and I appreciate the support you’ve given me. My final bit of advice is simply this – step away from the internet and do something real with your lives. You’ll feel so much better for it, I promise. You could be the one that “gets lucky” with the internet but what are the chances really, you’d be better of trying to win that Euromillions Roll-over.