2 Million Page Views

In 2015 the Not Buying Anything blog surpassed the one million page view mark. It was 7 years after our inception. In no way could this be described as viral, but it is not insignificant.

We like to think that we have made at least a small impact with our work promoting ecologically sensitive lifestyle choices, and living in joyful, fulfilling simplicity.

Now, 3 years later, we have just recently passed the two million mark. This means something to us, and I assure you it has nothing to do with "monetizing" our site. At no point would that be conceivable, considering our anti-commerce approach to life. 

We prefer mutual aid to money.

I like to check our numbers occasionally to see what is happening with our audience. It is also nice to see that our stats put us in the small to medium size category. Small is beautiful after all.

Still, it is good to have goals, and our next blog goal is to get the next million page views in a year and a half. 

Thank you for visiting, and helping to make the NBA blog a place of learning, support, and refuge for Linda and me (and many others) since 2008. 

Addblocking

The advertising industry is very worried about that 0.60% of users that think they can get away from them with adblocking programs on their computers.

Imagine having a remote control that you could use to blank out billboards and other advertising as you went about your day. That is kind of what internet ad blocking is like.

Ad blocking is the removing or altering advertising content in a web page. This intrusive, unwanted and uninvited garbage takes many forms including pictures, animations, embedded audio and video, text, blinking banners or pop-up windows. It can also employ one of my favourites, auto play, where audio and/or video plays without the user doing anything.

Intrusive advertising is a known problem with most web browsers, and most web users. Recently my internet provider changed from a flat rate to a usage rate. That means that now we pay for the bandwidth to run all the advertising that infects everything on the internet. And there is more of the stuff all the time.

Global ad spending is projected to reach $600 billion US by the end of next year, according to eMarketer. This staggering sum is projected to grow at an annual rate of about five per cent until the end of the decade. A lot of that growth is in digital advertising.

In my old age I am going to freak out young people and tell them that I am so old that I remember a time when the internet didn't have any ads. I would add that I also remember a time before there was such a thing as the internet, but that might be too much for them.

Now whiney advertisers are complaining that they are losing 22 Billion a year by adblocking programs that frustrated computer users are increasingly turning to for some relief. How many internet user's computers do they want to inject with their poisonous propaganda? All of them. 100%.

And they don't want you to have any way of protecting yourself with a propaganda prophylactic.

Amongst other initiatives to "fight back", the industry is asking web owners to only give access to their content if users first disable their adblocking program. "We have ways to subject you to our unwanted mind parasites, whether you want them or not."

Maybe they should have kept quiet - many commenters on an article I read about the issue reported getting adblocker specifically because of the news of advertisers gnashing their teeth at being denied the ability to jam consumerism down their throats at every turn.

People are sick and tired of pervasive advertising, and want it to stop. Therefore - adblocking. It is my computer. It is my bandwidth. I deserve to be my own gatekeeper.

Advertising? No thanks.



Note: Many Adblocking programs can be downloaded for free. Do a search for adblock, read some reviews, then see if such a thing might be for you.

The remote control that blanks out billboards and other visual advertising? Well, that is still under development in the Not Buying Anything research laboratory. It will be unveiled soon... unless Big Advertising gets to us first.

No Advertising Monday

Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, in Understanding Media, describes the "content" of a medium as "a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind".

By that he meant that people tend to focus on, for example, the content of an advertisement, but miss the changes that advertising generally introduces subtly over long periods of time.

The advertising and marketing industries use professionals that understand our psychological weaknesses, and our deepest desires. Then they target these weakness and desires to take advantage of us.

"The objective of advertising men", said McLuhan, "is the manipulation, exploitation, and control of the individual in order to sell products to unsuspecting consumers."

I may still read an ad-laden blog for a while, but I find they distract from the message. That is why, four years after starting Not Buying Anything, I am still not selling out.

Why I Am Not Selling Out

1. I am opposed to the use of corporate advertising on my blog (and anywhere else). I believe advertising to be mind-numbing propaganda of the very worst kind. It doesn't just get into your brain - it changes your brain.

2. I feel the use of corporate advertising on my blog, (and anywhere else), devalues the message. I don't want to make money with my blog - I want to change the world with my blog... for free.

3. I do not accept merchandise, gifts, favours, or brown envelopes stuffed with cash in return for advertising space on my blog (or on my person, clothes, vehicle, or any of my possessions) because they would threaten my ability to express myself freely. I want to say what I mean, and mean what I say.

4. I feel that advertising money taints relationships, and destroys integrity. Advertising tries to coax the little green pieces of paper out of your bank account and into the accounts of the biggest corporations on the planet. When we choose to play the money game, we trade our integrity and our relationships for more little green pieces of paper.

Unlike most places in the world, this is an ad-free zone, and I intend on keeping it that way.

Radical Lifestyles

Radical lifestyles ahead

Yesterday, part of our influx of simplicity seekers was from theminimalistmom.com who graciously mentioned us in her blog about "living with 2 pairs of jeans, no car, no debt, more time and less stress."

NBA was mentioned in a post about people who are living different lives from the mainstream. People who are spending less, having less, and doing more of what they enjoy.

NBA's description in the post was quite accurate: "Radical living without buying anything except groceries and guitar strings and not selling anything." However, my first thought was, "Radical? Is our lifestyle really that radical?".

But of course, it is.

Canadian's household debt-to-income ratio is 150%. Yes, most of us are spending more than we make. All that money is being borrowed to buy more and more stuff to fill larger and larger houses. This is the norm today, and compared to this state of affairs we do represent a radically different way of living.

We have no debt, and have always enjoyed the freedom of being renters. Our current home is small, and when we need more room we just get rid of stuff. This frees up space - we do not need to 'move up' to acquire more.

We may buy a bit more than guitar strings and groceries, but not much. It feels very natural, but does sound radical when I think about it. But what are the real radical lifestyles on this little planet of ours?

If we were thinking soberly, living a high-impact 5-planet lifestyle would be considered the most radical of all ways of living, and what NBA advocates wouldn't appear as drastic or extreme.

Reaching sustainability will be difficult as long as excessively luxurious lifestyles are seen by society as 'normal' and the standard to which we should all aspire.

The world needs more radicals, more anti-authoritarians, more misfits and malcontents. And yes, theminimalistmom, we include you in this honourable continuum of people daring to live differently.

Such brave folks are needed to show the rest of us that we can overthrow our desires and obtain freedom from ourselves, as well as from those who wish to exploit us.

I don't mind being seen as radical, despite the negative connotations that come with this word in these times of high pressure conformity. I don't mind because I know that radicals create change.

Of course it is all relative, and when put up against the Amish, Linda and I are living a comparatively non-radical, luxurious lifestyle. We may seem radical, but we aren't that radical.

At least, not yet.

How radical are you willing to get in your efforts to simplify your life?

Ad Free Blogging

There is a ton of information on the Internet about making money blogging by selling advertising. Not so much on ad-free blogging. The lone cry in the Internet advertising jungle (that I found) is adfreeblog.org. I like what they are trying to do, and however 'finger-in-dike' it may be, I wholeheartedly support their efforts.

The corporation with its ubiquitous advertising, is largely responsible for much of the mess we find ourselves in today. Just ask the Himalayan country of Bhutan. In 1999 they were the last country in the world to introduce television. Since then the country, formerly the happiest, has seen people's expectations rise after they witnessed the fantasy world of TV Land, and all they had been "missing".

"Advertisements create desires, which cannot be satisfied by people's current economic position," said Phuntsho Rapten of the Centre for Bhutan Studies. "Crimes and corruption are often born out of economic desires."

I try not to buy anything from large corporate entities, and I will not take their advertising money. I will not pimp their products by mentioning them in faux posts, nor will I sell space for their mind-numbingly stupid ads. I will not compromise my writing just to make money. And when appropriate, I will use words like FUCK, and not have to worry about offending the people that would like to purchase my blog for their own nefarious purposes.

So I have placed the adfreeblog icon on NBA, and declare the following:

1. That I am opposed to the use of corporate advertising on blogs.

2. That I feel the use of corporate advertising on blogs devalues the medium.

3. That I do not accept money in return for advertising space on my blog.

In 2009, for the first time ever, of the 100 largest economic entities in the world, there were more corporations (51) than countries (49) on the list. We should be worried about this.

Corporations, by definition, are nasty and brutishly competitive artificial persons that exist for one purpose, and one purpose only - to make profit. "But isn't today's green, no sweat shop, sustainable corporation representing a kinder, gentler capitalism?" you may ask. No - because there is no such thing as a green or sustainable corporate entity. Corporations can never have 'enough'. They are insatiable vampires that will suck us, and the earth, till dry.

Human rights, ethics, and environmental stewardship are of no concern to the modern corporation if these things negatively affect the bottom line. There may be good people running these devastatingly efficient psychopathic artificial creations, but the corporation itself has no concept of good or evil. If evil is more profitable, then evil it is. The fact that these out of control structures have become wealthier than many countries is deeply disturbing, not to mention dangerous.

Disturbing because they are not just financially influential, but are politically influential as well. Corporations have used their gobs of greenbacks to purchase our governments and universities so that they can pursue their nasty, brutish ways unimpeded. Dangerous because they will go so far as to destroy everything they touch, even themselves, ultimately. I do not support them in my life, and I will not support them in my blog.

Do corporate ads, in your opinion, devalue a blogger's efforts? Do they distract you?

"If we, as a society, lose our voice completely, and corporations start doing all the talking, then we'll be utterly lost. To some degree, this has already happened. Our ability to envision a future collectively has already been severely compromised."
~ Kalle Lasn