As soon as the opportunity to make money comes about, suddenly people get all scared.
“What if people call me a sellout?”
“What if they don’t like what I make?”
“What if they leave a bad review and ask for their money back and ruin my reputation.”
Guess what, all of those things will happen. That is the nature of making something, and the nature of people. The first time I put affiliate links on my first site people started leaving comments saying: “Wow, I thought there was some good info on this site but now I see you’re just trying to make money off us. Nice try.”
Everything is free, and most people don’t want to pay anymore
That’s because people have gotten used to getting everything for free. When people think of monetisation they think of advertising, as YouTube, Facebook, TV and apps are all going that way. If you’re like me and you think that advertising banners on your site is as ugly as it is worthless, you’ll be looking for other ways to make a bit of money from the thing you pour hours of your life into.
Like a bucket of crabs, when you try to get out and find independence, other people will want to pull you back down.
But the same problems hit here too, you just have to adapt your psychology to it. As Ramit Sethi of IWT always says, while a small minority of angry losers will berate you, you’ll be getting sales from people who genuinely value what you do. That is, as long as you didn’t actually jump the shark!