If you google “best wireless printer”, the whole first page is full of weird sites that have endless lists of printers listed, with links to Amazon or Best Buy or wherever. They are all affiliate links – you click a link and the website makes a percentage – often not just from that sale, but from all your purchases from that merchant over the next 24 hours.
To be clear – there is nothing inherently wrong with affiliate programs, per se. And Amazon is far from the only company doing this. But it also incentivizes shitty behavior. Like the whole first page of Google on that printer search.
Over time, people have came to distrust affiliate links, so websites began to hide them with URL shorteners, or redirects, or clever server-side tricks, all to keep people from knowing they were clicking on affiliate links, and thus sending money to the website owner.
After all, the reader comes to think: Did you put that link in there to help me, or because you make money from it? Is this really your favorite novel of all time, or did you just want to make money from me?
These are questions I never want my reader to have to think about.
So: I’m announcing a change in policy. Going forward, I will use NO affiliate links on any of my properties. Not here on my blog, not in my newsletter.
To be clear, this will cost me some money. About 10% of my income last year was from affiliate links, mostly in my newsletter where I recommended books or movies. But when I launched my membership program, I said that this would mean I never had to sell ads on my website or newsletter. It also means now that I never have to use affiliate links.
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