Leaving Imaginary Money on a Non-Existent Table

Man. This Atlantic RSS feed thing’s gotten me thinking. And, I’m realizing I should have charged for more of the stuff I’ve done over the last few years. I mean: a lot more.

Number one, I should have charged everybody who wanted to visit 43 Folders from the beginning. To avoid leakage and cannibalism, I also should have charged them to read the site’s feed. I know I should have charged Google something for my Inbox Zero talk. I definitely should have charged Google 10 times something for showing it to almost half a million people I don’t know. And, yeah, I should have charged Leo for putting me on MacBreak Weekly. I probably should have charged David Allen, John Hodgman, and Seth Godin for the honor of being interviewed by me. I can’t believe that I didn’t charge Cuff and Link to be on their gay podcast. In retrospect, I now know I should have charged SxSW for letting me present there, and Gruber for being allowed the honor of appearing with me. Even as I sit here, I can’t believe I’m not charging you knobs for the pleasure of reading this perspicacious bit of insight in your Dashboard right now. You fucking cheapskates.

But, I didn’t. And I should have. Right?

I mean, yeah. I did all those things for free, and I was uniformly grateful for the exposure and the attention, and the insane opportunity to have my weird little version of the world exposed to people who never would have heard of me without the help.

Yet, now—quizzically—I’m somehow able to eke out a living. Somehow. Presumably from special and super-secret stuff that’s not all those saleable things I idiotically didn’t charge people for. Which makes no sense, right? I know. Totally. Totally.

Jeez. Imagine how much more successful and wealthy I’d be if I’d charged people to be interested in what I do.

What. a. sap.