I split the above text from another thread, because I really wanted to address this topic. (And I didn't want to totally derail the other technical topic with what's essentially an off-topic conversation.)
Let me tell you a short story ...
PBS Yesterday ...
I watched a program on PBS yesterday, and it happened completely by accident. I put a DVD into the player, put late dinner on the coffee table -- a bad habit, but I don't do it often -- and had full intention on watching a movie that I had rented over the weekend.
However, as soon as the TV was turned on, I could hear two men discussing the causes of the 2008 banking failures, and decided to listen. For a better part of the next hour, I listened to Bill Moyers discuss the failures of the 1990s-2000s banking industry with
former Citigroup Chairman John Reed, and
former Senator Byron Dorgan (D) of North Dakota.
Reed said something that I've firmly believed in for many years now, in that
companies/corporations are NOT in business to make money. That corrupt ideology is a 1990s invention from Wall Street, and is tied to the idea of "shareholder value" (i.e, valuing stock investors more than customers). When you're in business to provide a product or service, or even to please the customer, then you have a set goal, and there are boundaries.
When you're in business simply to make money, anything goes. And that's how this recession started -- large banks did their best to overturn the Glass–Steagall Act (
Banking Act of 1933), which had been a government barrier to prevent "anything goes". That 1933 act was there to prevent a repeat of the Great Depression. With it gutted in the 90s, and further defaced in the 2000s, the banking industry shifted from providing quality banking/savings/loans to customers, to making money with whatever sheisty investment scheme it could come up with (i.e., toxic derivates, like the now-infamous
credit default swaps). And not just making money, but making money for itself, its shareholders, its executives -- NOT the customers.
Reed discussed how he met and became friends with another banking industry big-wig, and was convinced to go to his operation. From the context of the conversation, I believe he meant his move to CitiGroup (merger of Citi and Travelers), after meeting
Sandy Weill, another banking exec that pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Although Reed went along with the shenanigans, and was himself part of the reason our recession happened, he mentioned his uneasiness with bonuses after his move to Citi.
He went from getting already-outrageous $3 million/year bonuses to getting $15 million/year, and nothing with his job had changed. He knew the customer was no longer the focus of their business.
Hearing Reed say the "not in business to make money" really made my day.
The Failed Business ...
A few years ago, I had a business partner (a now-former friend, somebody I'd met back in college) that wanted to finance and start up a website venture. It wasn't on a topic I understood fully, but my part wasn't going to be content creation anyway. I was tasked with the technical aspects (servers, hosting, domains, SEO, etc), as well as the public relations and marketing aspects (site design, branding, advertising, etc). It started out well enough, until I started to realize this guy was an "ideas person" about 6-12 months later. He wanted to get rich essentially sitting on his ass.
When technology didn't cater to his being lazy -- i.e., everything being one-click moron-friendly -- he became rude and vulgar.
He used to sneer at me that "our company only exists to make money" and didn't really care about the quality of information that was being put out there by the websites. He'd go so far as to plagiarize articles and content from other websites, which as a writer myself, I found wholly unacceptable and downright offensive. (I later learned that he made money on the side at an already-overpaid sales job by stealing from the company and selling the products through black market channels; so theft was not a new concept.) Worse yet, some of the swiped articles were narrowminded BS, and the rest of it was outdated and antiquated by the modernized 2000s online era. He couldn't even steal good stuff! And anything he wrote tended to be rambling mind vomit. Any attempts to confront him on this resulted in arguments.
One day, I turned off the server, cancelled the hosting account, and quit replying to emails and phone calls. I'd had enough of his abuse.
After some very vulgar threats, I blocked him from my phone lines and email accounts.
The venture was also not something I wanted my reputation attached to, as I have a vested interest in being online long-term.
And it never made a dime.
The Take-Away ...
I'm of the opinion that people who only want to "make money" are immature children at their core. They lie, cheat, steal, screw people over ... whatever it takes. Anything goes. But they also kill themselves with stress, because most of them are very aware that they're crappy poor excuses for human beings. They worry not about making ends meet, but about not getting sued, arrested, etc, for the unsavory methods used to guarantee their personal wealth. They have what I call "bad fear". Some are borderline sociopaths, with little or no remorse for those they have harmed. They have no core values.
What you have is "good fear". You're worried about how to make it successful, while providing what you've decided is a quality product built on quality methods. You didn't look for the cheapest solution out there, and instead spent time wisely shopping for your tools;
quality Windows VPS web hosting, in this case. You're also aware of your limitations, and willing to address them by using outside support;
server management, in this case.
- You need to have faith in your methods.
It's the constant doubt and face-value appeal of shady solutions that causes most people to give in to unsavory methods. In the world of web hosting, that means spam, blackhat SEO methods, anti-consumerist business policies/practices, etc.
- You need values, and you have to stick to them.
- It's not always about making money.
The Digital FAQ has been around for a decade now, and started out as a simple handful of pages to share methods of capturing and encoding video. The core value has always been to share information, in the good will and spirit of the Internet, as it existed in the early 1990s when I first went online. The site you see now is actually a few merged sites at this point, and a forum was added.
Over time, it changed from being just a site to being part of a business, providing both digital video and web design/dev/admin services. The site that exists now has advertisers, earns commissions from certain suggest products (ethically!), and has premium services -- but at its core, it still provides free digital media information, because that's our core belief. Even after hearing competitors thank us for the info on our site (information that helped them get into business to even become our competitor!), we won't change our belief simply because of monetary reasons. This very moment, in fact, I see at least two known service competitors asking for advice in our forum. And they'll get it.
It's not always about money. Sometimes it's about the people, and providing what you feel are quality services.
Whether you're a good person with good intentions, or a complete money-grubbing dirtbag, the chances of failure are honestly the same. So put your efforts into what's good for yourself and your business, and not into worries of failure. If failure is the foremost thought on your mind, then that will be the outcome.
If you're talented and well-versed in your business industry, then trust that you know what you're doing.
Leave worrying to the quacks, charlatans and other wanna-be's online.
