The writing on the wall was glaringly obvious quite a long time ago. Anyone whose income DEPENDED on a FREE 3rd party online media platform was playing with fire. Whether it's YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc... if your business or income DEPENDS on that platform... you're GOING to be SCREWED eventually. You HAVE to know that. Otherwise you are living in willfully ignorant bliss.
Some of these guys were making a TON of money on these platforms and it was ENTIRELY at the pleasure of the platform owner. That is NOT a good position for the creator. The platform owners can pull the rug out from under you at ANY time... and here's the kicker... for ANY reason. And there isn't Jack Shit you can do about it.
If I'm honest, I don't feel the least bit sorry for any of these guys. How can intelligent people actually believe they were guaranteed or entitled to a free platform without conditions? Did they really think it would go on forever??
I make NO money from this forum. And while I could have created the forum on a free platform (there are plenty of them), I knew that would be a mistake. To me, it was worth it to pay for independent hosting of this forum. It was worth it to pay for the forum software, too. I OWN it. It's not being provided by a benevolent dictator. It's a MUCH superior product, and we don't have anyone dictating to us what we can or can't talk or post about.
We don't have anyone imposing their political agenda as a condition of our existence. And if it was my source of income, I'd sure as fuck make doubly-sure that couldn't happen. I honestly can't believe these guys thought the free gravy train would go on forever.
There are a couple of people I know who make their money running groups on Facebook. I've advised them to move their group to a paid platform like we have here. I tell them it's easy... it's BETTER... and it's relatively cheap. Facebook could pull the plug on their groups at ANY time for ANY reason, and they won't be able to do fuck-all about it. All I get is shoulder-shrugs. No shit. They have deluded themselves into thinking that would never happen.
Years ago, YouTube threatened to shut down my channel if I didn't remove all the gun building videos. I removed them. But I also quit using YouTube to post videos. And mind you... I didn't make a cent.
Facebook put me in "jail" and threatened a ban for political posts. That's why I quit Facebook entirely 5 years ago and haven't been back. I was VERY active. And before that... years ago.... Facebook shut down my business page for no apparent or stated reason. No warnings. No claimed "violations" on my business page. It just fucking disappeared. I had YEARS of informative posts (some as sponsored ads) on that page. I never made a cent from any of it. It was basically ancillary "marketing" that never really worked. I contacted Facebook about it... to no avail. Nothing could be done. No explanation. Thankfully, it was NOT critical to my business or income.
So, you think I'd build a BUSINESS that was my SOLE INCOME dependent on such a platform?!?? I'd have to be crazy AND STUPID.
Nope. I don't feel even an ounce of pity or sympathy for these guys who have had the plug pulled.
