Nice Shout out to ERE

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EdithKeeler
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Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by EdithKeeler »

Jacob, you may sell some more books soon.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/20/3-books ... money.html

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jennypenny
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by jennypenny »

Very nice, and very good company. :)

JamesR
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by JamesR »

Wow, crazy, recommends the 2 books that I always mentioned together on this forum (ERE & SGTCIY). I wonder if the author read my posts.. :)

I've never actually read YMOYL :lol:

Jason

Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by Jason »

That's impressive in a consumer media culture advertising anti-consumerism way.

It makes me think if things can turn fully post-modern on JLF in a Madonna singing Material Girl in a Che Guevara tank top way. Like one of those Jenner girls walking down the runway in glorious mock irony deficiency wearing nothing but a green t-shirt with ERE emblazoned on it.

BRUTE
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by BRUTE »

Fight Club did that 20 years ago. a mainstream Hollywood movie starring Brad Pitt railing against consumerism.

Jason

Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by Jason »

Fight Club is a work of fiction commoditizing anti-consumerist themes which was merely commoditized into another type of media.

ERE is a philosophy written by a real person in history that advocates against engaging in the platforms that it is currently being profiled on. At least that's how I understand it.

Tyler Durden becoming Brad Pitt is at best, hypocrisy, but in reality is no different than Gregory Peck playing Atticus Finch. JLF becoming a darling of mainstream media financial platforms IMHO meets the criteria of irony.

BRUTE
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by BRUTE »

brute would argue that MMM and GCC making hundreds of thousands of dollars on a message of FIRE is the same type of hypocrisy as Tyler Durden being played by Brad Pitt.

brute is unsure if DLj would withstand the hypocrisy if he ever had the chance to "sell out". maybe it's impossible.

RealPerson
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by RealPerson »

BRUTE wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:22 pm
brute would argue that MMM and GCC making hundreds of thousands of dollars on a message of FIRE is the same type of hypocrisy as Tyler Durden being played by Brad Pitt.
Absolutely. GCC is even going as far as organizing these little giveaways to drive traffic to his site, or get "likes" or whatever commercial BS there is. Selling out is apparently completely free of shame for these folks.

I find it ironic that MMM and the like make a fortune by enticing his followers to sign up for credit cards, knowing full well that a portion of these subscribers will end up getting in credit card debt. I find such a display of hypocrisy utterly disgusting.

Maybe going to FinCon every year is the canary in the coal mine? I have never been but I imagine it is all about optimizing your site, driving traffic, maximizing affiliate links profit, etc. In other words, how to sell stuff to people who don't need it and often cannot really afford it.

In all honesty, Jacob stands alone as far as I know as someone who has truly preserved his integrity. If it wasn't for the ERE blog, I would have lost my interest long ago. It is terrific his book made this list. It is a nice complement to YMOYL.

Jason

Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by Jason »

The mainstream culture co-opting JLF is irony.

JLF taking advantaging off it is hypocrisy.

An author selling his book rights to Hollywood is business.

brute creating a straw man argument using a Tyler Durden reference is his business.

A grown man who himself posts as a fictional character equating a fictional character to a real person and subsequently turning a semi-facetious post on the internet into a philosophical argument over the equivalency of a fictional character and a real person is Marshall McLuhan level precious.

To equate Hollywood excess with a philosophical alignment with capitalism is to overlook its history i.e. the purging of "communists" i.e. The Hollywood Ten during the Red Scare.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by black_son_of_gray »

RealPerson wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 10:13 pm
In all honesty, Jacob stands alone as far as I know as someone who has truly preserved his integrity.
I dunno, there are probably a lot that have maintained their integrity (Mark Boyle immediately comes to mind as someone who practices what he preaches, but I'm sure there are others). It's worth considering what you mean by "integrity" - many FIRE people don't seem to have the same motivations/aspirations as Jacob. If you are aiming at the "optimize" Wheaton level, credit cards/points gimmicks might be appropriate messaging. My understanding is that Jacob never blogged/wrote the book with money-making as the ultimate goal. After FIRE became popular in certain circles, the market potential for making money blogging/writing books about FIRE was revealed and people started doing it with money-making overtly as part of the goal.

Also, driving clicks with promotions/giveaways etc. is just a strategy to reach a broader audience, no? E.g. some charities spend more overhead on advertising because they are growing fast or want to "broaden the base", which ultimately helps more people (or at least, that is the stated goal)- but they get dinged for not having a 95+% payout ratio.

The whole operation somewhat reminds me of "Make $$ in real estate!!11one" infomercials on TV. The guru, who apparently is soooo good at real estate, probably makes most of their money from the infomercial/selling "packages" or "services" rather than any real estate. Likewise, the successful FIRE blogger makes more money from the blog than from frugality. Jacob's frugality and holistic approach is at a level where it is impressive regardless of his income. Not so for most of the others.

I don't frequent those other sites people are talking about though, so I could be way off base. Just playing lawyer for a devil. :twisted:

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by Kriegsspiel »

I don't give a shit if someone who helped me makes money. And fewer shits makes the internet a better place.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Jason wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 5:27 am
The mainstream culture co-opting JLF is irony.
Yes.
Jason wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 5:27 am
JLF taking advantaging off it is hypocrisy.
No.

I honestly hope JLF gets rich AF. I see no problem whatsoever with becoming wealthy by disseminating useful knowledge. There are many people out there getting wealthy by disseminating garbage. And I am sure JLF will use any gained wealth more prudently/responsibly/ethically than the vast majority of others.

I can’t really speak to whether MMM is a hypocrite or not, his website turns me off so I don’t follow it or him.

jacob
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by jacob »

I think I have something to say here, but I don't know where and how to begin because it's complex. Several confounding issues ...

First of all, MMM is a good guy and also legit. Some might not like the way he writes but some certainly didn't like the way I wrote (usually described as arrogant and/or hateful by my haters) either. In terms of credit cards, recall that he turned down a Chase deal worth $4k/month because the bank wanted to censor his language. We're both environmentalists (that's a rational thing these days) who want to save the world. If anything, the main difference between us is that MMM is an optimist whereas I'm a pessimist.

For sure there are probloggers out there. Some are very good. J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy is a good example of someone who has generated a lot of value in terms of pf-blogs. Blogging is a skill or a kind of expertise. FinCon is about developing skill in pf-blogging. In the early years, I did SEO, guestposting, and roundups ... later when realizing that my message was too extreme---I was ahead of my time and obviously still is in many aspects---I changed strategy to a "guru on the mountain" instead of missioning in hostile territory. This is why I promote the message very selectively, but it doesn't mean I don't promote. (One example of irony is readers who think we [bloggers] shouldn't self-promote ... but if we didn't how would you have known about FIRE in the first place??)

Most FIRE blogs are 1-2 levels closer to the mainstream and thus benefit from random exposure. I don't. This also means that ERE is hard to monetize. Indeed, by my estimates ... if I had 10 mainstream (or MMM style) readers here ... they would generate as much in affiliate or ad income as all you guys put together. In contrast something like FatFIRE is fucking goldmine. ERE level blogging income is like squeezing blood from turnips.

Second thing is ... that as a blogger you can't always control who your audience is. MMM spends 14k/person or so per year... but after getting popular, the average MMM reader spending drifted up beyond the median income. By my estimate (based on watching the MMM fb-group) spending is $60k+ :? How do you deal with that [as a blogger]? This might be what accounts for the forum (I'm not on it) or the fb group (I do get updates) where people congratulate themselves for being badass because they cut their family unit budget from $75k to $60k resulting in a 50%+ savings rate with their upper middle class engineering incomes. That's a "funny" position to be in. Not too different from mine ... I'm at 7k ... but many of you guys are twice that and still hang around here. That's Wheaton levels for you. It's hard not to be somewhat tethered to where your readers are. Especially if you want to keep inspiring them.

But I don't think MMM or myself really act as probloggers. Neither of us have sold our sites (yet?). (Conversely, most big pf-blogs are no longer under original ownership.) It's more like we're productive individuals who happen to be writers (and thus make some money). Personally, I've never been against making money. Certain voices have suggested that FIRE bloggers should not make money blogging or if they do everything should be donated to charity because otherwise it's not legit. Those suggestions usually come from people with nice pensions :-P :roll: As far as I see it, if I wasn't running ERE, I'd probably be doing something else for a little side-income. Without the book, this website makes $2-3k/year. By standard multiples, the sell out price should therefore be around $5k. (Standard multiple for these blogging deals is about 2x annual income.) Of course, that's never going to happen. At this point (+/-)$5k is like a good day in the stock market.

OTOH, if someone were to offer me $500k(*), I'd seriously consider it ... even if it meant some mean internet comments about my integrity.

(*) And to be honest, this sum is more reflective of whether it's impacting my NW. I used to entertain offers around 100-200k ... but I wouldn't do that anymore. So basically, there's no rational metric to what I'd demand. Maybe THAT is what differentiates price vs value. To me, this website is not run/considered as a business. I can now afford the luxury of treating it as a legacy by not selling it. (Along the lines of Socrates... but cheaper.)

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

jacob wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:51 pm
Without the book, this website makes $2-3k/year. By standard multiples, the sell out price should therefore be around $5k.
Plenty of former neutron star academics should be ready to dole out $5k in exchange for full-time moderation of current political discourse. :D :twisted:

prognastat
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by prognastat »

jacob wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:51 pm
This might be what accounts for the forum (I'm not on it) or the fb group (I do get updates) where people congratulate themselves for being badass because they cut their family unit budget from $75k to $60k resulting in a 50%+ savings rate with their upper middle class engineering incomes.
When I was still there more and more people were fighting against "face punches" which was directly from what MMM did and the forum members would do to try to motivate people to do better, but was decided by the majority and eventually moderators to not be welcoming enough. This probably didn't help with now people being congratulated with spending well above what MMM would feel is reasonable.

RealPerson
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by RealPerson »

jacob wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:51 pm
To me, this website is not run/considered as a business. I can now afford the luxury of treating it as a legacy by not selling it.
This is exactly my point. But I take your point and I am sorry if my comments were mean. They were not meant that way. I don't question that MMM is a good guy. Granted, he could be making more money that he is, but running ads for credit cards on a FIRE site just rubs me the wrong way. This entices some people to get in financial trouble.

I have never been to FinCon. I am speculating that SEO optimization, affiliate links and all kinds of money making schemes are the main reason to have this event. But I may be wrong about that. For what you do with your blog, I don't think you need to attend any conferences.

Your own comment, quoted above, really does sum it up. You are genuinely trying to spread a message, not running a mega bucks side gig. And it shows. That why I read this blog and greatly appreciate the forum you provide and the many terrific people who post here. I have no problem with a blog making money. What bothers me is when the commercial side of a blog appears to be at odds with the message being conveyed. Excessive exposure to marketing in general may have overly sensitized me to the feeling of being marketed to. And causes me to post unintended mean content! :oops:

BRUTE
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by BRUTE »

jacob wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:51 pm
I'm at 7k ... but many of you guys are twice that and still hang around here.
brute is here for the intellectual stimulation, not the spending. "twice that" doesn't even cover brute's rent :-/

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

BRUTE wrote:
Tue Jul 24, 2018 12:34 am
It’s time to get an RV.

prognastat
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by prognastat »

RealPerson wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 10:51 pm
Granted, he could be making more money that he is, but running ads for credit cards on a FIRE site just rubs me the wrong way. This entices some people to get in financial trouble.
It might just be that he genuinely feels his subscribers/readers are responsible enough to be able to handle a credit card without going in to debt and instead using it for gains such as travel hacking or cash back. If this is the case then allowing credit cards to be advertised wouldn't be an immoral thing.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Nice Shout out to ERE

Post by EdithKeeler »

ut running ads for credit cards on a FIRE site just rubs me the wrong way. This entices some people to get in financial trouble.
I don’t really get the objection. It’s credit cards, not payday loans.

Credit cards are a tool that you can use to leverage your money in pursuit of FIRE. Now, do people use them stupidly? Sure. But not everyone does.

I was approached a couple weeks ago while in Kroger by a dude wanting me to apply for a Kroger credit card. At first I was annoyed—I don’t need another credit card. But after looking at the benefits, plus no fee, I realized it was a good deal—FOR ME. I pay off my card every month, plus it’s earned me so far a dollar a gallon off on 2 gas fill ups, plus apparently I’ll be getting some gift cards.

Works for me, doesn’t mean everyone should do I, but if someone hadn’t been “marketing” it to me, I wouldn’t have known about it.

I think what ERE does really well is to encourage you to think for yourself about things.

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