Not everything that goes big needs to be monetised

There’s this recent Hacker News post about this guy who runs SteamDB, which has 6M unique visitors per month. With that kind of traffic, he can potentially do $1M ad revenue a year. Or more.

But he doesn’t run ads. At all. He even stopped taking donations.

Basically, he’s running it for FREE.

Reading the comments, many people “respected” that:

“You’re passing on $50k-100k per month of ad revenue from just basic banner ads… at least based on how RPMs were a few years ago. I respect that, definitely not the decision I’d make.”

“Even assuming a very low $0.01/session, he’d be making $60k/mo. More realistically, if he decided to do this right, and sell direct ads using something like Kevel, with “promoted” game slots or something on the homepage and search, he could do $10-$20CPM direct since it’s a large and well known site with high purchase intent. Let’s say a conservative 4 impressions per page and 3 pages per session. (12 imps per session * 6m sessions)/1000 * $10CPM is $720k / mo. This is a very achievable number, quickly, for a site that is this close to purchase intent. I don’t understand. Even putting a single adsense ad at a $1 CPM would net him close to $20k/mo. This might be one of the least monetized sites I’ve seen at this scale. Respect.”

I found the respect through the lens of monetization to be misguided, though.

I mean, I LOVE that SteamDB and the maker exists. But much of the respect was for him saying no to money. Since when is money (or the refusal of it) the main barometer for what’s worthy of respect?! So one dimensional.

But apparently it is. At least for the HN community perhaps.

He’s the exemplary exception to the notion that one must always monetize. Sometimes doing something for passion for free is fine. A hobby project staying a hobby even when it goes big shouldn’t be an anomaly or deviant.

To me, if the project is worthy of respect, it’s because it’s a generous gift to his community, and the way his community reciprocated by being generous back, with appreciation and participation. It’s not the same as just saying no to money.

Maria Popova, in her review of Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, talks about the vital difference between work and labor, and sustaining the creative spirit:

That spirit is the spirit of a gift — not the transaction of two commodities but the interchange of two mutual generosities, passing between people who share in the project of a life worth living… The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation… The gifts of the inner world must be accepted as gifts in the outer world if they are to retain their vitality.

I think she described it way better than I can.

As a gift. Kept alive only by an interchange of two mutual generosities in constant donation to each other.

Now that, is truly respect-worthy.