Sure mate, buy me a bloody coffee

My sister-in-law gave me this espresso cup. It’s pretty cool. I don’t usually get involved in the internet reply-fest du jour, but this time I thought I’d give it a go. It involves coffee, just in case you wondered. BTW: I’ve used a bit of the antipodean vernacular in this post. You have been warned. There was a bit of a kerfuffle last week on the IndieWeb about whether or not people should have a “buy me a coffee” (or equivalent) link on their blog. The argument of the article that sparked the debate1 being that this is rampant capitalism, everything is getting monetised these days, it’s not going to cover your hosting costs, hosting doesn’t cost much anyway, so why bother, and please just stop. Well, that was my impression. I can understand the perspective. It seems that everything on the internet is being monetised in some way or form. “Don’t forget to like and subscribe!”, “Join my newsletter!”, “Read my Substack!”, “Buy from my affiliate links!”, “And now a word from this video’s…