#oneaday, Day 253: Pay-Per-Everything

I came to a realisation today. I have a thing about the word “monetize” (or, arguably, “monetise” if you want to be English about it, although the latter is not recognised by a British English spellchecker). This is not news to those of you who have been following this blog for some time. Some of you may even recall the Money Robot, star of Day 128 on this blog, and, of course, the thing that goes around monetizing everything in sight by applying green electricity to their genital areas, assuming they have genitals.

But, as I say, I came to a realisation today. And my problem is not with the word itself as it is with the fact that we even need a word for this concept at all. “Monetize”, after all, pretty much means “convince people that it is acceptable to pay money for”. And sure. There are some things out there that could stand to be charged for—certain content online, for example, could be charged for in order to make sure that writers could actually get paid for once. The iPad, Kindle and other devices like them are doing a lot to help people think about how they consume content—a move away from the whole “EVERYTHING SHOULD BE FREE!” philosophy that the Internet has embraced for so long and a move towards “most things should be free, but really good stuff should be an appropriate price”.

At least that’s the theory of how it should work. How monetization works in practice is that you get people charging you to go to the toilet at railway stations. You get a 30p “convenience charge” for paying your parking fees via phone instead of via small change in a machine—change which some poor sod will have to come and collect at some point rather than an automated robot who steals your credit card numbers over the phone, I might add. You get charged £30 to disconnect your broadband (at least you do if you go with Orange Home, fuckers). And Endsleigh Insurance (also fuckers) wanted to charge me £85 for the privilege of cancelling my home insurance, all because I had moved house just after the policy had renewed, ignoring the fact I’d been paying them for the last ten years. Let’s not even get started on bank charges, where they take the money you haven’t got in order to punish you for not having any money.

You get the picture. Not everything being monetized is good. And that’s why I think the fact it’s happening so much that we need a new word to describe the concept is very much a bad thing. We don’t need to pay for everything. I pay a bloody fortune to travel by train in rubbish, smelly, drunk-infested conditions so the least I should be able to expect is the opportunity to have a piss for free at the other end. Conversely, I’d be more than happy to pay for some exclusive content, eBooks or virtual magazines delivered to the iPad I don’t have. It’s all a question of value.

You may argue that the ability to have a piss is inherently more essential and therefore valuable than an eBook. But technically I can have a piss anywhere. The charge on the toilet is not stopping me from, say, pissing myself. The nice policeman standing on the corner might, however.

The eBook or virtual magazine, however, has had love, care and attention ploughed into it and therefore, it’s only fair that the writers and producers should receive some recompense for that. So more premium, high-quality content, please, and less in the way of “convenience charges”.

THANKS.