Sorry to my regular readers for this post it’s just something that I need to say. Last night I was going through my list of blogs I check out on a daily basis and I wanted to check out what one of my friends has been up to. Since he isn’t in my blog bookmarks I normally don’t check his site that often. Going to his site (which I’m not going to give him the pleasure of a link) the first post I see is one making fun of me because something I submitted did not make it to the front page of Digg. Looking down the page I see another post (screenshot) where he talks about how many ads are on ThinkComputers and how he does not visit the site because of this, and even goes further talking about how people who sustain themselves via the internet should brush up on their business skills. Now usually I would let something like this go, but this really got under my skin because this person has no clue what it is like to run a business.

A little background on Zach…he grew up in a privileged environment living in a very nice house and being given pretty much anything he wanted. After high school his parents of course paid for him to go to college and after that they even bought him a brand new car. Since we all know how hard it is to get a job with a college degree his parents hired him at their company and just so things were not hard on him they bought him his own condo.

First off yes ThinkComputers is ad-supported, but what site do you go to that isn’t? Internet advertising is a big business and people make a ton of money off of it. If you look at any of the reviews on the site it follows the typical hardware review site layout, info about the product, ad for where you can buy the product, and a large rectangle ad in the article itself. All of the other ads on the page are not in the article at all. I can name a ton of sites that have the same type of layout. If the ads were so bad on the site I don’t think that the 4-5k unique visitors the site gets a day would stay around. Even if Zach thinks there are too many ads on ThinkComputers that is not what really made me mad.

Zach goes on in his post to say, “If you are sustaining yourself via your blog, I highly suggest that you brush up on your business skills, go back to school and get a job because the bubble is going to burst on professional blogging.” Ok Zach tell that to someone like John Chow who made over $29,000 in February from just blogging. Brush up on business skills? Some people are lucky to be making $29,000 a year let alone in one month. There are a lot of examples of bloggers making more than a living from their blogs, but I don’t need to go into that here. Get a job Zach? Who wants a job where you have to work for someone else, have crappy hours, and not do what you like to do? I like making my own hours and being my own boss, not to mention my job is awesome.

Finally ThinkComputers is my business and I am proud of it. I’m sorry Zach that you do not know what it’s like to have to pay rent, pay back school loans, and have a car payment. At a young age my dad taught me that things are not given to you, you work for them (I’ve had a job since I was 13). He also taught me to appreciate the things that I have. I feel good knowing that where I am in life is because I worked hard at it, not because someone gave it to me.

I think Zach’s biggest problem is that he does not understand the internet business. This happens with a lot of people who do not work in this business. Many people do not like bloggers and people who work on the internet because they think we are lazy, when in actuality we probably work harder then they do. Sorry to disappoint you Zach, but ThinkComputers is a real job and for many people blogging is a real job, don’t try to tell people how to run their business or their lives when you have no clue what you are talking about.