how to pollute a perfectly fine stream
so you have a stream. or maybe it's a pool. something like that. there's water involved alright?
and you decide--ok this stream or pond or whatever isn't doing anything. it's just sitting here. all this water! it could be monetized!
which... fine. i suppose. if the stream is really there doing nothing.
but i bet you (no cash involved; this is a metaphysical bet) it's not actually doing nothing. i bet it's doing something you either can't or don't want to see.
you don't lose nothing when you start sucking that water up and selling it. or throwing fish in there so people can whip their rods out. you lose something. maybe nothing tangible. but something.
i noticed this when people were monetizing their facebook networks to sell oil or leggings or colloidally-silvered washclothes to eachother. as soon as you do that you're not someone i want to be in contact with a lot because i no longer trust our interactions aren't for the love of the game. you're playing a different game to me. that game is exactraction and though i do occasionally have cash lying around i'd prefer to spend it in places where the boundaries are clear and the signals aren't mixed.
also your oils are dumb.
it's not your fault. though of course it is your fault. in times of precarity it seems like a good idea to try to squeeze a few pesos out of your friends and family.
behind you (always) is the machine of capital trying to make markets of things that were once upon a time not markets. chasing that expanding growth that must exponentially and eternally happen until it devours the very substrate upon which it grows.
but let's not forget the deep magic: the love of the game is a powerful thing and once gone it's hard to get back.