This Blog Post Is NOT Sponsored

It's well over two in the morning, and I have butterflies in my stomach. Wonder why I might be feeling that way? It's because I've thought this endlessly for days and days whether or not to just close this blog and consider it as a good and eventful chapter in my past.

Staying and leaving are both the hardest things to do. Ever since I went dormant and left this blog untouched, the world has definitely passed me by. New blogs have sprung up here and there in the Malaysian blogosphere, and it's going to be hard keeping an audience sticked to this very blog. Heck, just look at Project Petaling Street, there are now more blogs than you can ever imagine! I don't recognise the names of most new blogs, and I certainly don't read them because it's the equivalent of gorging yourself on a buffet. There's just too much of it going on until you can't even follow!

And now, there's the new phenomenon of blogging for cash, even until the point of letting advertisement blog posts taint the very essence of the blog. Although I think ads at the sidebar or underneath blog posts are acceptable, but whatever happened to your dignity? Have you succumbed to the point that you are willing to give up your integrity and dignity of your blog so that you can earn a good buck or two?

Ideally speaking, a blog without ads is fine, a blog with some ads is fine as well, a blog with quite a lot of ads is on the borderline, but the line is crossed when you get paid to blog! It's... it's similar to bribery, it's unethical, and most of all, it goes against the very purpose that blogs are supposed to be - a non-mainstream informational distribution medium that brings people together - and not some bloody money-spinning tool.

Now I know that this is going to ruffle some feathers. I'm not pointing fingers at those who accept those blog-for-money offers, after all which sane person wouldn't pick money off the floor if all that it takes for them is to just bend down and pick it, right?

To be honest, I've thought about venturing into such articles-for-money territory, but I decided it was not worth it. Anything that happens to be coerced into words (especially when that motivation involves money) will lack usually lack the essence and spirit. Jeremy Clarkson used to say that some objects have souls right? Well I happen to think that blogs and the articles within have souls. So, please don't let that soul be corrupted.

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Well then, today's copy of The Star highlighted the possible decline of the blogosphere. It's in the In-Tech section and here's the link to one such article that was published, please read it if you have the time. I hope it'll be a reality check for some out there.