Buying Coffee Has Become Controversial? OK, You Can Now Buy Me Coffee – blog.spu.io

Buying Coffee Has Become Controversial? OK, You Can Now Buy Me Coffee

14 Jun, 2026

A couple of days ago I, like apparently the entire Indie Web, came across that "No, I Won't Buy You A Coffee" blog post, and, oh boy, did that hit me at the "right" time.

In it the author complains about the "rampant capitalization and constant advertisements" they see reflected in those "if you liked this post, you can buy me a coffee" messages at the end of otherwise ad- and monetization-free blog posts.

First, let me say that I actually agree with a lot of the sentiment here. I'm sick and tired of opening a news article on my phone and 90% of it being covered by ads. The constant interruptions of every video I watch, especially longer music sets. All the "messages from our sponsors". Just today I was listening to one of those "build your own website with Triangle Hole and use our promo code OurAudienceIsForSale"-podcast segments that was itself inserted into a completely different podcast as one of those dynamically placed ads. Not a different episode of the same podcast - an unrelated podcast by unrelated hosts! Like WTF?!

It seems that, on the mainstream internet, you're at all times either selling something or being sold to. And it sucks. On a personal level it is annoying, from a bigger picture view it is a travesty that this is the only way we have figured out to make the web sustainable(-ish).

Where I differ from the author is that I don't see giving your readers a way to send a little tip your way as part of the problem, but part of the solution...

Quick anecdote: I first became aware of indie games and indie developers when they started hitting the mainstream on Xbox360 via Xbox Live Arcade. One time I bought a game on sale that was made by a solo developer in their spare time while working as a dishwasher. I liked this game. A lot. I declared it my game of the year that year. I liked it so much that I started feeling bad for not having paid full price. In fact, I went out of my way trying to find a way to give the developer more money. But there wasn't one. The only thing I could do was to buy some wallpapers for my 360 and avatar pictures. Neither I had any real interest in - I've never bought these kinds of cosmetics before, or after, but I did this one time, just to throw the dev some more money. Did the developer need my extra three bucks? Probably not, I think that game did quite well, and was the start of a, as far as I can tell, successful career, but it had given me more than I paid for and I wanted to rectify that.

The unwillingness to pay for things that provide us value, as demonstrated by the author of above blog post, is a big part of the reason why we are all getting blasted with ads, and are being spied upon, everywhere we go. It's not about giving one person a tip, it's about the sustainability of the net as a whole. About choosing a different route than the ad-driven system. About taking the web back from the claws of surveillance capitalism.

The author says they think "it's shameful that programmers get such higher compensation compared to artists, but this is not the place to equalize it."

No. This is exactly the place to "equalize it"! Every blog should have a way of tipping its writer, whether they need the money or not. Not to normalize asking, but normalize giving . Starting with this very post I am going to add a little message linking readers to my newly created "capitalism"-page, where they can find all the ways to give me money (currently still a work in progress), ordered by how much of that money actually ends up with me. This isn't financial advice, I am certainly not competent to give any of that, but hopefully this can also serve as a resource for others looking to set up one of these services for themselves. At least to get a board overview where to start, what to look into. And for good measure I am not just going to link to spu.io/capitalism but other causes, projects, and people to support.

Which leads me back to the beginning of this post and this hitting me at the "right" time...

The full truth here is that while, yes, this is the first post where I'll be asking for tips, it isn't because of the not buying coffee post. I've started setting up the capitalism slash page last month. Now, regular readers might think "he's been absent for over a month and the first post coming back is him begging for money?"

Yes. Those two things are actually related. I've had a bit of a mental health tumble caused by a financial blow that let to this absence. Been working on a blog post about this for weeks now, but it's... hard.

And asking for tips is hard. Asking for money is hard. Asking for help in general is hard. Especially for people with self-worth issues.

As someone who's been making free things all over the internet for longer than I'd like to admit, and longer than some of you reading...