Making a living by telling the truth to those who want it (if you can find them)
Sometimes I feel like I am mostly earning a living from the customers I haven’t pissed off yet. 😜
This charmingly quotable wisdom nugget was recently shared by John Gruber, so you may well have come across it already, but it’s worth a look again while thinking about the messy and fiercely disputed “truths” of biology and healthcare:
There are three ways to make a living:
- Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich.
- Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living.
- Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.
This quote obviously resonates with a lot of people, but I am going to pull rank: it resonates with me more. As an independent science journalist.
I have been learning this the hard way for two decades now. PainScience.com has always been about trying to make that sweet, adequate “living” by telling the truth to those who want the truth — and it’s a ridiculous business plan, because two thirds of those people only think they want the truth. Or is it four fifths? Anyway, it’s too many, and they all loooove my work right up until I tip over one of their sacred cows, and then suddenly they cannot cancel their memberships fast enough. Sad trombone.
I know it’s possible to make a living this way because I’m still doing it after all these years, and I have the best people in the world to thank for that — my long-term members. But such exceptional people are rare — so hard to find that you can’t make a good living this way, and most cannot manage it at all.
See also: “Debunking for a living.” See also my origin story.