4 Reasons Why I Despise the term "Monetize" (Building Trust over Transactions)
Box Cutter Co. Free Issue No. 71
I despise the term ‘monetize’.
It strips creativity of purpose and meaning. Cheapens it.
It takes the act of creating something potentially meaningful and flips it into a business transaction. A revenue projection. A sale.
Ideas become a commodity, which isn’t always ‘bad’ — as many of the most powerful innovations across history started as “ideas.”
But when every idea is reduced to a price tag, creativity erodes and fades.
Not every thought or creation is meant to be sold. Some are meant to be shared, explored, or simply expressed without expectation of revenues and profits. (Take, for example, the Open Source movement.)
We are Hardwired for Story (not Profits)
The most powerful form of marketing isn’t transactional. The best form of marketing on Earth is Word of Mouth (WoM).
Often, the best way to drive WoM is through free content. The Freemium plan facilitates building trust slowly over time.
Consider for a moment:
Have you ever purchased a course or program from someone online?
How long did it take for you to feel the trust to do that?
How many posts, emails, and videos did you read or watch first?
For example, for me, it took me about six months of reading, following, and thinking about posts and content from
and before deciding to purchase the Ship 30 for 30 program.I then followed that up, paying $5,000 US to complete the beta-cohort of their Premium Ghostwriting Academy. (Both of these came with lifetime memberships)
These courses and programs have been building blocks for my portfolio of digital writing businesses. I also tell others that too (WoM at work).
I often share the stories of why these courses assisted me, as well as the aspects of what Cole and Dickie have created, which is based on their stories.
Their stories did more to motivate me to purchase than their ‘content’ or their ‘funnels’ or their ‘lead magnets.’ Not all content needs to be pushing, or “lead magnet’ing” or funnelling to a sale.
Creativity as More Than a Transaction
Not every act of creativity needs to result in ‘revenue’— including your creative acts online. There are real dangers in this kind of thinking.
Creativity—real creativity—isn’t meant to be constantly squeezed into a dollar sign. Turning creativity into a transaction often flattens it. (Not always, but often.)
It squeezes creativity into formulas which generally sucks the meaning out of it. You stop creating for connection (to your Self and others) and constantly create for the sale.
Constantly creating for profit also misses the power of free—and what Freemium can bring to your efforts.
Giving away content (e.g., like every social media post) — offering something without expectation— builds trust far more effectively than any hint at selling.
Offering content without the pressure of profit creates space for something more valuable than a sale—it builds trust and invites people into your world.
Free creates space for connection before ‘conversion.’ It lets creativity live in purer, real forms — shared without immediate pressure to profit from it.
Think about free content you’ve engaged with—articles, podcasts, videos. The value for you is generally not focused on transactional.
You became part of that creator’s world because you are building trust, not because they asked you for money, or constantly persuading you to buy, or enrol, or sign up.
This is why free works. It prioritizes value over profit — connection over transaction. (The side effect… well… that can often be revenues).
The Paradox of Authenticity
When you start thinking about how to monetize your creativity, you also obsess about making it marketable.
Authenticity becomes a brand. Vulnerability becomes a performance.
The deeper you go into “showing your true self,” the more fakely fluffy and polished it becomes.
If you’re constantly thinking about the sale (the transaction), it’s hard to stay real. Or, you simply lose track of what is real.
At times, even with Box Cutter Co., I’ve felt the pull to shape my stories to what I thought would resonate more, to make them cleaner and more polished for an apparent audience.
But in chasing that ‘authenticity,’ I realized I was losing what made the work real for me.
When we start shaping stories to fit what we think “an audience” wants we edit out the messiness, the questions, the imperfections. And that’s where authenticity walks out the back door.
Authenticity isn’t something you market. It’s something you live.
Sometimes it’s messy, raw, and unfinished. It doesn’t fit into neat narratives or polished sales pitches.
That’s why not every act of creativity is meant to be profited from. Some are meant to be shared as they are. Unpolished. More questions than answers.
Creativity and Connection, Not Conversion
If you strip away the pressure to profit, you’ll most likely find something deeper: the act of creating for the sake of expression, exploration, and personal growth.
When I look at Box Cutter Co. and my work, I don’t measure success by the number of people ‘converting’ into paying subscribers.
It’s great some folks have generously become paying subscribers, and I’m hopeful more will do so. However, it’s not the central focus of why I publish Box Cutter Co.
From the first post onwards (2 years ago), Box Cutter Co. has been a type of public Learning Journal.
I often think of the legendary Seth Godin. He’s been posting daily for about 20 years and has consolidated those into multiple books. He makes some money from the books, but more importantly, he gains trust, credibility, and marketability.
It’s freeing for me to create without expecting an immediate return. It opens up different possibilities. I can experiment and play. And, I marvel at the number of people who have reached out based on something I’ve written and posted.
Some of these became business transactions where I earned some revenues by assisting in solving someone else’s challenges.
I am also creating a vast library of content, thoughts, and thinking. Their value extends well beyond the ‘here and now’.
When you create without pressure for profit, you create space for deeper engagement and connection. People may see themselves in your work and the work may resonate in ways you never anticipated.
Lately, and now that I’m about two years in, more and more people connect or reach out who are earlier in their creator trajectories.
Who knows what can become of these connections?
Box Cutter Thinking
If you are building online, you will read and hear a lot about “finding your niche.”
You will read and hear a lot about how monetizing requires you to narrow down and refine your message until it’s razor-sharp. To “know” and “write to” your ‘audience’ — and so on.
But what if your power lies in the fact you don’t fit into one neat category? (Or at least not yet.)
I’m finding some of the best creators aren’t those who follow formulas. They invent their own.
Outsiders and Originals break the plastic storylines because they’re not limited by what’s worked before. They draw from everything—their experiences, failures, and curiosities—crafting something new.
Often drawing from eclectic experiences, interests, and curiosities.
If you can let go of the pressure to monetize your work, you create space to explore. To create from the edges. To push boundaries and muddle around in messy middles.
Creativity is expansive, complex and impossible to define in a box.
When you try to shrink it down to fit inside a revenue model, you risk losing much — especially authenticity, discovery, and experimentation.
Redefining Success?
Next time you sit down to create, try not to obsess about how you can monetize it. Consider abolishing that word from your vocabulary.
Any word with -ize is usually fluffy and bullshitty — like operational-ize, normal-ize, incentive-ize.
Don’t think about how your next article must become a sale.
Instead, consider how you can make it matter. How it can carry some meaning.
Maybe think about how you can create something that people want to talk about, share, and maybe reflect on.
“Gee, I’d never thought about it that way before…”
Not because they will buy something from you, but because it moved them. Because it connected. Or, maybe, because it caused them to stop and think for a bit.
That’s where real value lies. In the connection, not the transaction. In the story, not the sale.
Your article spoke to me. I know that finding a niche is not as easy. But the consistency of writing for an audience is very important. Especially when you're building your own brand. I know for a fact that monetizing is kind of an icky word
It's like Amazon your friends raving about products and you trust them because you know them. Same thing for writers. There's got to be raving fans talking about you but in a genuine sense.
Great stuff!