Pay Wall

"Help me, dear consultant, for I simply don't know what to do!"
"What's the problem?"
"I bought into the liberal dream of becoming a starving artist. And although I am, potentially, fulfilled, I am also, as you say, starving."
"You're a musician?"
"I wish! It is much worse than that, I'm a writer."
"Oh dear, in this economy?"
"Exactly! My only asset is the written word, and there is simply no market for it."

"Are you published?"
"Only on my blog."
"Oh, so you have a blog! Great! Do people read your blog?"
"Yes! It was quite surprising to me too. But my blog has developed somewhat of a cult following."
"Great! Then the answer is simple!"
"Really?!"
"Yes, just start charging money for it."
"What? No! I can't! That wouldn't be right!"
"Why not?"
"The written word has to be free!"
"Says who?"
"Says everyone!"

"Really? So you don't pay for books?"
"Well, sure, I buy some, but not the ones I borrow from the library."
"You know the library pays for those books, right?"
"They do?"
"Yes, they buy them with funding from the government and private donations."
"What about the books I read in school?"
"Are you serious? Your school and the Department of Education paid for those books."
"You're telling me those writers got paid?!"
"Of course they got paid! How do you think all this works?"
"I don't know, I thought everyone just starved. Not actually, but, like, in a cute way."
"Nothing is free, my young aspiring writer, except, it seems, your blog."

"Water is free."
"What?"
"When I turn on the faucet at home, that water is free."
"You know you pay a water bill, right?"
"I do?"
"Yes."

"The internet is free."
"How do you get your internet?"
"By opening Google Chrome, duh."
"Yes, but who gives you Wi-Fi?"
"Spectrum...oh."
"Yes, the internet is very much not free."

"But the websites I use, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, they are all free, right?"
"Well, no. You might not incur the costs, but someone is paying for your right to use those, mainly the companies that advertise on those platforms. If they didn't pay for those rights, the underlying companies wouldn't exist. And then you wouldn't have the right."

"YouTube is free."
"There are ads before literally every video. Even ones with, like, dozens of views."
"Not for me, I subscribe to premium..."
"..."

"The air I breathe is free."
"Huh?"
"Air, it's free, nature, it's free."
"Is it now?"
"Yes."
"Let me ask you, young artist, do you pay taxes?"
"It gets taken out of my income automatically."
"What income?"
"I work part-time at a coffee shop. It covers my diet of Ritz crackers, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and beer."
"Do you really think you should be spending money on beer?"
"Do you really think I should be writing without beer?"
"Ah, fair enough. Well anyways, my point being, taxes are you paying for the right to breathe this air."
"It is?"
"Yes, the country, the state, and the city charge you to live there via taxation. All the parks, monuments, and public spaces that don't cost you any money, actually, cost you a lot of money over your lifetime through taxes."
"…Oh."

"So as you see, nothing has ever been free and nothing will ever be free. This 'free' market world runs on people paying for things, that is how everything exists the way it does. The only one who seems to be providing something for nothing...is you."
"I see."

The Paywall cometh.