
I Just Gave Up $4000 Per Month to Keep My Freedom of Speech - ryancarson
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/06/21/i-just-gave-up-4000-per-month-to-keep-my-freedom-of-speech/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MrMoneyMustache+%28Mr.+Money+Mustache%29
======
jaysonelliot
Freedom of speech doesn't mean no one can ask you to change what you say, or
that you never change your words to please anyone.

It's a very specific concept from the United States Constitution that relates
to the government _forcing_ you to refrain from saying things that you want to
say. Freedom of speech is the kind of thing that comes up when a government
agency puts warning labels on record albums, news media are prevented from
reporting on government activities, or butthurt lawyers ( _cough_ _cough_
Charles Carreon) try to use the courts to prevent people from criticizing
their clients.

The blogger in question felt that the word "badassity" was an essential
element of his brand, and that to change his header would dilute his brand in
some way. He made a calculated decision that appeasing Chase would negatively
affect his brand, perhaps even resulting in a reduction to his overall income
in the long run, either directly or indirectly. A post like this one
reinforces his brand as a blog with "integrity," and an attitude, and is sure
to help offset whatever immediate loss he sees from Chase withdrawing their
support.

While he's clearly a skilled and savvy blogger, I really don't see this as a
free speech issue. A more accurate title would be "I Just Gave Up $4000 Per
Month to Preserve My Brand Integrity."

~~~
repsilat
> It's a very specific concept from the United States Constitution

This is completely incorrect, and it's a little insulting to the users here
who aren't American.

Freedom of speech is a value with broad applicability. The United States
Constitution enshrines a right to free speech as a limitation of government
power, fine, but they don't have a monopoly on the idea. Relative freedom of
speech is a characteristic of _every_ forum in which speech and the
suppression of speech are possible.

Banning users of a forum limits freedom of speech, removing commentary that
goes off-topic limits freedom of speech. Forums are often quite free to set
their own rules about who is allowed to say what, and users are often free to
choose the forums they frequent, but that's mostly beside the point - speech
_within_ any particular forum is free to a given extent, and some people (be
they owners, operators, users, whatever) believe that this freedom is
intrinsically valuable.

(I don't really see this one as a free speech issue myself - to me, this one
is about the credit card company preserving _their_ brand integrity.)

~~~
phaus
I'm not disagreeing with your statement about credit card companies, but to me
it is hilarious that American credit card companies and banks still honestly
believe that the customers think of them as brands which represent the epitome
of honesty, integrity, and family values.

~~~
zipdog
We know that, and they know that, but its still crucial to keep up the
mechanisms of being honest,etc.

Consider the jewellery chain in the UK that sold cheap junk. Customers knew
it, and the company knew, but everything was profitable until the CEO
explicitly said the wares were junk. Then the sales went into free-fall.

------
crazygringo
It's certainly an interesting attitude.

But what if he had decided to change the banner, and give the money away to a
charity instead?

Money is a tool you can use for good. If you are blessed with the kind of
extra money he was suddenly given, you can use it to do good with.

Obviously it's all his choice, but making a big show of "freedom of speech"
feels a little disingenuous. No government is trying to censor him; nobody is
taking away his freedom; this is just a business negotiation. At no point was
his freedom of speech ever threatened in the slightest.

~~~
Smerity
Freedom of speech has many facets. I don't see this as being disingenuous at
all as it literally did impinge on his choice of speech if he wanted to remain
in the business relationship. This situation would be similar in nature to
Microsoft forcing businesses to disavow Linux to remain in partnership with
them. Censorship can be legal and doesn't have to come from a government for
it to still be censorship.

The charity argument is unfair -- most people and businesses could give more
money to charity if they live "comfortably". The manner in which he gives back
to the community is purely for him to decide. In this situation it's not a
free trade either as he needs to give up something quite important to him
(censorship) to receive the money. He'd be endorsing a product or service that
he doesn't believe in and changing the content of his product or site to fit
with it.

~~~
crazygringo
> _In this situation it's not a free trade either as he needs to give up
> something quite important to him (censorship) to receive the money._

Of course it's a free trade. He would be trading his banner for the money
Chase would pay him. He's free to do that, or free to not change his banner
and not take any more money, which he did. That's the whole definition of
"free" in "free trade" -- he gets to choose. And that's why there's no
censorship here, because there's no coercion.

It's no different from advertisers pulling ads (rightly) from Rush Limbaugh's
show after he says something offensive. I never heard anybody calling _that_
censorship. It wouldn't be even if they warned him in advance (which is what
Chase did).

------
skeltoac
Great to see MMM on HN. If you haven't read at least his first 5 articles, you
might enjoy doing that before finalizing your opinion on this recent one. Most
of the naysaying comments here seem due to a lack of context.

MMM is semi-retired. Reaching and keeping that situation takes commitment,
diligent work and cooperation. His site exists to share his methods for
succeeding. That includes using existing financial tools to meet individual
financial goals.

Credit cards are a great utility for many people, a life-saver for some during
brief periods of need, and an enabler of long-term bad decision making habits
for many others. MMM is squarely in the first cohort. Furthermore he advocates
for and educates people in the prudent selection and use of credit cards. His
list of offers was ranked by his review of the credit cards, not their
referral deals. There is nothing untoward about that.

------
mseebach
Uhm, he kept the links on a "recommends" page. And when Chase pulled the
referrals, he removed them from that page which "After stripping out all the
Chase stuff, my credit cards page is looking a little bare these days".

What does it tell us about his impenetrable integrity when his recommendations
are predicated on the recommended product paying him? Surely Chase can't keep
him from recommending the card - that would indeed be a free speech issue.

And no, it's not a principled stand against Chase: "We’ll see if we can find a
less fearful company (or Chase rep) to step back up to the plate eventually."

~~~
zhoutong
It looks like the customers can only get the cash rewards when they sign up
using the referral links. This is actually sort of price discrimination
because the people who directly sign up with Chase usually don't apply because
of the rewards. Without the benefits there will be no point to recommend that
credit card any more.

------
ZanderEarth32
Well, I am happy that $4000 is so inconsequential to Mr. Money Mustache that
he can just say 'fuck you' to it. Not everyone is so lucky. I am sure there
are plenty of families or individuals who would sacrificed their 'integrity'
or 'freedom of speech' on their blog for that kind money to feed their
families, pay for their home or get a medical procedure done. It doesn't sound
like any of these issues are a concern to him as he can just whimsically
reject that kind of money.

Also, is this really an issue of freedom of speech? Seems a little
melodramatic to me.

~~~
crikli
"Also, is this really an issue of freedom of speech? Seems a little
melodramatic to me."

I had the same thought. It seemed to me like the author was trying to make his
position far more noble than what it really is. The whole thing boils down to
"Look at me, I just turned down $50K so that I could still say 'fuck'".

~~~
Mz
I swear like a sailor. I try to keep it down to a dull roar online. If I could
make $4k/month by removing a single swear word from my site, I would be a
total sellout in a heart beat. Fuck "integrity" of that sort.

Mz bookmarks article to try to figure out if she can sell her soul for
$4k/month at some future date.

~~~
pixelbath
_> If I could make $4k/month..., I would be a total sellout_

That's certainly a valid choice; some people prioritize "integrity of that
sort" over money.

~~~
Mz
I am currently homeless and deeply in debt for valuing my integrity over
money. I could have dumped my two adult sons on my ex. He would take them in,
though he won't give me one thin dime to help feed them. And because they are
legal adults, no shelter will take us as a family. My financial mess is due to
the fact that I* have gotten well at my expense. As a former military wife
with an incurable genetic disorder, I, instead, could be a lifelong legal drug
addict at tax payer expense. But one swear word in the subheader? I would at
least A/B test it. Perhaps cleaning up his foul mouth would grow his audience
even bigger.

* Really, all three of us have gotten well at my expense.

------
metronegative
Not being familiar with this guy's work, what's so honest about getting in bed
with credit card companies and feeding them more signups? Selling lead
generation for credit cards seems a little dishonest to begin with.

~~~
olliesaunders
I want to agree with you. Could you be specific about what exactly is
dishonest here and why?

~~~
metronegative
I am having trouble phrasing it but.... a long time ago I had the opportunity
to make lots of money through a popular Facebook game I created. OfferPal was
interested in having me sell credit card leads. I didn't like the idea of
irresponsible younger people signing up for credit cards and giving their
personal information out and accumulating debt just to get more XP in my game
so.... I declined. This guy did that but then took the high ground and
reversed. Not because he didn't like selling leads but because he valued his
freedom of expression more.

~~~
SeanOC
I think the key difference here is the audience. Offering credit cards to
college kids is very different than offering cards to a more mature audience.
Especially when you've been teaching that audience how to use credit cards as
what they are, tools.

There's also a significant difference here in that in your situation, you
would have been providing the rewards and you would have had power to
artificially manipulate the value of those rewards (make it harder to win your
game without reward points. Here, the author doesn't provide the rewards he is
simply stating what offers the credit card companies themselves are making.

At the end of the day, there is certainly still a moral hazard here but it is
also a very different situation than the one you described.

------
SoftwareMaven
The value of having FU money (which doesn't have to be 7 figures).

------
valentin
Site seems to be really slow, here is the cached version:
<http://tinyurl.com/c94nnmy>

Long url:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&biw=1...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&biw=1391&bih=756&sclient=psy-
ab&q=cache%3Awww.mrmoneymustache.com%2F2012%2F06%2F21%2Fi-just-gave-
up-4000-per-month-to-keep-my-freedom-of-
speech%2F&oq=cache%3Awww.mrmoneymustache.com%2F2012%2F06%2F21%2Fi-just-gave-
up-4000-per-month-to-keep-my-freedom-of-
speech%2F&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_l=serp.3..0l4.2268.10390.0.10661.14.14.0.0.0.0.230.975.0j4j1.5.0...0.9.DtDCzXh6tCc&pbx=1)

~~~
scribu
Offtopic: What's the point of using tinyurl outside of twitter? I would
understand if you had your own vanity shortener (it would be obnoxius, but at
least it would make some kind of sense).

~~~
Mz
On small screens, sometimes long urls wrap and break? I was first introed to
url shorteners to get around breakage, long before I ever heard of twitter.

~~~
lwat
HN shortens display of long URLs automatically and shorteners are bad long
term so please don't use them here.

~~~
Mz
I don't think I ever have. But thank you for the reminder. I knew that about
HN but did not recall it.

------
ashray
Oh come on! Calling yourself a financial hacker! A real financial hacker
would:

a) Figure out the IP ranges that the chase hoodlums use. b) Setup an alternate
banner (without the word badassity in there) to show for those IP ranges. c)
Rinse and repeat for any other unreasonable demands.

PROFIT! :D

------
mschalle
Integrity > money

~~~
anthonyb
Is this where I point out that this happens all the time, even on HN? And you
very rarely hear about it?

One of my submissions got flagged by the mods last night, I'm assuming purely
because my project is called "Shithead". (Am I going to change the name? Hell
no :) )

~~~
Karunamon
You basically have to tell me about this project now, because anything that
can give me an excuse to say "Yeah I tried out this thing called 'Shithead'"
with a straight face to my friends has to be SOME kind if nifty :)

~~~
anthonyb
Here's the submission in question:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4141253>

------
dfc
The server is starting to be a little too slow for me.

Coralized link:

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com.nyud.net/2012/06/21/i-just-
ga...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com.nyud.net/2012/06/21/i-just-gave-
up-4000-per-month-to-keep-my-freedom-of-speech/)

~~~
cwp
Neither the original link, nor the above are working for me now... so much for
keeping his freedom of speech.

------
MultiRRomero
Calling this a free speech issue is like saying that Reddit inhibits free
speech by preventing you from posting personal information online. Not every
act of asking you to change or not say something is a violation of free
speech.

------
dinkumthinkum
Since when did $4,000 a month become "FU Money." Is that serious? If you make
$4K a month after taxes, I'd say you have a pretty small salary to just be
honest with you. The article, I suppose, was about more than this but much of
it spent so much time talking about how much money this is.

I don't want any of the younger HNers around here to get the wrong idea, as I
didn't really know when I was younger, this is not, in any sense, "FU money."

~~~
lizardking
I think you are misunderstanding the point. It's not that he was saying 4k a
month is FU money (although it could be) its that since he ostensibly already
has FU money he can turn down 4k a month so he doesn't have to compromise his
principals.

That said if you have zero debt, low expenses and a ton of money in an account
that yields 4k a month in interest, 4k a month could be considered FU money.

~~~
slig
In this case, how much of the 4k should be re-invested to counter the
inflation?

~~~
Retric
That's a function of both inflation rate and your expected ROI. Using 3%
inflation and 6% ROI you need to reinvest ~51.6% of your income to break even.
(1-(ROI-((1/(1-inflation rate))-1)))/ ROI = 1-(.06-((1/(1-.03))-1))/.06 =
~51.6% Edit: Ok there must be a simpler way to write that...

((1/(1-inflation))-1) / ROI = ((1/(1-.03))-1)/.06 = 51.6%

PS: Just keeping what left over when you subtract the inflation rate from your
ROI is close and you don't actually know the inflation rate or your long term
ROI most of the time.

~~~
slig
Got it. Thanks!

------
alan_cx
Instinctively I know I must have misread or misunderstood something, but...

"$4000 a month is about twice the amount it takes to pay for my entire
family’s living expenses. It’s also enough to pay the mortgage on a $900,000
house, "

How does $48000pa pay for a $900,000 mortgage? Old skool was 3x your income.
Pre-crash, 5x was possible. This is 20x (ish).

What blindingly obvious point have I missed?

~~~
Someone
This: You are using the "what should my income be for banks to give me a
mortgage" figure, not the "what does a mortgage cost" figure. At 5% interest,
a mortgage on $900,000 costs $45,0000 a year on interest.

~~~
alan_cx
\+ 36k to pay the actual loan?

~~~
Someone
That depends on the type of mortgage. At least in some countries, you
can/could get a mortgage where you do not pay anything back, the idea being
that increasing house prices and inflation would, together, lead to a
situation where total mortgage debt is much larger than the worth of one's
house.

~~~
Someone
Oops: "larger" should, of course, read "smaller".

------
tocomment
What are peoples' experiences with flexoffers? I have a tech related blog with
500 uniques per day. I've been looking to improve on the pittance I'm getting
from adsense.

------
hnruss
Chase is a terrible company anyways. I'm glad he didn't sell out to them.

------
guscost
I'd wager that your wager is spot-on. Keep it up!

------
PythonDeveloper
Awesome article. Kudos for sticking to your guns, and I hope your revenues
skyrocket, even though credit cards are the worst financial decision anyone
could _ever_ make. I'd rather YOU make money on their bad decisions than Chase
or Citi.

~~~
gfodor
Saying credit cards are bad financial decisions is like saying getting a
drivers license is a bad safety decision.

Beyond the fact that you can use credit cards to your financial benefit,
simply _getting_ the card has no consequences whatsoever. (Unless you buy into
the 'you must keep a balance to maintain good credit' myth.)

~~~
crikli
Your simile doesn't work. One needs a driver's license to drive. One does not
need a credit card to make purchases.

And getting card actually can be a bad financial decision as too many cards
can negatively affect a credit score.

~~~
Smudge
But not having any credit cards can also negatively affect your credit score.

~~~
alanfalcon
And not having a credit score can be a wonderful way to live life.

~~~
anthonyb
Until you need to borrow money for a car or a house...

~~~
PythonDeveloper
You don't need a credit score if you can pay 50% down, which you may be able
to do if you didn't pay all your money to the credit card companies.

~~~
goatforce5
My credit card company paid $800 towards the airfare of my recent trip to Oz
thanks to reward points.

I pay my card off multiple times per month. They don't get a chance to charge
me interest.

(Just checked and I have $300 worth of points waiting to be spent on travel.
That's my upcoming Boston trip covered.)

------
antihero
Better option: Change the banner, give the dough to charity, if you don't need
it so much.

There are greater and lesser evils, sometimes it's Ok to suck up a lesser evil
to combat a greater one.

