Have you ever stopped to think about how much free stuff we all get these days?
- We get unlimited free videos on YouTube.
- We get unlimited free information on Google.
- We get unlimited free music on Spotify.
- We get (nearly) unlimited free news on all major news sites.
- We get unlimited free advice on LinkedIn™️.
In fact, we get unlimited free everything, everywhere.
So long as you pay your monthly internet bill, there’s almost nothing you can’t find online for free.
True, not all of it will be accurate. And you often can’t find the tiny bit of detail you really need because in the main the free info is very generic. And often very out of date.
That’s the problem with free stuff. It’s usually free for a reason.
It’s still the case that if you want accurate, up to date, specific information on the particular problem you have, you’ll need to put your hand in your wallet.
And that’s as it should be. All those people providing you free advice on YouTube don’t make a bean out of it until they reach a certain threshold whereby their videos start to attract advertising dollars.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m as keen on free stuff online as the next person. I constantly use Google to check facts I’m writing, YouTube for latest gardening videos and LinkedIn™️ for my colleagues’ latest informational posts. But apart from the latter and content creators I trust, I can’t be certain that anything I’m watching or reading is true. And you shouldn’t be either. (Although I do pay for Spotify for the same reason I don’t listen to public radio – the adverts!)
You’ll likely have your favourite content creators too. For the various different interests you have. My husband is a muso and downloads backing tracks for songs he’s learning to play on of his several guitars. He doesn’t pay for those either.
The importance of knowing what’s true and what isn’t hasn’t diminished or gone away. In fact, it’s even more crucial than ever in an age of dis- and mis-information. An age when it’s very hard to know what and whom to trust.
I work hard to share only what I know to be true and accurate. My reputation is important to me and what I want to know known for is accurate, up to the minute information that people can rely on. And that’s what you’ll find in my LinkedIn™️ content and here on this Link∙Ability site.