{"id":3394,"date":"2025-07-25T17:16:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T00:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/?p=3394"},"modified":"2026-01-06T13:52:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T21:52:02","slug":"direct-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/thoughts\/direct-connections\/","title":{"rendered":"direct connections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I don&#8217;t need a middleman (middle-entity?) making money off the fact i want to trade photos of our cats.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"771\" data-attachment-id=\"3432\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/thoughts\/direct-connections\/attachment\/241207lucipinkblanket\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/241207lucipinkblanket.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1200,904\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;1.9&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Pixel 7&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;6.8&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;1264&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.016666666666667&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"241207lucipinkblanket\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/241207lucipinkblanket-1024x771.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/241207lucipinkblanket-1024x771.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3432\" srcset=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/241207lucipinkblanket-1024x771.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/241207lucipinkblanket-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/241207lucipinkblanket-768x579.jpg 768w, https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/241207lucipinkblanket.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As enshittification across major platforms intensifies, and as <em>some <\/em>of the cowardly wet farts running those platforms support a fascist wannabe dictator who looks like a deformed carrot in a cheap blond wig, i am definitely not the only person who is seeking ways to directly connect with people&#8211;and creators&#8211;whose lives and work i enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In case you&#8217;re also that person, you&#8217;re in luck! I&#8217;m going to start a&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Monthly update post<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m committing to one post per month on my blog that will look pretty much like <a href=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/art\/sketches\/hindsight-july\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"3371\">this one for July 2025<\/a>. I&#8217;m calling this post category &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/category\/hindsight\">hindsight<\/a>,&#8221; and it contains five main segments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Art: 1-5 (ish) of my favorite images from the month<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>News: short updates about my life and any professional accomplishments<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pet tax: photos of my pets, occasionally wildlife<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Anecdote: short &#8220;so this happened&#8221; story<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Get goods: announces the giveaway winner and highlights a single bit of merch\/subscription tier. I&#8217;m trying to remind myself that i actually have fun things for sale that make good gifts and it&#8217;s kinda dumb not to let anyone know it<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Other than stopping by my blog, here are the ways you can be reminded when i post:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Email newsletter<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>One email per month<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Same content as <a href=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/category\/hindsight\">Hindsight<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Your data is never shared, <em>ever<\/em> <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Signing up enters you into <a href=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/raffles\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"3367\">a monthly giveaway <\/a>for an original piece of art!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/contact\/\">join newsletter &amp; giveaway<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mastodon<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I will link to my <a href=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/category\/hindsight\">Hindsight<\/a> post each month from my account at Mastodon.art, so if you&#8217;re on Mastodon or use another Fediverse app, you can follow me <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mastodon.art\/@inkshark\">@inkshark@mastodon.art<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\">add @inkshark on Fediverse<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">RSS<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don&#8217;t know what RSS is, it&#8217;s how we used to build content feeds <em>before<\/em> we had social media giants to do it for us. But with RSS, you can choose accounts from many different sites instead of being trapped in the prison of Facebook or Snapchat or whatever. So this is retro, but it still works, and it&#8217;s even more relevant now that it&#8217;s <em>also<\/em> about shouldering out predatory mega-corporations, not just about controlling where you get your news, comics, and fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can learn <a href=\"https:\/\/openrss.org\/guides\/what-are-rss-feeds\">more about how to get set up with RSS here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-6c531013 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/category\/hindsight\/feed\">add Hindsight posts to RSS feed<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/feed\">add all blog posts to RSS feed<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t need a middleman (middle-entity?) making money off the fact i want to trade photos of our cats. As enshittification across major platforms intensifies, and as some of the cowardly wet farts running those platforms support a fascist wannabe dictator who looks like a deformed carrot in a cheap blond wig, i am definitely [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[231,229,230,224,228,117,46],"class_list":["post-3394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thoughts","tag-cats","tag-giveaways","tag-hindsight","tag-luci","tag-newsletter","tag-pets","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/241207lucipinkblanket.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3394"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3958,"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3394\/revisions\/3958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inkshark.net\/trove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}