Running a blog is a relatively cheap hobby, but there are annual costs associated with domain names and hosting costs. Many of my fellow bloggers and podcasters have created Patreon accounts and asked their readers for subscriptions (often in return for premium content or early access). For a variety of reasons, that’s not my thing.

Recently, however, I learned about another option called Buy Me a Coffee, and it intrigued me. It offers a super-lightweight, low-friction, method for people to appreciate work in a very casual way (in the same way you might buy your mate a beer or coffee). The service is configured so that the donation is equivalent in price to that of a cup of coffee, and no commitment is required; just a one-off gift of a couple of euros. (On the back-end, it’s similarly lightweight with no minimums, no required service contracts, and a very small and fair transaction fee).

So, as an experiment, I’ve enabled these buttons on my site. I’m not looking (or even dreaming) that this will bring me in a livable wage (that’s not why I’m blogging). I’m simply curious if it will generate sufficient revenue to pay for my annual hosting costs (and who knows, if I get sufficient revenue, enough to advance-pay future hosting costs to keep my site running posthumously)

As always, no pressure. My blog will be free to read, but if you want to ‘buy me a coffee’, that would be lovely!