As the title suggests, today’s post will revolve around yours truly explaining why you shouldn’t trust me. It may sound weird but then again, I’m sure all regular DomainingTips readers are used to strange posts by now.

I have decided to write this post because it doesn’t just apply to me. It’s just as relevant when it comes to each and every other person you come across on the Internet.

Let’s get started. First and foremost, you shouldn’t trust me because you do not know me. On the one hand, it is true that I have been running this blog for many years, it turned seven back in February, so we are talking about approximately 7 1/2 years. However, our interactions have not been of a nature which enables you to determine who I really am. Maybe I’m a good person, maybe I’m a bad person. The bottom line and the main message I’m trying to get across is that you have no way of knowing.

I write posts, you read them or to phrase it differently, you read what I want you to read. If you for example would have lived with me in the same house 24 hours a day, you would have been able to draw relevant conclusions about myself. How I am when I’m happy, what I’m like when I am sad, how I act when I am angry and so on. This is precisely the type of information about myself that you cannot possibly gather as a reader of my blog. To sum it up, there is no way for you to determine who I really am just by reading a few blog posts, you only have access to the things I am trying to project through my posts. The image of myself that I am trying to project through the blog will always be an idealized one and the same principle is valid when it comes to pretty much all blog owners across the world. It’s kind of like what you would do if you were to write your own biography. No matter how objective you try to be, the life you will describe in your biography will end up being a lot more let’s say polished and rose-colored than your actual life. When reading a biography, when reading a blog, when reading an interview and so on, the most important thing you have to understand is that you aren’t looking at the person in question in a meaningful manner but are simply exposed to the image of himself that he is trying to project at that point in time.

Secondly, you have to understand that each person who publishes content online or ok, almost each person has an agenda. A lot of times, that agenda revolves around wanting to make money in one way or another. There is nothing inherently wrong with that and and quite a few situations, your agenda and the agenda of the person who published the content you are now consuming are aligned. You as a reader want quality content and since I as the content provider want as many readers as possible, it is in my best interest to publish quality information. In some situations however, these interests can end up becoming divergent. Let me give you an example. I have been a rather vocal critic of new GTLDs as investment opportunities for domain investors and I have done that because I firmly believe that what I’m saying is accurate. Through my posts about new extensions, I am doing my best to articulate coherent opinions about the conclusions I have drawn. So far, so good. I am providing quality content to keep readers happy and that’s pretty much it. But ask yourself, what if someone were to pay me money to change my opinion? What if a new gTLD registry were to offer me let’s say $1000 to start writing about new extensions in a positive manner from salon? You’re probably convinced that I would refuse, right? But what if instead of $1000, they would offer $10,000? Or perhaps add another zero? You see, this is where it all becomes fuzzy.

I expect the people I love to have blind faith in me. I do not expect the same thing from my readers. On the contrary, I expect the exact opposite from you. Cross reference all of the information I provide, do your own due diligence and don’t blindly accept all of the information I publish. Do the same thing when it comes to all of the other opinion formers and you will be in reasonably good shape. Don’t just go by the assumption that the opinions you are reading at a certain point in time, published by myself or someone else, are genuinely honest opinions. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. You have no way of knowing for sure and therefore, whenever you are reading a blog post, you should not accept its conclusions. Read it, analyze the arguments, take note of the data which has been provided and cross-reference if necessary but don’t accept the conclusions. Always draw your own conclusions, always. Never accept mine, never accept anyone else’s.

The third reason basically represents something that goes along with the second one. I have previously explained why the opinions posted on the Internet don’t always represent what the person who is publishing them honestly believes due to the fact that they have been influenced by the agenda of the person in question, an agenda which is not aligned with yours. The third reason, as I’m about to explain, revolves around the idea that maybe I’m publishing bad advice without realizing it instead of publishing bad advice because I’m driven by an agenda, maybe I’m simply publishing bad advice because I don’t know better. Maybe I firmly believe in one of the opinions I am articulating a certain point in time but due to misinformation, ignorance or even stupidity, the advice I’m giving is just plain wrong. Bad advice published due to ignorance is just as common as bad advice published due to a hidden agenda. The net result however is the same. You as a reader end up being exposed to content that could make you lose money. Yet another compelling reason to do your own due diligence. Don’t delegate the decision-making process to myself, to another blogger or anyone else for that matter, think for yourself.

Reason number four is represented by the fact that even in an ideal scenario, in which our agendas are perfectly aligned and in which I’m not ignorant or misinformed, trusting me is still a bad idea. This is because it would create a dangerous habit. If you trust me and develop the habit of trusting those who publish information on the Internet, you will end up trusting other people as well. Therefore, even if you don’t get burned as a result of trusting me, the likelihood of you getting burned as a result of your gullibility is extremely high. You’ll trust someone else and get burned due to the fact that you read today’s post but didn’t make it a part of your Internet content consumption habits.

This post has already turned into somewhat of a novel, so I’ll end it here. I could go on and on but these four reasons should be more than enough to help you understand where I’m coming from. On DomainingTips, I do my best to give advice you don’t come across every day. But in the spirit of this post, don’t blindly accept/trust what I’ve written today either. Analyze my arguments, identify the things you agree and don’t agree with, then draw your own conclusions.