Your motives

If this is the wrong forum for this post, sorry. Just relocate the topic then.

I was just wondering about the motives of the members here. As in, what made you involve yourself in Black Hat SEO and other techniques described on this website? Dit it seem a quick buck to you (which it probably isn't, lol) or did you have other, maybe more complex, motives?

For me, it was kind of a realisation that I had a couple of weeks ago. At the moment I'm not earning that much money. Story's kind of complicated, but it comes down to the fact that due to circumstances, I can't work in my main (parttime) job for more than 24 hours per week. The work I do at the moment doesn't pay that well hourly either, as I wasn't able to follow any kind of specialised education. I do some freelancing, too, and although quite irregular, I do earn a lot more with that on an HOURLY basis. Standard of living at the moment isn't too bad for me, but I'm spending more than I earn, and seeing your total balance shrink and shrink every month isn't great fun.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I kind of "realised" that loads of people are out there, making money, profiting off the backs of people who are too kind, too honest, or too morally involved to stand up for themselves, let alone do the same. There was kind a shift in my mindset to a higher priority considering actually earning money. Hesitations I had before, mainly based on vague things such as ethics or morals, seem to have vanished. Let's say I feel that I'm done with being shat on and I feel comfortable with involving myself in some of the grey areas of the interwebz.

So, that's me. How about you?

"Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do"

Internet income always fascinated me, ie: being your own boss, able to work anywhere with just a laptop, and creative work. And best of all being, you get what you put in, your only barrier is your own work ethic and creativity, unlimited possibilities.

I like blackhat because it works, even with the local business clients I do seo work for I employ blackhat techniques.

Well, I don't think someone always loses out as such, but I do think the odds of clients/buyers/customers "losing out" increases as you begin to focus more on making money (or efficiency, you could say) instead of providing the very best quality. However, nothing has to be wrong with that. In the end, this is how our current - rather free kapitalist system - works, and it's not working all too bad. Customer has a problem; you solve it at a price they deem reasonable. The question would be: is the customer really "losing out" when he buys something at a price he deems reasonable, when objectively speaking, it is not?

As for tricking, lots of the methods I read about on the website do promote some sense of tricking, although of course, techniques very similar to these are widespread (across bigger companies, too). If you call it tricking though, it implies it's misleading, which to some extent it is, but according to law probably wouldn't be. I think one of the things that differs this website from other websites and books is that it is open and truthfully about the exact goal of certain techniques, and how these goals are reached, which makes the tone quite machiavellian every now and then.