Web Reliability

The nature of money in our society is to flow. Meaning that money is more like water than anything else. It’s a medium of exchange, a tangible representation of value moving back and forth in human interactions and relationships. Money is also a representation of our regard for ourselves and others, and the work we do.

For example, a cobbler finds pleasure and fulfillment in serving others by making comfortable shoes for them. Through her work, the cobbler makes the wearers of her shoes better able to succeed and serve others in their own forms of work. The blacksmith, wearing the cobbler’s shoes, makes a cast iron pan and trades it with the chef who in turn, wearing the cobbler’s shoes and using the blacksmith’s pan, makes nourishing food for the guests at the village inn. The guests, in turn, because they have been nourished and refreshed, can continue on their way to the next town’s marketplace where they can offer their wares. This is flow, but it is impeded, encumbered, that is until it is released and freed by the introduction of money. The cobbler, the blacksmith, the chef, and the trader all interact and help one another more freely when instead of trading through barter they trade through the flowing conduit of money.

The flowing of money through a community enables a dynamic and vibrant human culture of exchange and service. When the money stops moving, it stops being a medium of creative service and interchange. If we accept that this is true, that the nature of money is truly to flow than she who supports and facilitates the steady and reliable flow of money benefits greatly over time. Such a person does her part to enrich the greater human community in which she exists. The more smoothly and reliably money is allowed to flow within a group of humans, the more they all benefit from one another over time. The key is the ongoing, consistent flow.

Reliable income – the ongoing flow of money towards us - is better than quick income or one-time windfalls because it builds relationships and allows us to do other things than worry about where more money will come from. It frees us to focus on our lives and our work. The blacksmith does better when she can lay in fuel to power her fires and set her anvils down in one place for a long time, staying where her tools are to better serve those in her community. When the chef can count on the blacksmith to keep providing pans, he, in turn, can make commitments to others over time, into the future. When this network of commitments, promises, and interactions is supported and fostered over time, and money is allowed to serve its purpose reliably and consistently, a flourishing human community can emerge.

Money in the abstracted realm of the internet moves around more freely and readily than it does in the physical form of cash and coin. Less friction is involved in internet transactions. As such, money on the internet flows more easily. And when it flows more easily it serves the human community better. Supporting the reliable and constant flow of money means supporting, over time, a stable, creative, generative human community. When your website reliably generates revenue for your company, this is the work it’s doing.

Perhaps this characterization of the nature of money and flow is too idealistic. We’ve all seen examples of the dark side of money moving around on the web as well as in society at large. But the innate goodwill of the majority of humans is what I have experienced most in my twenty years as a business person.

The reliable flow of money is in support of the benevolent human desire to serve others, fix things, and contribute positively and consistently to the community.