This is not a promotion
The internet and big media are wrestling with chokepoints.
Cable TV companies, for example, are a natural monopoly in the home. Everyone only has one provider. If the provider has an argument with a TV network, they kick them off, the signal doesn't get through, the viewer gets nothing.
One of the arguments behind the common sense of net neutrality is that chokepoints and tollbooths aren't in the interest of the users.
Now, of course, online stores, if they get big enough, can act as chokepoints. And so can Google.
If you're used to getting this blog delivered for free to your gmail account, it might be missing (I understand the irony in telling you this via a medium you no longer get). That's because Google unilaterally misfiled my daily blog into the promotions folder they created, and I have no recourse and no way (other than this post) to explain the error to them…
(But you do: follow these instructions to get it back). Here's a video on how to do something you never should have had to do…
And it's not just my email that's misfiled. I just discovered that the Acumen course I'm taking online is showing up unbidden in the same promotions folder…
Permission marketing is about delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them. It's a disservice to reader and writer when an uninvited third party decides to change that relationship.
PS there are lots of ways to follow this blog for free. My favorite is RSS, which has no chokepoints.