Hey, everyone. It’s J.D. again. Thanks to Jim for carrying all of the Apex Money duties during the past month while I was preoccupied.
You see, my mother died on October 3. This wasn’t unexpected — her health had been declining for a long, long time — but October has been difficult nevertheless.
I spent all of last week doing nothing: walking the dog, staring into space, browsing Reddit for hours at a time. I feel listless and apathetic. I have so much to do but no will to do it. The best way to get back in the swing of things, though, is simply to take action. So that’s what I’m doing. Let’s see what sorts of goodies I’ve found for you today…
The people making millions off Listerine royalties [The Hustle] — “Most types of intellectual protections (trademarks, copyrights, patents) have a built-in expiration date: Patents automatically expire after 20 years, at which point a company can no longer charge a royalty. Listerine’s formula, however, was a trade secret — and a trade secret, the court ruled, can have a perpetual royalty contract.” This is a fascinating story, and one of my favorite pieces of the year.
Does shopping at a warehouse club really save anything? [Chief Mom Officer] — “This week I’m going to do a bit of an old school series on warehouse clubs. Today I’m going to share with you the research I did to look critically and closely at a typical BJ’s shopping trip and see what, if anything, we saved over other options in town. On Wednesday I’ll go through a bunch of warehouse club shopping tips. And on Friday I’ll talk about how to figure out what kind of shopping options work best for your family.”
The power of a “what if we didn’t own this?” bag. [Rich in What Matters] — “Many things enter our home that don’t actually serve a purpose in our lives. We don’t use them, love them, or need them. The purpose of material possessions is to be used for some good. If we’re holding onto things that have no value, we are keeping them from fulfilling their true purpose in someone else’s life.”
Lastly, here’s a YouTube rant from the GiantGrantGames channel that I really, really liked: “YouTube ads are getting insane, and I hate it.” This video explores the growing problem with YouTube ads and suggests some solutions.
As somebody who’s prepping to dive (back) into video, I found this fascinating. I was a Google early adopter. I told everyone I could about how awesome the company was. No more. Google long ago discarded their “don’t be evil” motto and embraced the Dark Side. I hate it.
I’ve slowly been shedding everything Google from my life…even gmail! Doing so is difficult, though, and makes it tougher for content creators to earn a living. My aim is to have zero percent of Get Rich Slowly’s content on Google platforms, but I still need to puzzle out how to make this happen. Will people really go to Vimeo to watch videos instead of using YouTube? I don’t know.