I am stepping off the hamster wheel

I wrote this article about how coffee businesses waste money chasing attention through ads, SEO tricks, and constant posting. I explained how it is rented visibility, not owned. I showed why it cannot build trust or long-term growth.

I had a realization a few days ago that I was ignoring my own advice. A realization I had while I was hunched over my laptop optimizing another blog post for SEO. I was still watching rankings. I was still feeding the same hamster wheel I said was broken.

I am done with that. This is me stepping off. I am going back to what matters. I am going back to FLTR Paper.

The limits of chasing search

SEO looks like strategy, but most of the time it is anxiety in disguise. For me anyway. You optimize because you fear being invisible. You rewrite pages, track keywords, and obsess over rankings because Google tells you the rules of the game. Then they change the rules. And you start again.

Coffee shop owners know this cycle. One week your café is at the top of results. The next week, without warning, you are gone. Nothing you did wrong, just another algorithm update. The treadmill never stops.

It is the same with social media. You post, you test, you hope the algorithm favors you. But the algorithm does not care about your brand. It cares about engagement at scale.

Why newsletters give more control

Newsletters give you something none of those platforms can: ownership. When someone signs up, they give you permission to speak directly to them. There is no algorithm in the middle. No auction. No silent rule change that pulls you down overnight.

A newsletter is slower to build. But it is real. Each subscriber is a person who wants to hear from you. Each issue becomes part of a longer story, not a burst of attention that vanishes after twenty-four hours. 

My return to FLTR Paper

I created FLTR Paper to cut through the noise. It is a weekly letter that distills the most important stories in coffee into something worth your time. No distractions. No chasing clicks. Just what matters.

But I drifted. I got pulled into the trap of chasing traffic, trying to make FLTR Magazine rank higher, trying to keep pace with the algorithms. I lost sight of why I started in the first place.

That ends now. FLTR Paper is where I will put my energy again. It is where I will write for people, not for search engines. I will still be posting on FLTR Magazine, but probably less frequently than before.

Building connection instead of chasing attention

I want to be remembered when someone needs what I offer, not just noticed for a moment. Attention is shallow. Connection lasts.

For me, this is about integrity. I cannot keep telling coffee businesses to focus on what they own while I do the opposite. I am choosing the harder path, the slower one, but the one that can be built to last.

An invitation

If you have read this far, I am asking you to join me. Subscribe to FLTR Paper. Let me send you one letter a week that will respect your time and tell you what matters in coffee. That is all it will be. Nothing noisy, nothing rented. Just real connection.