I have one overarching rule for Gadgetoid: Keep it simple. You send me a product, I write about that product. Simple. If it gets any more complicated than that then – no hard feelings – it’s too much like work and I’m not interested.

If you remain in any doubt about how we can work together, your question is hopefully answered below –

Will you publish our sponsored post.

No.

Will you sign up to our affiliate programme.

No.

Will you buy our products from X and we’ll refund you when Y.

No.

Will you swap links?

Are you a brand sending me something to review? Then sure. It would be silly for me not to link the product. I would deeply appreciate a link back in the reviews section of your website. It helps my credibility and search performance (presumably, anyone who pretends to know for sure is just making stuff up at this point) which in turn helps people find out what I think of your product(s).

Are you just trying to promote your blogspam? Then no. I don’t promote anything I can’t touch, feel, and spray with the garden hose.

Can we pay you to…

No.

Unless it’s like a million dollars or something. Everyone has their price.

Could you purchase our product from Amazon and we’ll refund you once you leave a positive review.

Absolutely not. And I’ll forward your email to Amazon. Not that they appear to care.

We need you to sign this contract/NDA.

No! and no. Contracts or agreements ceding any creative control or overcomplicating this process are absolutely out of the question. I very successfully run Gadgetoid as a hobby, and I have no interest in making it feel like work.

We need to you add a banner to your website.

No.

Could you take down that tweet/article you made when we asked any of the above.

No, and asking me to do so is not going to have the outcome you’re looking for.

Can you remove that sponsored link we asked for 10 years ago when you actually thought you’d make a living from this and hadn’t righted your moral compass.

No. Just disavow it and take whatever hit that gives your credibility. I’ve got better stuff to do, like writing whatever this nonsense is!

Can you make a small change to your review?

Depends what it is. Putting a link somewhere reasonable? Sure! Covering a point I forgot to mention. Sure. Biasing my candid opinion in favour of your brand? No.

What’s your audience and demographic breakdown?

I don’t know. I won’t ever know. I removed all analytics products from Gadgetoid.com in a pursuit of uncompromising privacy, minimalism and performance. I can give you unique visits as reported by the caching proxy, and you can check publicly available attempts to rank websites (which are all terrible and incredibly easy to game) if you need some made up numbers to short-list Gadgetoid for sample consideration.

But, but, you contacted us?

So. I’m not married to your product. I go where my interests lie and if I hit a brick wall I move on.

Why are you like this, Phil?

Look; I’m old, I’m jaded. I’ve been reviewing things one way or another for roughly 20 years. I don’t do this for a living, and I don’t have any patience or tolerance for nonsense.

I’ve stripped back Gadgetoid to the bare essentials. I’ve removed my dependency upon Twitter in favour of a dedicated Mastodon instance for stream-of-consciousness posts and photo hosting. I’ve obsessed over making Gadgetoid a great experience for readers. I want you to turn on “Reader View” and go “Oh, wow, that’s made this website worse.”