Transparency, Survival, and the Economics of Independent Media
The Awkward Disclaimer
What do you do when you read the small print under an article title, “This post contains affiliate links.” Do you stick around and give it a read or do you frantically scramble to navigate away from the impending sales pitch?
Whether the author is just a pure salesperson or someone who is painstakingly trying to find affiliate partners that are hopefully aligned with their editorial vision, these articles can invoke mistrust, eye-rolling, guilt, and resignation.
As much as we want to support our fellow creators, makers, and creatives, some of us just can’t get past the disclaimer.
And in a moment when independent media is already fragile—when trust feels scarce and the internet is saturated with monetized content—that single sentence can feel heavier than it used to.
So are affiliate links a necessary evil? Or are they destructive to creative ecosystems?
And where does a small, independent publication like She Zine land inside that tension?
A Brief History of “Linking for Money”
In the very early days of the internet affiliate sites were extremely common. Their content was barely even content, but instead just a random stream of nonsensical sentences that served only to drop in the next link. I really have no idea who visited these sites and how they could handle the nonsense, but someone somewhere must have been reading it or else these sites wouldn’t have existed.
But that wasn’t the whole internet. Alongside those junk sites were early blogs, indie review pages, and personal websites—people writing about books they loved, tools they actually used, music they wanted others to hear—quietly trying to survive the cost of hosting, domains, and time. Affiliate links in those spaces functioned less like ads and more like digital tip jars.
Back then, support was slower and more consensual. A PayPal button in a sidebar. A line that said “If this helped, buy me a coffee.” Or something like our “donate” button in the bottom lefthand of your screen right now! The reader consumed the work first and decided later whether to support it. Same basic mechanic—money attached to a link—but a radically different power dynamic.
Today, that same mechanic lives inside an algorithm-fed influencer economy where visibility is rationed, income depends on performance metrics, and creators are pressured to always be selling. The ethical discomfort many people feel isn’t really about links—it’s about how much heavier the machinery around them has become.
For a publication like She Zine—built on trust, craft culture, and longform thinking—that shift matters.
The Ethical Anxiety: Where the Discomfort Comes From
Before we dig too deep, I’ll tell you that there are articles on She Zine that do contain affiliate links. We try to publish a minimum of four editorial pieces to every one affiliate post so the site doesn’t become one big sales pitch, however I will say that this schedule is still extremely difficult to maintain.
Even though we try to be thoughtful in the companies we choose to partner with, content creation around a specific brand does not come naturally to me and I struggle with it. When we write affiliate content the goal is to still create content that “fits” with She Zine’s editorial vision and that reads authentically alongside the rest of the site.
That means affiliate content has to earn its place—it has to feel like a She Zine article first, and monetized content second.
The problem is that you still have to shout the brand and whether you love the product or service or not, this can still feel extremely unnatural. Writers, like myself, worry that they’re compromising their hard-earned credibility and readers might worry that they’re being sold something without consent.
There are lots of rules around affiliate links and disclosure nowadays but for a lot of people, including me, they still feel super icky.
That discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong—it can also mean we’re paying attention. Ethical anxiety is often a signal, not a failure.
Disclosure Isn’t Just Legal—It’s Relational
Thanks to the new rules and laws around affiliate linking, if navigated properly these links and affiliate partnerships should hopefully feel like a relationship rather than just a checkbox. You should feel a level of trust with the author so that you believe in their product or service curation—and believe that the person you’ve come to trust on the internet has done some level of due diligence in what they’re sharing and ultimately trying to sell.
Clear disclosure should be an act of respect towards the reader rather than simple compliance with modern affiliate regulations. And that’s why burying affiliate info deep inside the content can feel like a break in the trust you’ve built with a creator you actually want to support—often faster than openly monetizing ever could.
Disclosure doesn’t magically erase power imbalances, but it does acknowledge them—and that acknowledgement matters.
Influence vs Recommendation: A Crucial Distinction
What’s the difference? Essentially, influence is the creator saying “I use xyz and here’s why I love it,” while recommendation can be “here is this random product” that converts well and offers a great commission. Do me a solid and buy it.
Ethical lines in affiliate marketing start to blur when income depends on clicks rather than thoughtful content creation around a brand. The danger isn’t liking products—it’s when content exists to justify links, rather than links supporting content.
It’s crucial for creators to stay mindful of this so they don’t erode the hard-earned relationships with an audience that trusts them, listens to them, and believes in what they say—and sell.
For She Zine, this is why we prioritize evergreen affiliate content tied to real use, long-term testing, or genuine editorial relevance—not trend-chasing or impulse promotion.
The Reality Check: Indie Media Doesn’t Run on Vibes
Don’t we all wish it did. The truth is that there’s typically just one person clickity clacking on their keyboard, frantically trying to create content worthy of their audience. That work is almost always driven by passion, because being a content creator is a wild amount of labour—and anyone who wasn’t deeply invested would have to be a masochist to keep going.
That one clickity clacking person is probably making the content you enjoy between the daytime hustle that keeps the lights on and the hosting paid for. There are several difficult ways to make money as a creative—grants, subscriptions, courses—but the reality is that affiliate content around established brands is often the fastest way to make a few dollars without building an entire product ecosystem from scratch.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy. It just means you aren’t also manufacturing, marketing, launching, and sustaining a product for years on end. It’s still a slog.
Affiliate marketing is often what funds the boring but necessary things: hosting, accessibility tools, contributor fees, software subscriptions, and infrastructure. Ethics don’t exist in a vacuum. They live inside material conditions.
At She Zine, affiliate revenue helps keep the magazine accessible, ad-light, and contributor-respecting—values that matter to us editorially.
Platform Power and Who Actually Profits
Let’s zoom out for a minute. Who are the people who truly benefit the most from affiliate systems?
When you belong to an affiliate network, like Awin for example, you create a simple site profile that gets into the general stats (visitors, page views, bounce rate) and then, boom, you publish. From that point, you’re able to view available partnerships and apply to join their affiliate programs. For each program you are able to see their conversion rate and commission structure.
Big publishers—like NYT Wirecutter or fashion and lifestyle giants—can scale easily and earn massive returns from well-placed affiliate partnerships, while small independent publishers often earn just enough to cover costs if they can master the copy.
Because of this dynamic, the ethical question shifts. It’s no longer just should affiliate links exist, but where they exist—and who they ultimately support when a reader clicks. Who does the system reward, and who does it quietly bury?
This is part of why She Zine keeps its affiliate footprint intentionally small.
How We Choose Affiliate Partnerships at She Zine
We don’t apply to every affiliate program available to us—and we don’t say yes just because the commission is good. Every partnership starts with a simple question: does this belong in the world She Zine is building?
We prioritize companies, tools, and services that we actually use, have tested over time, or can clearly situate within our editorial focus on craft, creative work, ethical production, and independent culture. If we can’t imagine writing about a product without the affiliate link attached, we don’t write about it at all.
We also consider alignment beyond the product itself. That includes company values, labour practices (where visible), sustainability claims, accessibility, and whether the brand makes sense for our readership—not just whether it converts well.
Sometimes that means turning down partnerships that would be financially easier. Sometimes it means working with smaller or lesser-known companies because they fit our ethos better. This approach isn’t perfect or exhaustive, but it’s intentional—and it keeps affiliate content from overtaking the editorial voice of the magazine.
The She Zine Affiliate Policy (A Living Document)
She Zine uses affiliate links as a way to support the ongoing costs of running an independent publication, not as the foundation of our content strategy. Affiliate links may appear in specific articles, guides, or resource lists, but they do not dictate our editorial calendar or our coverage.
We aim to maintain a strong ratio of editorial content to affiliate content so the site does not become a catalogue or a sales platform. All affiliate posts are written to stand on their own as useful, relevant pieces of content—even if a reader never clicks a link.
Affiliate links are always disclosed clearly and early. We do not hide or bury disclosures, and we do not rely on fakery or pressure tactics to drive clicks.
We reserve the right to remove or update affiliate links if a partnership no longer aligns with our values, our experience with a product changes, or a company’s practices conflict with our editorial standards.
Most importantly, this policy isn’t fixed. As She Zine grows, our approach to monetization will continue to evolve—and we’re committed to being transparent about that evolution with our readers.
A More Ethical Affiliate Practice (Not a Manifesto)
A way to combat this, and still be authentic, is for publishers to recommend fewer things and be more intentional about what they’re recommending—like She Zine’s ratio of affiliate content to editorial work. Affiliates should act as support, not the backbone of the publication, unless that’s the business model.
Authenticity in affiliate posting often means avoiding false urgency and manipulative language. Instead, affiliate content should live as evergreen material—something a reader can stumble upon months later and still use to support the work.
Affiliate content should centre usefulness over conversion rates. Copy that’s overtly salesy feels like an ad and erodes trust in the author.
It’s one of those moments where you’re like, “I love this person, but now they’re just trying to sell me shit.”
That’s the line She Zine actively tries not to cross—even when it would be easier or more profitable to do so.
Reader Agency Matters
Content creators should reframe the reader not as passive content, but as an informed participant in affiliate ecosystems. Choosing to click—or not—is part of an ethical loop. Trust assumes intelligence on both sides.
She Zine assumes its readers are capable of making those decisions for themselves, without pressure or persuasion.
So… Ethical or Not?
There’s no clean answer here. Affiliate links aren’t inherently ethical or unethical—they inherit the values of the person using them. The real question becomes: are we honest about how the work gets paid for? And that question gets answered through disclosure, tone, and consistency.
Closing: Making the Invisible Visible
The truth is that money already shapes media—affiliate links just make that relationship visible. And there’s value in that visibility.
At She Zine, we’re still figuring it out. We do significant due diligence before creating affiliate content, and our biggest challenge remains the delivery: how to recommend something thoughtfully without becoming an infomercial.
Visibility, handled with care, might actually be the most ethical part.
How You Can Support She Zine (Without the Pressure)
If you’ve read this far, you already care about how independent media survives—and that matters. Supporting She Zine doesn’t require buying everything we link to, or anything at all. There are multiple ways to participate, all of them optional.
→ Read, share, and engage with the editorial work.
→ Click affiliate links only when they’re genuinely useful to you—never out of obligation.
→ Bookmark evergreen affiliate guides and return to them when you actually need something.
→ Support brands you already trust by clicking through our links when it makes sense.
→ Pitch stories, recommend resources, or flag tools you think belong in the She Zine ecosystem.
→ Hold us accountable. If something feels off, tell us. This is a relationship, not a funnel.
You’re probably going to run into affiliate on our site at some point. Tell us how we’re doing! What we’re doing wrong. How we can do better.
Supporting independent media isn’t about constant consumption—it’s about intentional participation.
AXO (she/her) is a multidisciplinary creator, editor, and builder of feminist media ecosystems based in Toronto. She is the founder of She Zine Mag, Side Project Distro, BBLGM Club, and several other projects under the AXO&Co umbrella — each rooted in DIY culture, creative rebellion, and community care. Her work explores the intersection of craft, technology, and consciousness, with an emphasis on handmade ethics, neurodivergent creativity, and the politics of making. She is an advocate for accessible creativity and the power of small-scale cultural production to spark social change. Her practice merges punk, print, and digital media while refusing to separate the emotional from the practical. Above all, her work invites others to build creative lives that are thoughtful, defiant, and deeply handmade.
