There is a reason why advertising/sales and editorial are two independent silos within any (self-respecting) news outlet.
The moment you accept payment, your psyche is clouded already. Even if in the sense of this must be absolutely neutral. Accepting payment, or being aware of payment offered and accepted, clouds.
...all the words on my blog are written by me.
The only reason why there is a thing such as the status quo is to disrupt it.
Hmm... the problem is that I wouldn't make any money lol.
If I charge $80 for a 1,000 word post about a blockchain, there is no real profit margin there. I can't afford to hire a good writer for original research for much less than $80. Doing it myself is ok because I work for ~4 hours on the article and the rate is reasonable.
In my opinion transparency is more important that neutrality. Like, an effort towards neutrality is OK even if its not perfect, as long as I'm honest about what is going on. Does that sound reasonable to you, or would you be opposed to it anyway? We don't have to debate it much more, but I'm curious if you would agree/disagree with my reasoning
I totally agree with that reasoning. Transparency is what matters most. I also trust you that it will not bias your writing, at least not in the sense that it could [heavily] affect the tone of the article.
But I allowed myself the stricter view/comment because over the years I have been at every level of the process. All the way from I will be stricter in reviewing this app/product to implemeting the structure in which sponsored posts were written by somebody otherwise not in our editorial team, because as you said there is no totally neutral way, right .