Sometimes the Ads Work
Facebook is free because the users are the product. Those users are "sold" to advertisers. Most of the time I'm able to ignore the ads, other than sometimes being confused about why on earth I was shown the ad in question. However, a few months ago I was actually saw an ad that made me buy something. I'm not sure Facebook should be excited by one purchase since 2009, but I guess it in some way it validates their business model.
The ad in question was for a community supporter fishery (CSF). Most CSFs require you to pick up the fish from the dock. Since living in Ohio means this isn't a viable option for any CSF I've seen, I'd always filed away CSFs as "interesting but not relevant to me." This CSF was Sitka Salmon Shares, which lets you buy fish directly from fisherman in Sitka, Alaska. For whatever reason, this really caught my interest, so I started doing a deep dive into other companies that might sell fresh seafood in this manner. Of these, most seemed to just be wholesalers, but Sitka claimed to freeze the fish directly on the boat and ship them directly to our house.
As it happens, Facebook told me that my friend Suzy (who was suzyq72) was noted as having liked the company, and when I reached out to her she vouched for them, so we signed up for the rest of 2021. We've had two shipments so far, and both ended up on our porch in fine condition. Both shipments were fully frozen and packed in dry ice with no problems whatsoever.
M says the salmon is noticeably better than the farm raised salmon we normally get from the grocery store, and her parents certainly enjoyed the Coho Salmon from our first package that we served them when they were here early in October. We parceled the rest of that first package out for one meal a week and enjoyed them all. We're working through our separate package now, which includes both some salmon fillets and some salmon burgers.
It's also a little more expensive than buying it in the store, but in theory a lot more of the money goes directly to the fishermen, who are supposedly fishing in a more sustainable manner. I'm sure there's some catch because there always is (probably that they have to fly the fish here and that's bad for the environment) but so far, this falls neatly under "seems to be an affordable net good thing." At the very least it's helping us eat more fish, which we've been challenged by in the past.
On a fun note, my former coworker Rob has always enjoyed stupid dry ice tricks. I somehow managed to remember this so we've unloaded our dry ice from both shipments on him, which led to his daughter getting to do stupid dry ice tricks. Everybody wins!
Next up is figuring out a local CSA, which has been on my list for ages and never quite bubbled to the top. Maybe in the spring...
The ad in question was for a community supporter fishery (CSF). Most CSFs require you to pick up the fish from the dock. Since living in Ohio means this isn't a viable option for any CSF I've seen, I'd always filed away CSFs as "interesting but not relevant to me." This CSF was Sitka Salmon Shares, which lets you buy fish directly from fisherman in Sitka, Alaska. For whatever reason, this really caught my interest, so I started doing a deep dive into other companies that might sell fresh seafood in this manner. Of these, most seemed to just be wholesalers, but Sitka claimed to freeze the fish directly on the boat and ship them directly to our house.
As it happens, Facebook told me that my friend Suzy (who was suzyq72) was noted as having liked the company, and when I reached out to her she vouched for them, so we signed up for the rest of 2021. We've had two shipments so far, and both ended up on our porch in fine condition. Both shipments were fully frozen and packed in dry ice with no problems whatsoever.
M says the salmon is noticeably better than the farm raised salmon we normally get from the grocery store, and her parents certainly enjoyed the Coho Salmon from our first package that we served them when they were here early in October. We parceled the rest of that first package out for one meal a week and enjoyed them all. We're working through our separate package now, which includes both some salmon fillets and some salmon burgers.
It's also a little more expensive than buying it in the store, but in theory a lot more of the money goes directly to the fishermen, who are supposedly fishing in a more sustainable manner. I'm sure there's some catch because there always is (probably that they have to fly the fish here and that's bad for the environment) but so far, this falls neatly under "seems to be an affordable net good thing." At the very least it's helping us eat more fish, which we've been challenged by in the past.
On a fun note, my former coworker Rob has always enjoyed stupid dry ice tricks. I somehow managed to remember this so we've unloaded our dry ice from both shipments on him, which led to his daughter getting to do stupid dry ice tricks. Everybody wins!
Next up is figuring out a local CSA, which has been on my list for ages and never quite bubbled to the top. Maybe in the spring...