I used to maintain a tools page.
At the time, it felt practical. A central place to list what I used, what I recommended, and what I thought others might find helpful. It also generated affiliate income, which made it feel justified.
Over time, it started to feel wrong.
Not morally wrong, just misaligned.
A Tools Page Freezes Opinions in Time
A tools page turns a moment into a commitment.
The second you publish a list, you’re implicitly saying:
“This still applies.”
The problem is that tools don’t age well. Interfaces change. Pricing changes. Ownership changes. Sometimes the thing that made a tool good quietly disappears.
Maintaining accuracy becomes work.
Ignoring it becomes dishonesty.
Neither outcome felt appealing.
Recommendation Drift Is Subtle
The other issue is recommendation drift.
When a tools page exists, it starts to shape how you write elsewhere. You become more likely to frame things in ways that justify the list. You mention tools because they’re on the page, not because they’re relevant.
That’s a subtle shift, but it matters.
I didn’t want my thinking to be anchored to a set of affiliate links.
The Responsibility I Didn’t Want Anymore
Every recommendation carries responsibility.
Not just legal responsibility, emotional responsibility. When someone uses a tool because you recommended it and it doesn’t work for them, that sticks with you.
Multiply that by dozens of tools and years of changes, and the weight adds up.
I realised I didn’t want to manage that relationship anymore.
What Replaced the Tools Page
Nothing replaced it.
That’s the important part.
I didn’t swap it for a better page or a cleaner system. I just let it go and allowed tools to appear only when they were genuinely relevant to the work being discussed.
That reduced pressure immediately.
Sometimes removing a page removes more than content. It removes a role you no longer want to play.
