There have been some grumblings in the past few months about the ways in which Brain Pickings' Maria Popova funds her site. The site itself would seem pretty clear about how she does so: through donations and subscriptions from readers. But it appears she also uses Amazon Affiliate marketing links, something that one anonymous blogger charges have netted her hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. I've crafted my own donation policy (and heck, even verbiage) after Popova, so I've been thinking a lot today about how transparency operates -- for good and for bad -- for indie folks like us. [...]