Well since it paid, why not sell it, or give it to someone who will run it. I check Freshome almost daily. You can say looking at other people's home is pointless specially expensive ones because most readers will never live in such a house. However some people may just find it joyful. Just check your logs and see the ten most frequent visitors, ask a couple of them to run it.
This was an option I considered and discussed with a friend who is well known in the minimalism/productivity space.
To me, it's actually more of a moral issue: is keeping a site like Simple Desks online good, bad, or neutral to the world. I'm sure it's different for different people, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that in the end it was detrimental to people's time.
We have better things to do with our time, and much more beautiful works of art to get enjoyment from.
Of course you are welcome to do whatever you want. I find taking it to the moral extreme strange though.
That leaves you little in the way of daily activities besides pure charitable work. Does your short film make the world a better place? I doubt it.
It sounds like it comes down to what you enjoy, and that's great. The best motivation. Simple Desks though seems like the kind of site that some might get great joy out of.
That's a fallacy of consumption. The assumption that consuming media, whether it be art, movies, books, or anything that isn't the direct act of creating, is inherently wasteful.
> and much more beautiful works of art to get enjoyment from.
Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. The words and hours spent on the Mona Lisa are wasteful when you consider what it could have been spent on. Practical things.
Alone, consumption is as wasteful as creation. Creating something no one uses or views... does a tree alone in the woods make a sound. In a very real sense, one cannot create without consuming.
Do not belittle consumption, for it is the beginning of creation.
"Is it a waste of time if an artist spends a lifetime only thinking, then in the end write one poem that turns out to inspire thousands of people."
If people are coming to the site, then it has value. What is detrimental is what causes harm. What puts a smile on someone face, even if it is a simple desk, is probably more therapeutic than Prosac.
