Unless you have been living under a rock recently, you know that Taylor Swift just released her album, titled Reputation. Being a big Taylor Swift fan, I stayed up until the clock struck 12:01 Friday morning to listen to her album. To my surprise and frustration, I could not find the album anywhere. I soon learned that in order to listen to the album, I would have to pay for it. At first, I felt betrayed. All these years I stood behind Taylor, how could she do this to me?

But as I found myself going to buy the album, I realized that she has millions of people around the world in the palm of her hand. As upset as I was that I had to buy the album, I still bought it. It was not an option for me to not listen to the reinvention of Taylor Swift. Taylor knew it too. She knew that her fans were dying to listen to the album in full.

Along with not putting her music on AppleMusic or Spotify, she also is improving views on her ads and helping sell her merchandise with a rewards system. She created Taylor Swift Tix, which allows you to get a higher priority for tickets if you complete certain "boosts" each day. The boosts that you can complete consist of watching her music videos, different ads that she is in, buying her album, buying her merchandise, or inviting friends to join this reward system too. While all of these "boosts" help you move up in the ticket line, they are also helping Taylor advertise her new album.

People may say that she is greedy for not putting her album out for free, but I think it was a genius business move. She knew that there were fans, like me, who would not hesitate to buy the album the moment it came out and spend their free time watching and re-watching music videos to gain a higher priority for her concert tickets.

So haters are gonna hate, but I say congrats Taylor you out-snaked all the snakes.