Jason Kottke Turns Beggar to Voluntary Subscriptions

Update II 2/24/05: Looks like I am not the only one that finds this an issue. Although, there is more reasoning here.

Update Begin:

Kottke clarifies what he is asking for:

Another way to look at the money that people are giving me is that it's like a subscription fee for a daily magazine. There's a transaction here; you're paying me in return for a (hopefully) interesting, engaging, timely site that's full of information and creative projects and updated on a daily basis. So while I think the micropatronage idea fits the best with what I'm doing, there are also elements of the subscription idea in there as well. It's hard to tell you exactly what I mean (either English is failing me here or I'm failing English), but I hope you get the gist of it.

I think he should call it a "voluntary subscription".
(Please note that I modified the title to have a line through "beggar" and added "to Voluntary Subscriptions". Also, the first two comments on this post were made before the update.)

Update End.

If you haven't heard, Jason quit his job and is asking his readers to pay him to blog.

I like reading kottke.org.  The design of the site is great too.

I know I am gonna get flack for saying this . ?

However, I have an issue with people asking for donations for this kind of thing.

I don't have a cogent argument for this. 

I can't be accused of not supporting the arts.

I couldn't put a finger on what bothers me about it.

But, it rubs me the wrong way. 

I do congratulate him for quitting his job.

It is also cool that he recognizes that he doesn't need to replace what he made and can survive comfortably with less, while doing what he loves.

I am not inferring that he should add ads to his site. 

Or that he should do contract work.

I don't have any other suggestions.

It is his life to live.

But, donations aren't the way I'd do it.

How about a subscription?

Even the Gates people figured out how to make money to finance their art.

Donations should be for other things.

All that said, I wish him luck.

Stream of consciousness over.

Comments

[grant]

interesting.

question: why am i a beggar if i ask individual people to compensate me for my services instead of a few companies (contractor) or a single company (employee)?

kottke's altered his reality a bit. i think, in an interesting way. it seems like he put some forethought into it.

there are (at least) hundreds of people trying to figure out how to monetize the blogosphere, right? jason may have just stood up and raised his middle finger, in a way, saying: "i'll do it myself".

right on.

it's definitely an experiement.

it'll evolve.

the semantics of subscriptions might make more sense. wasn't part of canter's peopleaggregator/foaf rap about subscribing to people, at some point? are you out there, marc?

[peter caputa]

interesting point, Grant. The title came out before I wrote the post. As I wrote the post, it obviously got a bit less harsh. Obviously, my mind isn't that made up on the issue. Went with my gut.

And your points and some other "offline" comments from people have gotten me thinking....and reconsidering.

What Jason is really doing is challenging that writing/journalism needs to be combined with advertising in one entity... in order to justify/finance the writing.

Which is an interesting experiment. But...

I sat down with two Museum Directors today from different museums. They both made the point that they are competing with nightclubs and wine stores for customer's dollars; that grants, government money, sponsorship and endowments from businesses/citizents are shrinking and shrinking.

It is sad when our museums think that our nightclubs are competition. That consumers don't recognize and value the contribution to society that our cultural institutions make.

I guess that I am thinking that unless someone is doing something a little more worthy than writing compliant html and sharp looking css, then they shouldn't be asking for donations.

Maybe Jason could facilitate or support fundraising efforts for other institutions, as well as himself. With his popularity, he should be able to raise significant dollars for cultural institutions or charities.

That might be something that warrants > 140 blog mentions.

That would be something I'd support.