This entry is not about the Konfabulator dustup, a dustup which seems far overstated, especially since the author of Konfabulator, Arlo Rose, has since made some more reasonable statements than many of those who chose to speak on his behalf. In the spirit of letting reason reign (*sigh*), I'll reserve further comment on the somewhat apt point that developing in limited volume markets carries fairly dramatic risks, and single-threading yourself in a limited market only serves to provide a multiplier to that risk.
No, this is because Michael Hanscom reminded me that I wanted to shout out quietly for John Gruber's move to be more independent as a writer by securing some financial reward for his writing. To that end he's raising memberships for Daring Fireball. The immediate rewards are a little slim in aspect - access to full text in his RSS feed (ok, that's actually not so slim), a regularly updated linked-list feed, a T-Shirt, and an entry in a contest. But it's also that you provide a seed for more writing about UI and related issues from John, more thought food.
And yeah, the T-Shirt looks pretty keen as well.
Now, is this a way forward? How many micro-subscription writers can be supported this way? How many people will pay a sawbuck for Gruber, another for, say Ihnakto, and a third for a Michael Swaine, say? On top of paying your public radio tax, your community radio tax, etc etc. One can only open one's wallets so many times a year, tax deductable or not. Micropayments for products you can feel have worth in advance feel like a gamble. Maybe a federated token system, lighterweight than micropayments, would allow authors to get paid, if that form could be yet-reinvented...
Oh, and this is not a Blogs are Journalism piece either.
Posted by esinclai at July 01, 2004 06:51 AM |