Disruptive Conversations

Over on his Center Networks blog, Allen Stern asks a reasonable question: Would You Pay $1 For A Feed?

"What if blogs and journals offered a full feed for $1 per month with no ads, mobile access, etc. Would you subscribe for a buck? What I am proposing is the following forms of monetization: standard Web site with ads, partial feed with no ads, and a full feed with no ads for $1/month.

So many of the people I speak with daily subscribe to a ton of full feeds and never visit a site after picking up the feed. Some say that feeds strengthen the interactivity with a site because when they read the post, they are more likely to come to the site to comment. Sure, it's easy to jam an advertisement into a feed, but what if there was another way to provide a revenue stream for a blogger to live off of and for the consumer to enjoy the media knowing they are supporting the content they enjoy?"

Allen's piece and the ensuing comments are well worth a read. It's a good discussion point... if you are blogging as a living is it unreasonable to expect to people to subscribe to your work?

I'm skeptical, given the zillions of other websites out there... but I'm also certainly personally open to keeping on paying for content if it is valuable enough that I can't get it anywhere else. For instance, I do pay for a subscription to LWN.net because the crew there continues to provide the best coverage I've seen anywhere on Linux issues. (However, I had been reading them - for free - for several years before they asked readers to buy subscriptions... so they were already a known (and valued) entity to me when they moved to a subscription basis.)

In any event, it's a worthwhile discussion to have... check out Allen's blog to join in the conversation.

Technorati Tags: blogging, feeds, allen stern