It's also inherently problematic. Getting "sponsors" to pay you to talk about their product is in direct conflict with becoming/remaining an influencer.
Your audience needs to trust you. If your audience knows you are shilling for someone, they fundamentally can't trust you.
They can no longer trust that you are saying "This is an awesome product!" because you genuinely believe that. Maybe you actually think it's shite, but, hey, you needed to make rent this month. So, whatevs.
I've even seen people on the internet say "I used to read such and such ...until they began getting free samples and the like to support the blog. Then it went to shit and I quit reading."
It's a problem space I've thought about a lot because I blog. I am trying to get my writing supported primarily via tips and Patreon.
If my audience wants quality content it can trust, my audience needs to pay me. If they aren't paying me, "they are the product, not the customer" to borrow a popular phrase.
But selling out my audience so I can eat is not a thing I am interested in doing. It's flies in the face of the very reasons I blog.
Over the years, a lot of quality free content has either gone to shit or gone away. The expectation that good content should exist, but be free, is simply unsustainable.
Quality content takes time, effort and expertise to produce. It needs to pay, or most of the people who are any good will eventually go do something that does pay.
That's just reality.
And then we are left bitching about how there's nothing any good on the internet anymore and where is all the good stuff I remember from the good old days? (A fairly common refrain currently, actually.)
Perhaps I'm too simple-minded, but paying bloggers to talk about your site just sits wrong with me. I thought that part of the reason blogging has become so popular is because the traditional media outlets were getting to be too influenced by money and politics, so blogs were inherently more honest and interesting. To see some of the same practices occurring in blogs spells decline in my opinion; if enough of them succumb to these mechanisms, blogging will lose its credibility or honesty just as other media outlets have.
</rant>
I still thought the article had some good suggestions, and I'll be sure to keep it in mind when launching my own site.
In reply to your edit, which I'm only just now seeing and can no longer edit my other comment:
I'm not arguing that. I run multiple blogs and I am very much on the record as wanting my blogs to remain free to read. I don't want paywalls or subscription newsletters and I no longer have ads on my sites.
I try to support them with tips and Patreon and I don't get enough money that way while other people clearly use the info and, in some cases, have a history of intentionally shafting me by not only not leaving tips, they also do not give me any credit nor promote my work.
I need money. People "value" what I do but don't want to pay me for it. Copyright and even the Nobel Prize are intended to solve the problem that it isn't actually true that "Ideas are nothing. Execution is everything."
Ideas are not nothing and actively screwing over people who generate new ideas -- like, say, Einstein -- is an excellent way to incentivize your best and brightest to tell the world "Fuck you. Got mine."
This is not in the best interest of humanity as a whole.
Yes, I'm not against profitting off your content, though you can make money with your own blog as well, with the upfront cost of having to build your own audience, of course. I'm not saying it's easy, just saying it's also possible without the need giving away your content rights/ownership.
What I am against it's to clickbait your readers into "Sign up to read for free", then you sign up and find out you still have to pay. It leaves you with a poor taste impression, because of the bait and switch dark pattern right there, after you've given out your precious personal information at the sign up form.
I primarily try to monetize my blog writing with tips and Patreon. Someone who doesn't want a recurring monthly charge can leave a one time tip.
Even though I removed ads from most of my sites in part to respect the boundaries of people who hate ads, I mostly get endless excuses rather than funds.
When I ask "How can I monetize my work?" people don't actually have a solution. They seem to think if you get enough traffic, that automagically leads to money, overlooking the fact that this concept only really works for an ad-based model and widespread use of adblockers kills it.
I sometimes get told "Product sales of some kind." Nevermind that this is another form of whoring out my writing to the need to sell something other than the value of the writing per se and also people on HN equally bitch about the evils of content marketing and how it is one of the things ruining the internet.
I've heard these arguments for years. I've tried to find a means to make money without being evil in some manner. The result for many years now is virtuous and intractable poverty.
When push comes to shove, the real answer boils down to: We expect large quantities of quality writing on a regular basis and we refuse to pay for most of it. We also will get up on our high horses and get all offended if you dare to use expressions like _slave labor_ to describe our entrenched expectations and the de facto outcome. Don't confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up!
It's quite tiresome to keep hearing the same BS over and over while I continue to live in poverty and yadda.
Edit in response to your edit: I call bullshit. If you honest to God want to give me a single dollar, you can do so via either PayPal or Venmo right now without further hypothesizing about how giving me a single Goddamned dollar is some new means to ruin the internet, along with every other means to pay for writing. Because beneath all the hot air is the fact that most people simply expect slave labor to create good writing. If this weren't true, I could pay cash for a cheap house in my small town and quit whining on HN about being poor.
I can't help but agree with you. In anything I write, I am either paid directly, have my own ads up against it, or I am contributing to a community with a broader goal of making information more readily and easily accessible - where there is a mutual benefit (everything from sites like SO to comments on HN, etc.)
For somebody else to profit, in my eyes, is no different to the splogs that I spend too much time playing wack-a-mole with. The splogs could also argue that they are making the information (my content) more easily accessible and more organized.
The hackermagazine is in a position where they could pay contributors, providing a quid-pro-quo through profit sharing. Most personal blogs make very little from advertising, so they could re-jig their model to provide a revenue source to good writers (who in-turn would have a further motivation to write good articles).
It is a bit like the old trade monthlies and quarterlies who would take the best research papers or other contributions from a particular field and wrap them up in a magazine - only they would pay their contributors.
If the publisher was not being sincere in their email, and this was a bait-n-switch, then that is a whole other matter that would require clarification from them.
I'm happy to pay for things that provide value in my life.
I pay a modest amount to some bloggers directly via Patreon for what I could otherwise get for free. I'm also considering doing the same for The Guardian (though that gets me the removal of ads). It's not out of the question that I would want to do the same for Medium.
I would miss them if they went away or had to change direction to monetise in new ways that reduced their value to me. Is this so bad?
To be fair, the article is agreeing with you. It's interesting that advertising is no longer considered viable for blogs... I thought a fair number of blogs ended up making significant sums that way (e.g. steve pavlina). Isn't that the case any more?
Yes but the romantic era of blogging is over. Content creators have to get paid.
I'd rather have paywalls than widespread ads. At least it's the normal arrangement that way: you create something valuable, I pay for it. Very clear cut. With ads that relationship is blurry.
As a blogger I don't really have incentives providing content if no one will read it. Sure, places like HN can still promote those, but that's no comparison to Google.
Even without monetization, the size of the audience is a big incentive for many to create content. And monetization isn't bad, it allows some content creators to spend more time and resources on their content.
The problem is that companies like this are as not-scalable as possible. It is a bunch of individual contributors. The only way you add value is to hire someone great, who will presumably be quite expensive. Once they start trying to figure out how to hire more cost effective bloggers, quality will suffer and people will stop reading.
I'd argue there's a relationship between good bloggers and an aversion to ads. Maybe they dislike the impact on design and usability. Maybe they think blindly endorsing stuff is wrong.
Finally, running a blog shouldn't cost money. If it does, you are doing something wrong. I use github, but there's probably literally a million free options.
This article makes a valid point and is worth discussing but damn if it isn't the epitome of a vacuous content writing blog, complete with a hypocritical coda of "if you like this, you might also like my other articles" and links to social media accounts to further the author's brand.
Twenty years ago, it would've made for an anonymous, conclusion-less personal entry on a Xanga or a Blogspot somewhere. Now, it's another means for (eventual) monetization.
You seem to be assuming some things different from my reality.
I make very little money from blogging. I took ads off years ago. It's not some kind of paid gig shilling for some product or whatever.
I have a Patreon that makes too little and I take tips. I try to write what I think is meaningful.
My writing has repeatedly made the front page of HN, often without making a dime.
I've stopped posting it here. I'm tired of feeling kicked in the teeth for "self promoting".
Journalism is in trouble. This undermines political freedom. Etc. And yet people just expect high traffic to pay the bills, which it can if your monetization strategy is ads, but the HN crowd is fond of ad blockers and vocally critical of ads.
Anyway, I don't care to argue it. You asked a question. I replies. This conversation is most likely a waste of time.
I paid for download links to Louis C.K's latest thing, Horace and Pete.
And too many Kindle books...
I haven't ever paid for any blog-type content, but I probably would if someone marketed it right.
With advertising, I don't see why everyone's assuming it would be impossible on a plain text medium.
I listen to podcasts that have sponsors. They just talk about their sponsors in the middle of the show. They try to make it sincere ("I use this product myself" etc). It seems to me like this is a very high quality type of advertising, compared to blockable little ad server banners.
Your audience needs to trust you. If your audience knows you are shilling for someone, they fundamentally can't trust you.
They can no longer trust that you are saying "This is an awesome product!" because you genuinely believe that. Maybe you actually think it's shite, but, hey, you needed to make rent this month. So, whatevs.
I've even seen people on the internet say "I used to read such and such ...until they began getting free samples and the like to support the blog. Then it went to shit and I quit reading."
It's a problem space I've thought about a lot because I blog. I am trying to get my writing supported primarily via tips and Patreon.
If my audience wants quality content it can trust, my audience needs to pay me. If they aren't paying me, "they are the product, not the customer" to borrow a popular phrase.
But selling out my audience so I can eat is not a thing I am interested in doing. It's flies in the face of the very reasons I blog.
Over the years, a lot of quality free content has either gone to shit or gone away. The expectation that good content should exist, but be free, is simply unsustainable.
Quality content takes time, effort and expertise to produce. It needs to pay, or most of the people who are any good will eventually go do something that does pay.
That's just reality.
And then we are left bitching about how there's nothing any good on the internet anymore and where is all the good stuff I remember from the good old days? (A fairly common refrain currently, actually.)
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