I made a good living from writing until I started writing for free, but it wasn't until I was asked to pony up for the privilege that I realized the economic river had completely reversed itself.
Amazon.com is a long and mighty river that provides in-part support to Blogcritics.org through the purchase of advertising. Unfortunately, business at BC is too good. Too many readers showed up. Costs soared. Money had to be raised. Jimmy Stewart was in trouble! T-shirts were printed. Mugs came next. Money rolled in, quarters, dimes, nickels.
In a time when print magazines routinely lie about their readership, Blogcritics has nowhere to hide, and no reason to. Its numbers are good, real, rock solid and growing. Nine thousand people a day stop by to read BC.
The world is large. Barnes & Noble exists, as do many other advertisers whose dollars should easily cover BC's ridiculously low costs — remember: no writers are paid. No managment is either. BC's only hard cost is to a third-party server.
The idea of the writers paying a small temporary stipend to save the site is a noble idea for a noble cause, but to make it permanent is to turn the writers to serfs. It is an economic plan that elevates communism a notch.
Today, Blogcritics is at an important crossroads.
Will it become a profitable enterprise as a marketing arm of Sony, Time-Warner, Disney, et al?
Or will it be a non-profit organization, a public playground with a free-ranging brawl over culture and politics, overseen by a lifeguard?
One way goes up, the other down. But which?
My best clients never made a decision they didn't test. They found it made better economic sense to send a team over a cliff rather than the entire company.
Article comments
1 - Robert T DeMarco
Well, I think I get your point? But all things evolve and so will BC. If Sony buys the place, good for them. Better for Eric. If they change the way things work, and the "old folks" do not like it, they will move on. Its just the natural metamorphosis of things.
Of course, I suppose if some of those who post here think "there is chicken on the hill", they can always talk to Eric about purchasing a piece of the rock (or better yet, OPM). The thought has crossed my mind more than once.
I am just getting use to this place. And like most places of this kind, I find there are some really bright and interesting people here. Good insights and good content. So, I ponied up just like I ponied up for Forbes, Business Week and the rest. Call me a capitalist, its worth the price of admission.
Bobby d
2 - Banned Dude
Hmm. Very dystopian view of the future of BC.
I don't agree with it, but it presents a very vivid picture nonetheless.
3 - Eric Olsen
Very interesting CW and I don't take it negatively at all. We absolutely need to look at various possible futures and decide which one we want to be. I absolutely do not want writers to have to pay for the "privilege" of writing here, but right now a few dollars from everyone will help us get to that place we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun, but 'til then tramps like us ...
4 - Al Barger
Really CW, this big dystopian drama you're projecting is SUCH a lot of foolishness over a basic move to get Blogcritics to stop cursing and libeling one another.
Does that really amount to corporate oligarchic censorship of The People? Are you getting ready to start dragging Noam Chomsky in to explain how Eric has sold out the true voices of erudition and dissent because we've got some ads?
5 - Shark
Good gawd, Al, lighten up.
Part of it was tongue in cheek, part of it was speculation on macro trends using a micro example (BC) -- and all of it was brilliant, informative, and interesting.
6 - Shark
Whoops, forgot to mention Al's Senatorial White Paper on the Subject of Liberal Cries of 'Corporate Oligarchic Censorship'
(who luvs ya, babe!?)
7 - Al Barger
Well Shark, you may be a big pinko, but at least you're not one of those damned "compassionate conservatives."
XOX
8 - BB
CW is just suffering from a minor reocurrence of suffering writer's pay-envy disorder.
My advice is take two sarsaparilla's, max-out the credit cards and call me in the morning.
RE: Shark's comment #5 - ditto baby.
9 - Eric Olsen
more on same in a totally unrelated way
10 - Justene
Really CW, this big dystopian drama you're projecting is SUCH a lot of foolishness over a basic move to get Blogcritics to stop cursing and libeling one another.
Does that really amount to corporate oligarchic censorship of The People?
Cool. I'm a corporate oligarchy. Must practice spelling it for the resume.
11 - CW Fisher
Citizen Al,
No corporate oligarchy can produce the amount of total malarky that I can produce in an afternoon of typing.
The same can be said of you.
I am not chummy with Chomsky. I've only heard of him, high praise and low. I take it he's shorthand for some type of person who thinks a certain way. Someone like me, perhaps, who thinks from both sides of his mouth. This kind of thinking produces an inappropriate grin. Sometimes people want to wipe it off. To them I say go ahead, wipe me.
My only point about Amazon and the cash shortfall and the unruly playground, etc etc etc, was that assumptions should be challenged every step of the way. Just because the majority thinks one particular direction is a good one to go in, that's a good indiction it's the wrong way. Majorities are stupid, after all. They're the sheep. The blind sheep jumping over the goddam fence that keep us up all night with worry.
Cunning leaders may tell you they follow the people, but leaders are always liars first and foremost, liars so good that even they themselves cannot tell when they're lying and when they're standing up.
For you, Al, a bumper sticker: you, in your beret, looking Venturian. Headline: AIN'T NO BABY KISSER. Al Barger, for U.S. Senate.
gratis, Coitus
12 - Justene
My only point about Amazon and the cash shortfall and the unruly playground, etc etc etc, was that assumptions should be challenged every step of the way. Just because the majority thinks one particular direction is a good one to go in, that's a good indiction it's the wrong way.
I think asssumptions are being challenged, which is why there is no fee.
13 - CW Fisher
Uh... the above riff on leaders was in no way directed at our own.
There are 360 directions BC could go in. Some are more interesting than others.
And I truly mean no slam at the entrepreneurs of Amazon.com, who didn't get where they are by giving it away. It's good to share their effort to be a success. They're a good partner. I'm sure they want more. I'm sure BC does too. But more what?
Organization? Maybe the better model is eBay. Maybe it's better to appeal to a deeply segmented audience unified only by their use of BC as their diving board? Is music too broad as a category? Are there six ways to cross reference all data? Does it have a distinctive style that allows creative flexibily per category under a unified look? Is there an alternate menu for people who want to scroll archived headlines assembled by a BC search?
Is it the mark of a good writer or bad if he can stop typing at the precise moment his wife calls him for dinn
14 - Dirtgrain
"Food for the people" - Casper, the one-eyed food bandit played by John Cusack in Roadside Prophets.