Jason Kottke is a personal inspiration

by phil on Friday Jun 10, 2005 2:47 AM

Jason Kottke is my favorite blogger. He used to be a web designer, but now he is working full-time blogging. While there are thousands of self-sufficient solopreneurs providing content for ad bucks, Kottke is relying solely on donations:

Like I said above, there's got to be a way to support media that doesn't involve advertising. But more than that, I don't want to disrupt the relationship dynamic we've got going here. There are currently two parties involved with kottke.org: me and the collective you. Advertising introduces a third party. In my experience, the third wheel of advertising often works to unbalance the relationship in favor of either the author or the readers (usually in favor of the author). If ads were involved, I might feel the need to change what or how I write to appease advertisers. I might write to increase pageviews and earn more revenue. I could fill pages with ads, earning more revenue but making the content more difficult to read or pushing some content off the page entirely. You could block advertising and deny me needed revenue.

None of that is appealing to me. If I'm writing, you're reading, I'm responding to what you've got to say about my writing, and we're mixin' it up in the comments, why do we need a middleman? Why not keep that dynamic intact if we can?

I admire Kottke for setting aside his career for his ideals and passion. So far it has worked out well (about ~$30,000 well). And in the end, I think it will pay off even more handsomely for Kottke, whether through book deals, speaking engagements, or whatever.

Comments

. said on June 26, 2005 1:00 AM:

=)

Ben said on August 7, 2005 3:14 PM:

I also like him, but I didn't like what he said on his website that is very offensive to Christian religion.

Hoodia said on January 7, 2006 1:26 PM:

30k - So then I guess he does have a job!