Weblogs And The Mass Amateurization Of Publishing
from the good-points dept
Clay Shirky comes through (as he often does) with a very insightful and interesting article about why most people will never make money from weblogs. He bases his article on basic economics, which is something that very few people trying to make money ever do (for instance, the music industry currently is ignoring basic economics). His point is that the ease of publishing via weblogs, in many ways, makes publishing a weblog a "financially worthless activity". It's basically commoditized the market, making it a fully competitive market. If someone is going to charge, there are so many other free options out there, that price gets driven right back to free. He points out that this is a good thing. It creates a world where global publishing is free - where anyone can write anything at any time, and anyone else is free to read it. Worth reading (for free, of course).
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
