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If they can't get users to pay directly via subscriptions or donations, or indirectly via ads, then it seems reasonable to expect that they just aren't financially viable.
Quite reasonable.
As we know, traditionally, some of the best websites were not intended to be financially viable.
If they can't get users to pay directly via subscriptions or donations, or indirectly via ads, then it seems reasonable to expect that they just aren't financially viable.
Maybe someday, when the "new shiny" finally comes along, all the financial viability will go chase that and we can get the hobbyist web back?
The question of whether politics can enable curiosity, and curiosity can enable politics. (Use the finite resolution, Luke!)
The answer to the modified question where "politics" is replaced by "commerce" is trivially true as evidenced by your implicitly answering your original question. The intersection of nerds and jocks is more than mythical-- it is rde of this website.
So, the three estates of ongoing human concerns, not just in the microcosm of our minds, but also as the object of martial zen, practiced by the human macroorganism on itself.
To paraphrase: can the lords spiritual (as guardians of curiosity) be Friends with the lords temporal (as the de facto guardians of humanity)
(We would also have liked French mathematicians to have been in that liminal space, but humanity tends to pay more attention to Sartres than Camuses)
*(Like a Spinoza to the Hobbesian Ellul -- or the proto-Taoist Sv Fedorov)
PS Following deserves a close-reading in light of the same question but where "curiosity" is replaced by "commerce" http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-cre...
Then that textual content would be locked behind paywalls and subscribers would pay a monthly fee to access vast quantities of high quality textual content without ads. Authors would get decently paid if they have the audience.
Cheapskates would be stuck in the swamp with ads, scammers and AI slop, until they pony up.
The realest web creators, after accepting this fact, will continue to do what they've always done. Whether it's a recipe site, a blog, or both, they'll do it because they enjoy it. Thankfully, even if they don't earn any money through their website, websites are so cheap to operate these days that they're practically free.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe someday, when the "new shiny" finally comes along, all the financial viability will go chase that and we can get the hobbyist web back?
To return to our old grapplings, MST Specialized*, like an enlightened martial artist in service of Zen, in inexorably using the finger (pace Alan Watts!) to point at: The question of whether politics can enable curiosity, and curiosity can enable politics. (Use the finite resolution, Luke!) The answer to the modified question where "politics" is replaced by "commerce" is trivially true as evidenced by your implicitl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe someday, when the "new shiny" finally comes along, all the financial viability will go chase that and we can get the hobbyist web back?
To return to our old grapplings, MST Specialized*, like an enlightened martial artist in service of Zen, in inexorably using the finger (pace Alan Watts!) to point at: The question of whether politics can enable curiosity, and curiosity can enable politics. (Use the finite resolution, Luke!) The answer to the modified question where "politics" is replaced by "commerce" is trivially true as evidenced by your implicitl…
Indeed, our cybernetic sojourn through the noosphere leads us to ponder: can the digital agora, that grand bazaar of bits and memes, transmute the base metal of click-commerce into the philosopher's stone of genuine epistemic enrichment? (Use the infinite scroll, Neo!)
The answer to the modified question where "commerce" is replaced by "cat GIFs" is trivially true, as evidenced by the inexorable rise of feline-based attention economies. The intersection of LOLcats and Kantian imperatives is more than mythical -- it is the very substrate of this website's collective unconscious.
So, we find ourselves navigating the three estates of ongoing human concerns, not just in the microcosm of our browser tabs, but also as the object of digital zen, practiced by the human macroorganism on its own user interface.
To paraphrase: can the lords of viral content (as guardians of engagement metrics) be Friends with the lords of ad-tech (as the de facto guardians of monetization)?
(We would also have liked French post-structuralists to have been in that liminal space, but humanity tends to pay more attention to Baudrillards than Bourdieus)
*(Like a Zuckerberg to the Jobsian Musk -- or the proto-Memetic Haraway)
PS: The following deserves a close-reading in light of the same question but where "curiosity" is replaced by "cryptocurrency" https://www.example.com/definitely-not-a-rickroll
If nobody wants to pay for it, and you don't want to make it for free, maybe there's a case to be made that it just doesn't have to be made at all?
Ads just force a market to optimize for clickbait and readership, not quality. Having fewer websites, each more expensive and intentional, would probably drastically increase the signal to noise ratio of the web.
We could probably lose 80 to 90 percent of the current content on the web and not miss most of it...
One take: Maybe some websites don't need to exist? If nobody wants to pay for it, and you don't want to make it for free, maybe there's a case to be made that it just doesn't have to be made at all? Ads just force a market to optimize for clickbait and readership, not quality. Having fewer websites, each more expensive and intentional, would probably drastically increase the signal to noise ratio of the web. We could…
If I disagreed with the customer experience of a physical store, the solution would not be to go into the store anyway and just steal the merchandise so I didn't have to communicate with customer service. I would go somewhere else. If enough people did that, the store may decide it is worth their while to change.
I live well from affiliate marketing. I don't need to pitch anything; I merely mention available options where relevant. I wouldn't consider these mention to be ads as they don't affect the content at all. That allows me to work on the website full time, so it works.
Donations don't work. At all. Even the people I personally assist over multiple emails, the people who tell me that the website saved their lives don't donate. Donations are around 1% of my income, if that.
I considered state funding, since I'm doing their job for them. I seriously explored that option, but my contacts who get such funding made it very clear that it would be a waste of time.
So what's left? Bringing customers to businesses, and getting a commission for it. It's the only option that leaves me fully in control.