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There's also the collective-subscription model, where a single subscription pays for access to a large number of sites. Here, too, porn leads the way and I do not know if anyone has made an attempt yet to generalize that model to the broader market. It might be interesting to see if a hybrid model was possible here: use nekkid wimmen as the draw and other more substantive material to bring 'em back (i.e. the Playboy Magazine approach); a site trying to produce substantive material might become a member of ACGold or Platinum just for the income stream. That's been done without subscription just as a way of bringing in traffic, using more soft-core material, and then using advertising for financing. And the final way to go about it is to slut for tips. (USS Clueless would never do that, of course.) The real question which Chris brings up is the extent to which each of these models affects content and independence of the writer. On some level, all online publishers will modify their material one way or another (if for no other reason than to avoid jail or legal action). Many pure pay-your-own-way sites will find themselves pandering to a certain audience in order to bring them back. The extent to which pure advertising-supported models affect content will depend enormously on what the site is about. For example a site which concentrates on computer hardware will, naturally, attract hard core computer geeks and computer do-it-yourselfers, which in turn becomes an attractive audience for advertisers trying to sell hardware to them. Everything's fine up to that point. But if you do product reviews and you're reviewing a product made and sold by one of your big advertisers, won't there be a small internal incentive to go just a bit easy on them if you find problems? It may not be overt pressure from the advertiser, but there's always the implicit threat: pan our gear, and we pull our advertising. I have noticed that some sites which are otherwise quite objective have a tendency to speak really quite highly of one or two product lines even when there's no obvious reason why they should. Of course, that doesn't necessarily cause a problem for long term readers, who will soon pick up on which products the site is not objective about and ignore their recommendations about those. And, of course, if the site doesn't actually review products such as are sold by its advertisers then there's much less of that kind of pressure. Of all the models, the one where the source of money affects the material the most is any of the subscription models. If a publication or site doesn't give you what you want, you won't resubscribe. It is readers who are the most likely to use their money coercively. Of course, if you're peddling tittiepix, then you better figure out where to get some and you better add new ones regularly. And the worst case will be if you're working for tips, because in that case you're going to be ultra-sensitive to what kind of material makes those coins fall into the guitar case. But to some extent all writers will be sensitive to that, even if there is no tipping mechanism, because readers are the ultimate currency. Writing without being read is a pointless waste of time -- you may as well keep a diary on paper. If you're putting your material online, then it means you want readers. And for that we all are sluts, at least a little. (discuss) |
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