AdAge writer Simon Dumenco recently wrote a critical piece entitled, “Let’s Pray for the Safe Release of the BoingBoing Bloggers” lamenting Cory Doctorow’s critique of the New York Times’ pay wall.
Dumenco sets the article tone by:

  1. Devaluing BoingBoing’s tech lifestyle blog by comparing it to investigative international conflict coverage;

  2. Negatively depicting Doctorow as a “file sharing” advocate and someone against “digital-rights” management; and,

  3. Offering the Pew Center statistic that more than 99 percent of the stories linked to in blogs “come from legacy outlets.”

WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?
I’m missing something here. At least in the way I understand it, no one’s criticizing the value of the New York Times’ editorial or the characters of those involved. I’d say Doctorow’s critique refers to the technical difficulty of executing a paywall for online editorial in a piecemeal fashion.

Doctorow believes it’s unlikely to succeed via a cookie tracking tally of stories, and I agree that this particular process would be an overly complicated barrier to entry for paying subscribers and a circumventible one as evidenced by the eff browser privacy page. But make no mistake, as a writer myself, I DEFINITELY WANT WRITERS TO GET PAID.

And truth be told, many are already getting paid. They’re earning revenue from a number of sources including via underwritten content sponsorships, speaking engagements, custom programs, affiliate programs, e-commerce, white paper sales and banner advertising sales. In fact, look at the lack of paywall on Dumenco’s AdAge article and the 8 banner placements sprinkled liberally alongside the story you’ve likely just read.

HITTING PAYDIRT ON AD INVENTORY
All you’ve got to do to get that ad inventory to pay out is to continually trollbait one of the largest blog audiences in the world (BoingBoing), get those insults indexed on the front page of news aggregators like Mediagazer and wait for a couple thousand peon bloggers like me to share it. Booyah! Who needs paywalls?