For the last year, I’ve written a newsletter for Kottke.org, one of the last of the independent blogs still going. It’s funded by site memberships that support the main site and all of its subprojects, and by my personal Patreon. There is no paywall. Everything at Kottke.org is free for members and non-members alike.
Here’s the picture as generally agreed upon: Ads are still alive and well, but the collapse and consolidation of the ad market means ads alone can’t support media companies anymore, whether they’re big like The New York Times or small like Kottke.org.
There’s a puritanical argument that says ads have failed media — they bring out media’s worse impulses and might be inherently bad. The only way to break with the ad model is to break with it completely and sell media like a product. Make readers pay for content. If they don’t pay for it, don’t give it to them. Only when media companies are wholly accountable to their subscribers can you fix what’s wrong with media. Big companies need paywalls; little ones need exclusive subscribers.
Kottke.org, obviously, does not work this way. It has ads, although those are a very small part of the site and a shrinking part of the revenue. It has members, but very, very little is directed only to them; right now, they get some behind-the-scenes stuff and a few early previews and experiments. Stuff that only real fans even want. The site, the tweets, the RSS feed, and everything else the site’s produced or ever will produce is available to everyone whether they’re a member or not.
I call this “unlocking the commons,” and it’s the same approach I’ve taken with my Patreon and newsletter. Fans support the person and the work. But it’s not a transaction, a fee for service. It’s a contribution that benefits everyone. Free-riders aren’t just welcome; free-riding is the point. This, I think, is key to understanding the psychology of patronage.
Let’s say you’re buying a book. Books aren’t perfect commodities, but they’re still commodities. As a shopper, you’re trying to get as much value for your book as you can for your money. If I can get the book cheaper and faster from retailer A(mazon) than retailer B(arnes & Noble), most of the time, that’s what I’m going to do.
If I’m skeptical of A, and prefer to support B or C(ity bookstore of my choice), I’m not strictly speaking in a purchasing relationship anymore, but something closer to a patronage one. I don’t just want my money to buy an object; I want it to support institutions and individuals I like, and I want it to support the common good.
This is one of the weird things about patronage. As a consumer, your first thought is to your own benefit. As a patron, it’s to the good of your beneficiary. Likewise, as an artisan supported by patronage, you tend to think more about what’s best for your patrons and audience than you do yourself.
For instance, when Patreon changed its fee structure in 2017, I thought about it on two levels. First, it seemed really bad for patrons, slightly less bad for beneficiaries, and clearly helped out Patreon more than either group. As a customer of Patreon — they’re the ones I give my money to — I felt like I was being ripped off. I was being asked for more money without getting more in return. But as a patron, my first thought was: Does this help the people I pledge money to each month? And as a beneficiary, I thought: How does this affect the people who pledge money to me?
In both cases, I wanted what was best for that other person. I wanted them to be getting the full value of the transaction. The only time it was about me was when I thought about my relationship with Patreon — which is completely different.
Please note that this is not fuzzy-headed idealism or just sentiment: This is as concrete and comprehensive as it gets. It’s economic thinking that recognizes that goods don’t just exist to be used up, but are objects of labor produced by and for members of a commonwealth. The truth of the transaction is in the whole.
The most economically powerful thing you can do is to buy something for your own enjoyment that also improves the world. This has always been the value proposition of journalism and art. It’s a nonexclusive good that’s best enjoyed nonexclusively.
Anyways. This is a prediction for 2019 and beyond: The most powerful and interesting media model will remain raising money from members who don’t just permit but insist that the product be given away for free. The value comes not just what they’re buying, but who they’re buying it from and who gets to enjoy it.
The bigger those two pools get — the bigger the membership, and the bigger the audience — the better it gets for everyone. This is why we need more tools, so more people can try to do it. PBS as a service.
Now, I’m not so sure how this works when applied to enormous venture-funded or shareholder-governed sites like BuzzFeed or The Guardian. Those ventures have inherently different dynamics at play and different stakeholders to answer to. But for independent sites like ours, I think it’s the only model that makes sense — that goes with the grain of the web, rather than fighting it by trying to lock everything down in a ransom model or bet on some third-party savior to come through with funding. Readers and writers, working together at personal scale: That’s the only way this all makes sense.
It’s not quite socialized art. Mutualist art, maybe. Proudhon probably would have thought it was pretty cool. So would the Florentines, arch-capitalists as they were. And it might not work. But so far, it’s the only model I’ve found worth trying.
Tim Carmody writes the weekly newsletter Noticing on Kottke.org, where an earlier version of this prediction appeared.
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Nik Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
AX Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Greg Emerson Power to the user
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Carrie Brown Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis