Goodbye Blog. Hello Letter.

This viewpoint fails to see that the author benefits just as much as the reader, if not more, from writing quality stuff that attracts eyeballs.<p>A famous blogger has much better ways to monetise their fame than monthly subscriptions. A blog is a delivery tool to direct people's attention to places - you can sell stuff via your blog. A successful blog is also a powerful reputation-building mechanism. You can sell yourself through your blog. A successful blog is also a great way to open doors - you can introduce yourself thanks to your blog.<p>By charging your readers, you decrease the value of your blog... to yourself.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes. It has some intriguing possibilities, but it's also a pretty saturated market. The "market" for free information is indeed super-saturated, but the market for pay information is quite saturated as well. I already have more books, e-books, journal articles, conference papers, magazines, e-zines, etc. to read than I can possibly buy and read in any reasonable period of time. Where will reading premium blogs fit into this? I guess into the "e-zine" category. It'll be nice to get more quality stuff in that category, but there isn't really a current shortage of writing I can buy for money. So it'd have to be particularly compelling--- and also has to compete with the premium-quality-but-free online writing that's subsidized via other payment mechanisms, like blogging professors, who get paid in ways other than monetizing their blog directly.

Maybe someone with great knowledge can chime in, but it seems like this is classic Prisoners' Dilemma. If only some people lock up their content, those who give it away for free will eat their lunch.<p>I applaud Dave for believing in his position enough to take his writing behind a pay-wall, but I think game theory is going to show this to be a poor solution in the long-term.

There's an evolutionary process at work here. Once e-mail newsletters become passé, we'll see weekly fax shots, then snail mail, skywriting and, finally, personal visits at $1000 each. Then you realize you're a consultant.<p>I jest, I started an e-mail newsletter myself a week ago ;-) It's interesting to think where all this might go though. I bet if celebs could charge a few bucks a month to follow them on Twitter, there'd be a massive revenue stream there from gossip hungry admirers.

Is it just me or is the letter.ly subscription page really bland? Too minimalist? I think it needs color, a more detailed description, anything compelling that might make me consider subscribing before closing the page.<p>A real subscribe 'button' and proper capitalization could help as well.

''Recently, Eric Schmidt, of Google, remarked that “There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003.” He continued, “Now that much information is created every 2 days.” We are creating more than ever across this ever expanding medium that we love.''<p>I feel like a visionary! I wrote recently that ''we have more written-word saved in Google's servers than all previous written-words combined since the invention of the written-word.''<p><a href="http://makebelieve1.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/a-pc-appears-on-every-desk-and-finally-internet-changes-consumer-habits/" rel="nofollow">http://makebelieve1.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/a-pc-appears-on...</a><p>I wonder,though, how did Eric Schmidt calculate the ''5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003.'' Because I thought about the same thing and I decided that given the incredible variery of mediums from clay tablets to books to computer discs it would be impossible to know. Do you know how he arrived at that number?<p>And I realize that some HN readers will downvote me for referring to my own blog but so be it, this is a very interesting question for me. I wonder how he arrived at that figure he quoted.