Kottke No Longer "Pro"

Tue 7 Mar 2006 13:28:26

Oh, What a Year, says Jason Kottke, ending his "micropatronage experiment" a year after he got $39,900 from his enthusiastic audience. Here's what I thought of it at the time, and I'm pretty glad now I didn't contribute. I'd been hoping for two things out of the Pro Plan, which would have had me dropping a significant donation in the pot post facto: a revival of 0sil8, and a general spam cleanup. Neither thing happened.

Feedback on Metafilter is largely cynical about the whole affair. Felix Salmon talks about promises. And Bitter Pill looks at what might have been.

I think I can sympathize a bit with JKottke, though: as someone in the process of launching a semi-independent venture myself, I know what it's like to watch the days slide idly away while plans stay unchecked on the to-do list, till, before you know it, a year has passed. A clear separation between "work" and "play" actually helps me maintain productivity in both fields, which is why I don't think I'll ever make brownpau.com a "Pro" source of income -- never mind the unfeasability of this weblog actually being considered a genuinely marketable web publishing venture.

Hmmm. On the other hand, there is lots of room for a nice big red Chitika leaderboard at the top of the front page...