Leo Babauta’s response to my post from earlier today on attention and trust as it relates to advertising.
In short, Leo’s point is that even if a publisher fully stands behind a company which is placing an ad, it is still a paid recommendation. And thus there is no such thing as 100% pure, trust-based advertising. His suggested solution is for the creator to sell their own stuff instead of someone else’s. Perhaps you sell the very thing you create, or perhaps you sell something else on the side to subsidize your time so you can continue creating.
In a pure and ideal model Leo is right. It would be great if every artist or writer were able to successfully sell what they create to those who are interested in it. But examples where this works out well for the artist rare — too many folks can’t afford to pay for your content with money.
If each of my favorite weblogs went behind a firewall and required a paid subscription to their content I could not financially afford to keep reading each of them (and I only subscribe to 25 or so sites). Instead of paying with my wallet I am willing to pay with my attention.