My local newspapers are full of great articles written by journalists about finance, how-to repair, and general sound advice on a slew of topics. However, would I pay for all this actionable insight? Let’s just say, I haven’t purchased a newspaper in a very long time - and I’m willing to wager neither have you (at least not as often as you used to). The newspaper model is collapsing. The audience at large sees information as a commodity (for the most part). Why pay for one writer’s point of view, when I can find another three writer’s points of view for free - even if it isn’t quite as good.

UX meets Blog consumption

When it comes extracting information from consulting-type blog posts, I follow the same theory as Steve Krug when trying to find usability problems on websites. This is a bit of stretch but it makes sense to me (surprise!). For example, say we are trying to figure out how to fix a toilet and Bob Vila has a blog on fixing toilets but to read it will have to shell out a dollar. Do I feel that this information is worth a dollar? Sure, but is it worth me taking out my wallet, entering my information, authorizing the payment and burn a few minutes of my life? Um, no. What I’ll do, is do a Google search for fixing toilets, read three or four of the free articles and extract the major points from all of them. The idea is that while one blog may miss a point, if the point is important enough or significant enough, another blog will bring it up. Reading other points of view on the same subject doesn’t hurt either.

Laziness and Anti-Social Media

So off the toilet, and back to my point. Recently, a very well known and respected blogger, Dennis Howlett (you can follow him on Twitter: @dahowlett) started providing some premium content for a small fee. His explanation for doing so can be found here. While I respect his work, I simply cannot be bothered to pay to read his insights for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I’m lazy. (OK, I’m not lazy in general, but my wallet is pretty far from my desk). Secondly, and more importantly in my eyes, is that it’s a blog. As a blog, it is part of the social media eco-system. You can create discussions with blogs and interact with readers with a click of a publish-button. Making people pay to engage with you seems pretty darn anti-social if you ask me - especially for a blog, which really, is often just a vehicle to boost one’s reputation in an industry (*cough*). Simply put, I feel that if someone decides to post actionable advice on his own blog, he has opted to work for free.

So while I wish Mr. Howlett all the luck in the world, unfortunately, the next time I run into a prompt telling me I need to pay to view some content - you can be sure that I’ll be Google-ing shortly afterwards and reading another three brilliant posts written by similarly qualified writers - for free.

P.S. Bob Vila does have an article about fixing toilets. Pssst, and it’s for free.