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Comment by tomcam | Hacker News Reader

> this is still a terrible thing to do.

What’s the alternative, assuming the blogger doesn’t want to give everything away for free?

If the content is of any real value, I'd be more than happy to pay for it with money. 10 bucks? Sure, here you go. A much better option than getting emails such as "20 lessons I learned from my job interview" or whatever.

Everyone says they'd do that, but I find really hard to believe.

I create rare, valuable information that saves people money and headaches. On a good month, 2% of my revenue will come from donations. Usually, it's 0%. At best, it pays for a meal and a beer. This website has 135k page views per month.

If that's how much I get from teaching people how to navigate German bureaucracy, I doubt you'll make anything from your opinions alone.

Some of us actually do. A quick scroll through my paypal, I've donated somewhere over 1000 euros in the past two years to various foundations and individual content creators.

And having some experience with German bureaucracy and taxes, and also having never lived in Germany nor speaking German, I'm fully aware how convoluted and complicated this can be and I could definitely see myself donating/paying for useful information if I didn't have a good accountant at my disposal.

I agree, on the grand scheme you won't make a whole lot but even with a population of 83 million, even if you add another 1 million like myself, your content still fits a relatively narrow niche. I'd love to give some advice but I honestly have no idea.

You are an exception. If one in 83 unique visitors donated I'd be well off, but it's not the case. I'm a bit tired of people pretending the internet could survive on donations and micropayments.

Affiliate marketing works well for my niche. I wanted to start similar sites about other topics, but if those don't naturally lead to certain purchases, they're extremely hard to effectively monetise.

Perhaps. But you see my point, right? There is something morally corrupt in offering "free" content while compiling a spam mailing list.

That's another pattern I really dislike, and deliberately avoid. I don't want to use my content as a bargaining chip to collect emails or what-have-you. I have that luxury because my topic is easily monetised. Most content creators don't.

In general, the internet got incredibly annoying, but I can understand why. Part of it is because we feel entitled to free content. There are few business models that allow people to be rewarded for their work while still offering a product for free. It usually involves selling something the user's data or attention.

I dont think you can make money by sharing information to individuals in that sort of way today. There are people that manage to do it (self help books and all) but I dont think people will pay for online content. I can think of 3 ways that this might be monetize able. The first is to put it into a book. People will buy books. The second is targeting businesses. They'll pay for market research etc. And the third is offering consulting services to navigate the beuorocracy based on your expertise. Even if the info is free amd online, some people want to pay, and you'd be making money off of sharing that information.

I can. It's how I pay the bills.

I insist on keeping the content unconditionally free, and donations don't work, but affiliate marketing does. I help people navigate certain boring purchases, so it lends itself to that sort of monetisation. I'd be recommending those products and services anyway.

Unfortunately, it incentivizes dishonest recommendations and passing ads as content. I chose not to do that, but I know I'd get paid more to recommend the wrong things. Since it's blended into the content, you'd be abusing people's trust in your content. At least banner ads were separate from the text.

I do not offer services either. My goal was to help as many people as possible, and that would go against it. Information should be free, especially when poor people need it the most. I also want the website to run itself. If I wanted to be on the computer full time, I'd just get a job.

Maybe you just need to package it differently? I know I've bought Kindle books on similar issues and that there are people who work as consultants doing such things. Not to say that you necessarily want to become a consultant, but you don't even necessarily need to create new content... just stick some of it behind a paywall or in an ebook.

I started writing a reference for long distance motorcycle travel, and that's how I intend to distribute it. I don't expect to make anything from it, but the more linear, prosaic format would fit nicely on a Kindle screen.

The website mentioned above is more of a "visit it when you need it" resource. It's painfully boring to read, as it's written like a plain English instruction manual. It wouldn't be an interesting book.

I saw the following model work: offer a compilation of your best (or themed xyz..) articles for money. Add that you can mostly find these scattered on the site anyway. Very fair, and people would pay for getting an organized package vs clicking through random posts.

It's not a bad idea.

I am personally against it for my website in particular though. I insist on keeping everything on it open and free. Immigration advice should help everyone, not just developers with a generous relocation bonus.

I'd much rather invest the effort into making the content more navigable/discoverable. This is actually what I'm working on right now.

Again though, this is just personal preference for this specific website. Selling packaged information could work. I did buy a motorcycle travel book that was a rehash of the author's YouTube channel.

I think at this stage there's so much content that they could save their time and ours by not writing it in the first place.

Being honest and saying that the blog post is merely a teaser in the beginning.

https://www.sigle.io/ built on Blockstack is an interesting one.

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