@Max: Wow, that's an interessting model to make some bucks ;) But $ 21 for an RSS feed is completly insane.
I guess there's no avoiding that some people will see this as purchasing an RSS feed, but that's not the intention. I'm offering a ton of free content, and if you decide to support those efforts, this is a nice extra I can throw in.
I'll just add all the blogs to my RSS client, so you just lost a Reader, too bad
How is that possible? The feed didn't exist until today. Is it clear that this is the Cocoa Blogs feed, not Theocacao's feed?
@Hawk: I'm starting to see a trend here. After the MacHeist craze
This started long before MacHeist. Working on Cocoa Dev Central, Theocacao, Cocoa Blogs and so on takes vastly more time than I think most people realize. I truly enjoy doing it, but I have to do it at the exclusion of other work which pays.
So I basically left it in the hands of the community: I'll put as much into it as you guys do. The most awkward step was asking for donations, but once I got over that, things really picked up. It's no coincidence that you've seen more activity since I started actively soliciting donations.
suddenly most people that are in some way prominent in the mac community woke up and realize they can charge money for they do
Althought MacHeist isn't what made the difference in my case, I think it's a great thing that we realize Mac-specific businesses are viable. It's a lot better than spending 10 hours writing Windows code and trying to squeak in a few hours for Mac stuff on the weekends. We all benefit. I think it even allows outsiders to consider the Mac as a more serious venue to provide software and services.
I'm just a bit sad about where things seem to be going, because the mac community is something special in that it's not only about "putting food on the table" and "corporate services" to the left and right
I think you're taking it to an unrealistic extreme. It's shades of gray, right? Even though I charge for Cocoa mentoring, I spend an hour or so every day answering questions for free. It's not all or nothing. It's somewhere in between.
@George Sudarkoff: What exactly is the value that you're adding to the content that is already available for free elsewhere? We don't need another "dumb" aggregator, we're happy with our RSS readers for the most part.
I wish I could better understand where you're coming from on this. Maybe it's not clear the the feed is the result of a lot of reading and manual filtering on my part? It's not an automated aggregator.
I guess everyone would like everything for free, and that's nearly the case now. The only difference is I've added one extra service for people who actively support the sites I put time into. None of the sites even have ads, and the same information the feed has is available for free on the site. I don't see how that's unfair, but perhaps I'm missing your point.
To me, twenty-one dollars is a fanstic deal for the type of thing you're supporting. It's also one-quarter of my hourly rate for tutoring.
@George Sudarkoff: But it hurts to see silly suicidal entrepreneurs trying to scam a few hundred dollars (or a few hundred thousand dollars - it's all the same) out of a bunch of enthusiasts while permanently damaging their good name in the process
George, I'm sorry but I don't see how any of this applies to what I'm doing. It's not clear to me how providing huge amounts of technical documentation for free while giving one minor extra to those who offer donations does anything but build community. Feel free to email me directly if you'd like to discuss it further.
by Scott Stevenson — Dec 19
I guess there's no avoiding that some people will see this as purchasing an RSS feed, but that's not the intention. I'm offering a ton of free content, and if you decide to support those efforts, this is a nice extra I can throw in.
I'll just add all the blogs to my RSS client, so you just lost a Reader, too bad
How is that possible? The feed didn't exist until today. Is it clear that this is the Cocoa Blogs feed, not Theocacao's feed?
@Hawk: I'm starting to see a trend here. After the MacHeist craze
This started long before MacHeist. Working on Cocoa Dev Central, Theocacao, Cocoa Blogs and so on takes vastly more time than I think most people realize. I truly enjoy doing it, but I have to do it at the exclusion of other work which pays.
So I basically left it in the hands of the community: I'll put as much into it as you guys do. The most awkward step was asking for donations, but once I got over that, things really picked up. It's no coincidence that you've seen more activity since I started actively soliciting donations.
suddenly most people that are in some way prominent in the mac community woke up and realize they can charge money for they do
Althought MacHeist isn't what made the difference in my case, I think it's a great thing that we realize Mac-specific businesses are viable. It's a lot better than spending 10 hours writing Windows code and trying to squeak in a few hours for Mac stuff on the weekends. We all benefit. I think it even allows outsiders to consider the Mac as a more serious venue to provide software and services.
I'm just a bit sad about where things seem to be going, because the mac community is something special in that it's not only about "putting food on the table" and "corporate services" to the left and right
I think you're taking it to an unrealistic extreme. It's shades of gray, right? Even though I charge for Cocoa mentoring, I spend an hour or so every day answering questions for free. It's not all or nothing. It's somewhere in between.
@George Sudarkoff: What exactly is the value that you're adding to the content that is already available for free elsewhere? We don't need another "dumb" aggregator, we're happy with our RSS readers for the most part.
I wish I could better understand where you're coming from on this. Maybe it's not clear the the feed is the result of a lot of reading and manual filtering on my part? It's not an automated aggregator.
I guess everyone would like everything for free, and that's nearly the case now. The only difference is I've added one extra service for people who actively support the sites I put time into. None of the sites even have ads, and the same information the feed has is available for free on the site. I don't see how that's unfair, but perhaps I'm missing your point.
To me, twenty-one dollars is a fanstic deal for the type of thing you're supporting. It's also one-quarter of my hourly rate for tutoring.
@George Sudarkoff: But it hurts to see silly suicidal entrepreneurs trying to scam a few hundred dollars (or a few hundred thousand dollars - it's all the same) out of a bunch of enthusiasts while permanently damaging their good name in the process
George, I'm sorry but I don't see how any of this applies to what I'm doing. It's not clear to me how providing huge amounts of technical documentation for free while giving one minor extra to those who offer donations does anything but build community. Feel free to email me directly if you'd like to discuss it further.