What\’s it (worth) to ya?

Jason Kottke has decided to blog full-time and is hoping that his readers are generous enough that they’ll be able to cover his (relatively moderate) living expenses through micropayments. Wow. I am in awe of the sheer guts it must take to make a leap like this. I’m also madly jealous, since there’s nothing I want more than to get paid to spend my time on my own creative endeavours rather than the moneymaking endeavours of my employer.

A lot has been written and said about micropayments; BitPass has been making a relatively successful go at it for a while now. I’ve used voluntary micropayments in the past to make a few bucks via my LiveJournal web toys. I’m a big supporter of the idea that people should, instead of paying the arbitrary price that the creator (or marketer, or distributor, etc.) sets on something, pay what they feel it’s worth to them. Of course, this idea relies on the honesty of people in general. This probably makes me a sucker, but as John Quincy Adams said, “To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.”

I’ll be sending Jason a few bucks today, partly because I enjoy his work, but also because I want to see the concept of personal-value-based compensation become stronger. If I ever had the readership to undertake an endeavour like this, I’d want to know that there are people out there who, like me, are willing to help such an endeavour succeed.