In my last blog I argued that there’s a yawning gap between free and quality. Blogging is free. Magazines, books, print cost money. So too I argued should online, if we want quality. 

So why should anyone read what I blog? I need to add to the worldide online debate, add value to the debate. The value I get in return may be recognition and kudos and no more, and that for inveterate bloggers is great. No-one expects to make money from blogging, and no-one does.

But let’s not confuse debate with content and research, with the substance on which the online debate depends.

If that’s where I want my contribution to be I need to give it time, and time is money. Bear in mind that all the content I draw on as a blogger has a cost – news, research etc – although it may be several times removed from that original cost. If all we rely on is second hand, then we move further and further from the source and the truth. We’re in a dangerous world.

News-gathering, research, the investment of time and hard-won skills, all cost money.

If I want to take my reading as well as my writing more seriously I know where I’ll look. And I’ll pay.

Blogging is about debate, and it’s wonderful. But it’s starting-point, like a good dinner-party conversation (or maybe a monologue!), no more than that.