Paying Your Bills: The Technological Divide in Tech Blogging
I between Steven Hodson’s post from this morning about (barley) eing able to pay his bills to stay online and my own thoughts (and the subsequent discussion about them) yesterday about whether a solo blogger can make a living out of doing this in the tech blogosphere, I started thinking about how privileged most of us are for being able to actually participate in these conversations.
Here is what Steven said this morning:
For me it doesn’t matter how much I want to be able to contribute to the conversation I am constantly limited by the reality of the technological divide. While advocates of openness and a web for all chatter on about their newest laptop or some other such toy I listen to the clicking of a failing hard drive. While others wouldn’t blink at slapping down a couple hundred for the newest and coolest replacement drive I have to figure out which bills don’t get paid this month.
Even more basic than that though is the tenuous line that connects me to the world wide conversation. While the discussions about ubiquitous broadband access for everyone float around the blogosphere I look at an empty PayPal and bank account and wonder if I can talk my uncaring service provider into giving me an extension on the disconnection notice that is in front of me. Chances are though that real life will step in come Monday morning and slap me back into my proper position on the other side of the technological divide.
In my post yesterday, I wondered if it is even possible for a solo blogger to make a living doing this, and Steven’s situation seems to come out clearly on the negative side of this. And Steven isn’t a nobody in this world – he writes consistently good articles a couple of times a day, he has been in the Techmeme Top 100, he has plenty of RSS subscribers and reader, his Technorati ranking is in the top 10.000 – yet he can’t make enough money of it to keep his internet connection going.
Simply put: that’s quite a downer – and not just because I consider Steven to be a friend.
However, on a positive note, Steven also gives us a healthy slap in the face here – I’m really pretty privileged to be in a situation where I have the time and money to write here. I’m too frugal and don’t make enough money to go out and buy the latest gadgets the moment they come out, but I’m sitting in front of three screens here (two big ones and one laptop), sipping coffee, and when I’m not teaching, I spend my time reading and writing – and I don’t even need to worry about our Internet and cell-phone bills, as my wife’s company picks up the tab for those.
Now that’s a privileged position.