Brandt's Tumblr

"

If you’ve got a model where revenue is tied only to web page views, switching to full-content RSS feeds will hurt, at least in the short term. The problem, I say, isn’t with full-content RSS feeds, but rather with a business model that hinges solely on web page views. The precious commodity that we, as publishers, have to offer advertisers is the attention of our readers. Web page views are a terribly inaccurate, if not outright misleading, metric for attention. Subscribers to a full-content RSS feed are among the readers paying the most attention, but generate among the least web page views.

A reader asking for a full-content RSS feed is a reader who wants to pay more attention to what you publish. There have to be ways to thrive financially from that.

Daring Fireball: Attention Is the Real Resource. This reminds me of someone I used to work with, who (despite my being overworked) didn’t want me to become more productive because we billed by the hour, so a boost to my productivity would hurt the company’s revenue. It saddens me when people shy away from opportunity just because it doesn’t fit their existing model. I’m always happy to find well-reasoned pieces like this to refer them to.