Jason Kottke, OG blogger
Jason Kottke launched his blog kottke.org in 1998. That’s right, back in the twentieth century. Seven years later, he went full-time as a blogger and it’s been his professional identity ever since.
What I find most remarkable about Kottke’s story is that he’s never stopped blogging. The blog as an online publishing format is deeply unfashionable now. It was usurped firstly by social media and more recently by email newsletters. Yet Kottke the blogger persists.
When he went full-time in 2005, it was initially with subscriptions. But he was too early for that business model, so after a year he made the switch to online advertising (with some affiliate links too). Then in November 2016, after the demise of the online advertising industry for blogs, he went back to subscriptions and that’s been his primary income ever since.
What has kept kottke.org going all these years, through all the changes in online publishing and the ups and downs of its revenue streams? In other words: how on earth does Jason Kottke still earn a living as an old-school “blogger”?
