Adam compares Jason Kottke’s micropatronage scheme with Josh Ellis’s:
In the year of his micropatronage experiment, Jason Kottke offered content that appeared little different than what he had been offering for nothing, expanding on it greatly neither in subject nor depth.
[…]
Furthermore, especially given the five-figure amount at stake, any description of the experiment’s results that did not start and end with a positive effusion of gratitude was bound to read as petulant to some part of the patronage.
[…]
I’m surely going to remember both the way that Ellis framed his request for support and what he offered his supporters in return, because I think that they amount to something close to best practices.
I have to say I agree. I’m very excited that things worked out for Josh, and I hope that they continue to work out. I dig the idea of the street performer protocol I was excited when Kottke got the funding to do his project, but was disappointed with the results. I think this project by project model that Josh has worked out could be the beginning of great things to come.