
Ask YC: Who would you pay to read? - pchristensen
Along the same lines as yesterday's discussion, whose writing would you pay to read?  Keep in mind that for high quality, sporadic writers, payment might mean more frequent writing.<p>Here's my list (going alphabetically through my Google Reader list:<p>Definitely:<p>- Steve McConnell's stuff is always backed by research and therefore much more valuable than most thoughts or ideas ( http://blogs.construx.com/blogs/stevemcc/rss.aspx )<p>- Dan Weinreb is rational, thorough, a bit of a legend in my niche, and I'm a bit of an ITA fanboy ( http://dlweinreb.wordpress.com/feed/ )<p>- Bill Simmons (sports writer) is hilarious and my only remaining connection to sports spectatorship ( http://sports.espn.go.com/keyword/feed?query=Bill_Simmons )<p>- pg ( 	
http://feeds.feedburner.com/PaulGrahamUnofficialRssFeed )<p>- yegge is funny, and pay-per-post would be a bargain! (	
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default )<p>Maybe/Conditional:
- pmarca if he would stay on topic ( http://feeds.feedburner.com/pmarca )<p>- defmacro if it caused more documentation and features to be written for weblocks ( 	
http://www.defmacro.org/rss/news.xml )<p>- Ted Neward is new to me but climbing the charts (http://blogs.tedneward.com/SyndicationService.asmx/GetAtom )<p>- Jeff Moser is coming on strong ( http://feeds.feedburner.com/Moserware )<p>- Kevin Kelley is on the bubble ( http://feeds.feedburner.com/thetechnium )<p>Based on previous writing more so than current:<p>- raganwald from a couple years ago - the Ruby stuff means less to me than his older topics ( 	
http://feeds.raganwald.com/raganwald )<p>- Joel a couple years ago, not Joel now (	
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/rss.xml )<p>That's 12 out of 172.  5 were conditional and 2 would be mainly to access archives.  So about 2-5% of authors I read are people I'd pay to read.  What about you?
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danohuiginn
"for high quality, sporadic writers, payment might mean more frequent
writing."

And more frequent writing might mean lower-quality writing. There are
certainly writers I'd pay to write less - to get the same ideas not buried
under so many words. If a magazine had its staff writers produce, say, a
maximum 500 words a day, the quality would skyrocket and I'd pay much more for
it. Look at the quality of the New Yorker - it's not because they have the
best writers (although they do), it's because they let them work for months on
a single piece.

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bokonist
Mencius Moldbug - <http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/> \- it's hard
to tell if he's crazy or a prophet, but it's definitely the most
intellectually fascinating blog I've ever come across.

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alex_c
+1 for pmarca.

Also <http://particletree.com/> if it was updated more often - but I guess
they're going for quality over quantity, which is fine by me.

Thanks for the post, will add some of those to my reading list.

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alaskamiller
Tipjoy sounds more and more awesome by the day

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mattmaroon
Very interesting question:

Scott Adams

Violent Acres

Mark Cuban if he hired a copy editor. I have a low tolerance for typos/grammar
and that guy is off the charts.

My friend Mike May: <http://mikemay.blogspot.com/> , though I would have to
pay per post since he doesn't write often and I'd feel ripped off with a
subscription model.

I'd pay to not read TechCrunch, but I'm too afraid of missing something.

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danohuiginn
Since I'm already paying with my time, what's the difference in paying a bit
extra in cash? So almost everybody I read frequently and carefully is somebody
I'd pay to read. In technology: Mark Pilgrim, pg, danah boyd, Ian Bicking,
probably dozens more. Outside technology, there are too many to even begin
listing.

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projectileboy
Malcolm Gladwell almost always has something interesting to say.

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technoguyrob
Steve Pavlina of 2005 and 2006 had some dazzling productivity and personal
management articles.

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mindcrime
Blogs? Nobody. I pay to read the authors that I'm willing to pay for, when I
buy their books. Out of the OP's list, I've bought books by Steve McConnell,
Paul Graham, Ted Neward and Joel Spolsky.

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yan
Well I buy books fairly often, so I'm paying to read them.

In terms of blogs, I'd be willing to pay something to subscribe to the simple
dollar, probably bruce schneier's blog, boing boing.

There are others, I'm sure.

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nikiscevak
Malcolm Gladwell (New Yorker)

John Hollinger (ESPN)

Paul Graham

Warren Buffet

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gruseom
Andrew Sullivan

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justindz
Since you were non-format-specific in your question:

Neil Gaiman Haruki Murakami William Gibson Neal Stephenson Banana Yoshimoto

;-)

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edu
PG. So I bought Hackers & Painters.

