| Good businesses don't care about the content the same way that Michaelangelo didn't care about content: he would paint, or sculpt, or whatever. Whatever the patron would pay for. Naively, you could say he just didn't care that much about either (painting or sculpture). If he really cared, he would have commmitted to it and not just done it because that's where the money was. That's obviously dumb though. Business owners aren't forced to be in the business of attracting intelligent, engaged readers to great, engrossing content. They could be operating a porn video feed. The truth is this: great content doesn't write itself, and web contents are perfectly within their bounds to try to monetize the experience or convert their visitors to a bit more. Is there a way to do it in a more subtle, less distracting fashion? There might be. Let's work on it. I don't mind the overlay on the economist web site's articles, at the moment, for example - do you? Is it still too much? How do we allow customers to know that the content they are engaging wtih for minutes at a time is worth something to write, and requires a level of relationship, while still letting them read them quickly and effortlessly? A subtle hint about this that would let people realize what is going on, while allowing them to engage without distraction, would be good for everyone. |