Is The Dish worth $19.99 / year to you? I’ll probably subscribe, because I read his blog pretty much every day and generally enjoy it, especially at such a low price point.
But I’m curious as to what you think of this model. Are blogs worth paying for? Is opinion journalism in general worth paying for? Is this the type of model that you would be willing to subscribe to, or should it be set up differently? How’s the price?
No, this isn’t some sneaky way to gauge your opinions so I can convince you to pay me. I’m just curious as to people’s opinions regarding this kind of thing. I think its interesting. Let me know what you think in the comments.
520 Chestnut 
There is this wonderful pair of artists who come to the annual arts festival in my home town. Their art consists of a combination of photograph and frames that are handcrafted and painted to be extensions of the photograph. They are truly wonderful and many of the photographs are of places that happen to be particularly special to me. Unfortunately, the paintings are way outside of my price range. Of course they are worth the price they charge (if not more), but at the end of the day they will only be accessible to people much wealthier than me.
As for the Dish charging a fee,I find I am experiencing the same feeling I get when I look at those paintings. I don’t want to say the Dish isn’t worth $20 a year, of course it is. Maintaining a blog like the Dish must take an incredible amount of work and there is no doubt that they are talented. They should be compensated for their efforts. But the fee will naturally eliminate people who simply cannot justify that expense (for whatever reason). I understand why they are charging and I respect their decision, but I don’t think I can support it. Blogs like the Dish generate discussion. They openly present a perspective to the masses and ask for a response. By charging, they/we are restricting that conversation to people who can afford to pay to be a part and I don’t feel good about that.
I agree that any barriers to entry will restrict discussion, but from what I can tell it sounds like the only content that won’t be available for free will be the long-form pieces that require a click of a “read-more” button. Of course if you link in from another website or via RSS it sounds like even those will be free, and even non-subscribers have a certain number of free “read-on” pieces per month. So the impact on the discussion should be minimized.
How that will work out as a business model, on the other hand…
I think he’ll see a massive surge of enthusiasm at the start (composed of current frequent readers, probably few new folks), followed by a pretty huge drop off after a year when it comes time to resubscribe. Basically you can get all the content for free anyway, and the payment is effectively a donation.
Kind of like an NPR / New York Times / Radiohead hybrid. I’ll be interested to see if it succeeds. I’ll admit I’m skeptical.