Jeff Jarvis breaks down the PayPerPost debate

Jeff Jarvis checks in on PayPerScam… it’s amazing to me that PayPerScam is resorting to the “Don’t let the A-listers who made it push you around” argument. That may score you some votes in the short term from bloggers who are not building a product that is good enough to get traffic and advertising, but it’s a dishonest argument.

The A-listers got to where they are in terms of traffic and advertising because they had HIGH ethics and DIDN’T sell out. Telling the up and coming bloggers that there is a shortcut is just so low in my book. IF you’re an up and coming blogger who wants to make a living out of this let me tell you it is NOT easy. You have to work really hard for a year or three to make a living out of blogging. There are no shortcuts. The shortcut of selling blog posts for $10 each will make it 100% certain that you will always be looked at as a) a loser and b) someone that you can’t trust.

Bloggers: take the high road. Build you audience. Put up adsense. Put up AdBrite. Get big enough for Federated Media to care about you. Then hire your own sales folks, or get a job working for an established blog.

There are a million better ways to make money–you don’t have to sell your soul.

Note: I’ve been talking to the PayPerPost folks about how to make their service NOT destroy trust in the blogosphere. Right now my position is that any post that is paid for must say so right up top. Not on the side of your blog with some icon that no one will ever see or understand. Not at the bottom of the post where someone might miss it. Not on some blog post you did seven months ago. Every post has to be clearly marked as paid for. Anything short of that falls into the deception bucket.