Dean Esmay has a post about blogging and revenue.

I’ve posted about this before and I like the way he states his position.

Pajamas Media is just about ready to launch and the idea is that bloggers accept a flat fee from the group - I guess a trickle down economic idea. Pajama Media’s idea has had a mixed reaction - opponents think bloggers will do better with their own advertisting management. it is using it’s own model as far as I can tell. Most bloggers use blogads from Google. PJ Media is one of many money making ideas for bloggers.

Then there are people like Dean Esmay and I. (He has some ads)

I won’t quarrel with that, although I’m a bit surprised at the vehemence. The vast majority of bloggers I know–and I’m certainly one of them–started this with no intention of making money. Most of us do it as a labor of love, and if someone drops a quarter in the tip jar (it’s over there on the left hint hint) or buys an ad, that’s a bonus.

Although Dean’s World has seen consistent and steady growth over the last three and a half years, and has wildly more readers than I ever imagined, the truth is that I don’t enjoy thinking about advertisers. I don’t want to be blogging thinking about whether or not what I’m writing will drive traffic up or down. I don’t want to think about whether it will attract advertisers or not. What success I’ve found, I’ve found through adhering to a pretty simple rule:

I write about whatever I want, whenever I want, for whatever reason I want. Anyone else is just along for the ride.

So whenever I find myself thinking, “how can I get more ad money?” or “I got $X in ads last month but only $Y this month, why?” my stress levels go up and I stop having fun.

We live in a culture where value is defined by dollars and aquisition.
And even having fun is seen as an investment to some.
I made a decision not to use advertising or make money blogging.
Ads don’t represent me.
Blogads are a bit like the crawler on the bottom of a news station.
The anchor can be talking about 2 million people starving in Niger, while the crawler talks about JoLo or Tom Cruise. It’s bizarre.
There is nothing profound in my decision.
The major reason is I hate clutter.
We are so bombarded by advertising it’s crazy making.
TV network shows (for example) are down to 41 minutes.
Another reason is I can’t be bothered to the work to set it up etc.
(Numbers and I don’t get along well)
I have all I need, I’m not going to start feeding wants.
I’ve never seen an armoured car follow a hearse.
What I get back from blogging isn’t something I measure and I’m happy with the no advertising decision and attendant lack of stress levels.