It looks like Marc has decided to take our dialog about "pay-for-ink" very personally (see Marc's Voice: On my own - HAH!), while I was really trying to keep to the ethical issue.

I don't think of myself as a namby-pamby academic type, sniffing the flowers and about to get trampled by the Wal-Marts (as Eric Rice suggests). Corante is actively working to promote more-or-less conventional advertising on our Industry Insider blogs, and we are also at work on several very innovative projects with sponsors (soon to be announced) where we are blending blogging and sponsorship in cool ways.

But I can't support "pay-for-ink" because I think it swings too far.

But I am not really trying to convince Marc, so much as stating what I think is the correct path to walk. Marc is (obviously) free to pursue whatever course he chooses to. And if I am reacting just like Marc knew I would, fine. I am not trying to conceal what I think, or create some convoluted argument. It doesn't bother me that my reaction is predicable; so I don't feel played.

In the final analysis, the market is Darwinian. If "pay-for-ink" works, people will gobble it up. But I doubt it.