SPARE ANY CHANGE?

Amazon.com has just launched a new scheme to help pay for websites just like this one. It’s a form of honors system, where you can click on a small button on the andrewsullivan.com site, and get taken to an Amazon page where you can sign up to donate a micro-payment to support this site if you feel like it. The payments start at $1. I’ve been talking to people about web alliances and advertising and sponsorship in order to keep this show on the road, but one of the joys of writing for this page is the freedom from any of those constraints. No editors to please; no proprietors to flatter; no advertisers to worry about. I’ve been lucky so far. My friends at Fantascope, the brilliant designers who created this page, have largely carried me and my server needs out of charity so far. But soon, we will have to pay a server charge and think about finding a technical and editorial assistant of some sort. This costs money. Believe it or not, I do all this myself now with help from Fantascope in posting full pieces. So here’s a question. Is this arrangement something you readers would be comfortable with? The page would be free, as usual. The donation is entirely voluntary. It doesn’t have to be made every time you visit – or ever at all. Amazon takes a 15 percent cut of the donation to pay for the credit card technology and access fees and customer support. The rest goes to our expenses – modest but growing as fast as the readership. All in all, it’s a way to support sites like this in the post-dot-com world. Let me know if it sounds cheesy or inappropriate. But if I got a buck from one in ten of you a month, we’d be financially secure.