Content asteroid belts

⚠️ This post is more than five years old. Links may rot, opinions may change, and context might be missing. Proceed with cautious optimism.

Cameron Koczon on how publishers and readers manage satellites like Instapaper, Readability, and other unbundled flying objects: A List Apart: Orbital Content.

“Many publishers will ask—and it is a fair and familiar question—why should users have the right to carbon copy my content and share it in other contexts? It is a question that belies a concern about something slightly different: compensation. If publishers were compensated $10 every time content was shared and $1 every time it was read on their site, they would do everything in their power to get their content shared. Copying is not the problem—compensation is. Today’s web environment makes it nothing less than a struggle to support content creators. We have unlimited tools for sharing and virtually none for payment.”

It seems safe to add News.Me, Summify, and Trove to the list of satellites — or rather, to the list of, say, content asteroid belts that circle readers and publishers.