Ev Williams on the future of reading and writing on the net:

Now we can’t stand to sit through ads…

Where I come from we never could; because we grew up on the BBC. Whose funding, when you think about it in modern terms, is essentially a subscription model, though paying the subscription —  the TV Licence fee —  is mandatory if you have a TV.

In the early days that made sense, because the BBC was all there was on the TV. Now it seems harder to justify, but I’ve yet to see a solution that would be both as successful and as egalitarian. Because the licence is very, very cheap compared to the alternatives.