I’ve been a bit snotty on the donations-for-content front in the past. Sure I contribute to public TV and Wikipedia.  But I guess my gut said, if your content is good enough, why not man-up and require payment to access it?

Subscription Site Insider’s new Case Study on blogger Ira Stoll’s business Model changed my mind. Stoll has a mission beyond simply making a living by publishing something online. He focuses on a beat that he cares so passionately about that it’s painful for him to imagine slamming a paywall down in front of it. (The irony of the fact that his blog is called TheFutureofCapitalism and his business Model is not really capitalistic has not escaped me.) Like many niche beats, it’s not feasible to support with ad revenues. Nor, as a journalist who wants to spend his life being a journalist, is Stoll interested in using the blog as a marketing front to build a consulting practice.

Last year, Stoll started his “experiment” of asking for donations. So far he’s been moderately successful – – he’s pulling in high-5-figures. A lot of journalists I know would be thrilled beyond words to blog on the beat of their choice and make that kind of living at it.Stoll’s done some smart things both with the way he asks for donations and his SEO tactics that make his traffic possible. The details are in Insider’s exclusive Case Study. He’s a publisher worth watching.