I sat down this morning to record a Managing the Gray with one topic in mind, but for whatever reason I went off in a whole other direction and ended up talking about finding value. During the show, I discussed how we've all grown use to consuming as much content as we can get online for free. Sure, free is always better than having to pay for something. But, with that being said, the content creators have got to start getting paid or else that content is not going to be around at all.

Passion can fuel anything, but is impossible to maintain on passion alone.

We all have bills to pay, mouths to feed and roofs that we'd like to keep over our heads. There is the cost of time to create content. Heck, the technology we use to create the content isn't free either.

There is a shift happening. There will always be plenty of quality free content, but the shift is towards making new layers of paid content. Things like The Third Tribe are just the beginnings of seeing this happen. 1938 Media has had a paid level for premium videos and now is producing The Audience Conference. I'm a paying member of both.

Others are going to follow suit. Many have tried and plenty have failed. We are all figuring this out together, but it is happening.

I'll be going up to the buffet daily, but I'm also going to be digging into my wallet to enjoy some higher end establishments as well.

Thoughts?