I believe Sarah Constantin’s self-described strategy is roughly (b). You actually pay for “squishy” stuff, but she says she thinks squishy stuff is worse (though the wrinkle is that she implies readers maybe think the opposite).
Another set of strategies I’ve been thinking about are for mailing lists. You can either have your archives eventually become free (can’t think of an example here, but I think it’s fairly common for Patreon-supported writers to have an “early access” model), or you can have your newsletter be free but archives be fee-guarded (for example Money Stuff uses this model).
I believe Sarah Constantin’s self-described strategy is roughly (b). You actually pay for “squishy” stuff, but she says she thinks squishy stuff is worse (though the wrinkle is that she implies readers maybe think the opposite).
Another set of strategies I’ve been thinking about are for mailing lists. You can either have your archives eventually become free (can’t think of an example here, but I think it’s fairly common for Patreon-supported writers to have an “early access” model), or you can have your newsletter be free but archives be fee-guarded (for example Money Stuff uses this model).