Why Blogit's Actions Are Bad Business
It should be clear that Blogit does not simply provide a service or product that a customer simply buys without any involvement in the manufacturing process. Rather, it is a literary magazine without the attractive hard copy for authors to pass around, but with more involvement of authors in determining their compensation. Editorial direction is replaced, in theory, by subscription along the lines suggested in the late 19th century by Edward Bellamy in "Looking Backward". This would work fine except that Blogit has set itself up as prosecutor, judge and jury to deal with what it equates with criminal offenses. In so doing, it has lost all credibility. In our society, whether someone has committed such offenses is determined by an open trial with a jury of one's peers. That has credibility and Blogit suffers from the comparison. As such, their bannings are and have been viewed as "witch hunts".
From the standpoint of an author whose compensation is based upon readership, this is very troublesome. Irrespective of whether they feel themselves likely proclaimed a witch or warlock, they have readers that do or have, readers who also read authors that do or have and so on. We are already starting to see that with the .Dave. banning. Some authors and readers say they are leaving and others will leave without saying so. Those of us who remain have to try to scrounge around for new readers but, with a bad taste in our mouths about arbitrary bannings, are not inclined to go outside Blogit to bring new readers in. Many of us, myself included, will eventually find that our compensation no longer supports our contributions to this magazine. As we leave, the product will suffer and the rest of the customers will also leave.