Do not under estimate your value to some people

Do not under estimate your value to some people

I work as a contractor/consultant at a company site where a software
product running on Linux is developed. Over the years I have seen many
other contractors come and go, but so far the client has always asked me
to stay. I put much of this down to the fact that I can offer suggestions
and help to people with vast ranges of problems from lvm to networking.
From scheduler issues to broken boot loaders.

A vast amount of the knowledge that keeps me in this well payed contract
has come from me reading Lwn every week since 1998. I consider the Lwn
content to be vital for my future employment. As such I think you
underestimate the value that you provide, and certainly should not feel
bad about not providing value for money at the higher rates. I would be
very happy to pay a higher rate for the content if only I had the option.
I suggest either a range of higher rates for people in my position or a
'name your own rate' option.

The ability to give people tokens to read articles would also be very
handy. I frequently want to refere people that do not subscribe to recent
articles, but often forget by the time they are free. On at least 1 of
the occations where the article was allready free you gained a new
subscriber.