I didn’t know Dave Winer was putting some of his incoming e-mail on a dedicated page. Smart way to hash through (I guess) a lot of e-mails from strangers, put some of them there, and talk about even less of them in his main blog. The e-mail I sent him is ‘featured’ today, the only thing missing being a permalink to each e-mail.
I think content has to work like a pyramid. Obviously the old way of doing things (all or nothing, at the mercy of almighty publishers) is exploding. On the other hand, there’s so much out there (including crap) that you need to sort the wheat from the chaff in some way. So content at the base of the pyramid is available if you have the patience and time. On a middle level you’ll have content selected in some way (networks of trust, popularity systems, editorial teams, other ideas, mix of the previous) while content gems will hopefully rise to the top through meritocracy. We can do it!