Kottke posts a follow-up report today about how his fund drive went. He makes some insightful points in the meat of the post about 'new media' and how things we consume are paid for. Take for example this line, which sums up nicely why only 1/3 of 1% of his readers contributed:

I think it's difficult to "sell" media in an environment where people are increasingly not paying directly for media.

Absolutely. I'd even amend that to say "...not paying at all for media". Looks like people in small-time creative industries other than music might be starting to feel the effects of the filesharing culture too.