This is how the free-market economist bloggers at Marginal Revolution ask for donations:
Efficiency says that goods with zero marginal cost should have a zero price but without prices not only is the incentive to produce diminished but so is information about what to produce. […] Donations allow prices to be set at [marginal cost] while at the same time providing a (noisy) signal about where true economic value lies. In particular, Tyler and I know that we can appropriate more of our marginal product from professional work than we can from blogging yet it is conceivable that our marginal product is higher in blogging. Thus, to decide how much to invest in this venture we markup donations to get an estimate of our social value and we put positive weight on social welfare in our utility function.
Hey, I’ve got a tip jar too! What does it say about the marginal value of my blogging product that nobody ever donates? Nevermind. Don’t answer that.
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