Anyone can blog, but it takes a heavy-hitter like Blogger to make it available to the people. If every blog had the overhead costs that people like you and I invest in (domain name, web host) then a lot less folks would be blogging – and thus with a smaller blogosphere, there’s be less bloggers overall and thus less possible customers and thus less money to go into blog specific advertising.
I’m not saying that only the Web 2.0 people like O’Reilly can monetize the long tail – I’m saying that they’re the only ones that can make the monetization of the long tail happen for the rest of us. In other words, that they enable the monetization of the long tail.
Take the world as you know it, and subtract all the Web 2.0 style companies that you know of. Without blogger/google, livejournal, xanga, eBay, friendster, tribe, etc… would anyone be imagining that the long tail could be monetized? Probably not. The only reason that people can monetize ad revenue through Google ads is because (1) Google exists, (2) they have an ad program, (3) they have the economy of scale that makes it such that one more set of ads, and one more place to put them, are negligible. It is the last point (3) which is key – it is only with the help of the Web 2.0 style companies that people on the long tail are able to monetize their content.
So folks, if you value the long tail, then be gentle to your Web 2.0 benefactors.