From a Clickz article:
Immediate features that differentiate RSS (and perhaps IM and blogging) is the fact it’s opt-in. These communications channels place control in the hands of users. Rather than providing an open, catch-all bucket for data (like e-mail), RSS provides a direct link that can’t be spammed and (most important) a timely channel that’s [...]

The Guardian article "Access denied" describes the monetization of the Internet, and includes the appealing story of a homeless man who started a blog:
Jamie’s Big Voice gets readers from around the world, sometimes in their hundreds, sometimes in their thousands. He was invited to a party in Westminster where the Speaker of the House of [...]