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Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

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Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#121

Post by _0ffh »

markdown wrote: post #97
Aloha wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online micropayments is still a woefully untouched market, it was supposed to be the wave of the future some years ago, but never went anywhere. I won't pay 10 dollars a month (each) to the NYT (LAT, WaPo, et al) for a subscription I might quite happily pay 5 to 20 cents for an article though. I can see a service that functions a lot like EZPass, you load your account with 5-10 bucks, you agree to pay by clicking a p…

> it was supposed to be the wave of the future some years ago, but never went anywhere. I remember when Peter Sunde's Flattr was around (circa 2010) and websites had flattr buttons (like those html/css buttons). Edit: I just checked and apparently it still exists: https://flattr.com/

Yes it exists, but has been bought by Eyeo. That's the company behind AdBlock Plus, whos' business practices are one of the reasons why so many people have switched to uBlock Origin.

Edit: And it has already started: Eyeo has made major changes to how Flattr works (now they decide who gets your money, and how much of it, not you) and hiked the prices.

Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#122

Post by tome »

Aloha wrote: post #45
shash7 wrote: post #37

Don't think of it as asking for 1 dollar. Think like this: Say if you walk up to me irl and ask for a dollar, I'll be like, sure here's your change and open up my wallet. Online, asking for one dollar is too much mental overhead. Its not like people don't want to pay, but you need to make it easy for them to pay you. Personally, I would stick with ad revenue instead of 1 dollar payments.

Online micropayments is still a woefully untouched market, it was supposed to be the wave of the future some years ago, but never went anywhere. I won't pay 10 dollars a month (each) to the NYT (LAT, WaPo, et al) for a subscription I might quite happily pay 5 to 20 cents for an article though. I can see a service that functions a lot like EZPass, you load your account with 5-10 bucks, you agree to pay by clicking a p…

> I won't pay 10 dollars a month (each) to the NYT (LAT, WaPo, et al) for a subscription

What about a Spotify model for articles where you pay a monthly subscription to access all articles from the NYT, WaPo, LAT, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Economist, Nature, National Geographic, Scientific American, London Review of Books ... ?

EDIT: I guess this is what Blendle is, as mentioned in a sibling comment, except Blendle seems to be pay-per-view and I'm suggesting monthly subscription. Presumably Blendle could also offer monthly subscription.

Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#123

Post by reificator »

pjc50 wrote: post #114

Unsolved, difficult problems of micropayments: - pay before viewing: how do you know that the thing you're paying for is the thing that you're expecting? What if it's a rickroll or goatse? - so do you give refunds a la steam? - pay and adverts: double-dipping is very annoying - pay and adverts: how do you know who you're paying? A page appears with a micropayment request, but how do you know you've not just paid the…

- Can you blacklist specific providers?

Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#124

Post by reificator »

mysterypie wrote: post #95
goldenkey wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hijacks my back button..big no no

Can someone explain to me why hijacking of the back button is even possible? It's obviously something that browsers could fix, and the fact they don't fix it means that there must be some legitimate uses. But what legit use?

In a perfect world, it would be used by single page apps that are driven by JavaScript to provide the same benefits of linking, history navigation, and so on, without having to actually load a new page.

Think an online webmail client, where each time you view an email it adds a new item to your history.

Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#125

Post by vlehto »

pjc50 wrote: post #114

Unsolved, difficult problems of micropayments: - pay before viewing: how do you know that the thing you're paying for is the thing that you're expecting? What if it's a rickroll or goatse? - so do you give refunds a la steam? - pay and adverts: double-dipping is very annoying - pay and adverts: how do you know who you're paying? A page appears with a micropayment request, but how do you know you've not just paid the…

I think the only real problem there is the "how do you know who you're paying?" part. Everything else would be solved or effectively ignored with the following:

I send you 10$ somehow, you send me email with ten hashes. Each hash worth a dollar.

I pay to alex by cut and paste on a webpage (here's the catch, maybe It's a scam!)

Alex has registered as content producer to your service. Alex immediately sends the hash with his on handle crypted into one neat package, to your servers. As soon as it lands, you add the dollar to his account. The particular hash is now rendered useless for the rest of history.

You send "valid transaction" message to Alex. Alex then lets me to comment his excellent blog post.

What am I missing? If it was that easy, it would have been done.

Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#126

Post by Ndymium »

jwilk wrote: post #108

Here's a copy that can be read without JS enabled: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/24ca461fd6d32f17a5ac07b91a...

For those using something like uMatrix, it seems the site's JavaScript crashes if you don't load Stripe's JavaScript too. Enabling that makes the site render.

Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#127

Post by pjc50 »

vlehto wrote: post #125
pjc50 wrote: post #114

Unsolved, difficult problems of micropayments: - pay before viewing: how do you know that the thing you're paying for is the thing that you're expecting? What if it's a rickroll or goatse? - so do you give refunds a la steam? - pay and adverts: double-dipping is very annoying - pay and adverts: how do you know who you're paying? A page appears with a micropayment request, but how do you know you've not just paid the…

I think the only real problem there is the "how do you know who you're paying?" part. Everything else would be solved or effectively ignored with the following: I send you 10$ somehow, you send me email with ten hashes. Each hash worth a dollar. I pay to alex by cut and paste on a webpage (here's the catch, maybe It's a scam!) Alex has registered as content producer to your service. Alex immediately sends the hash wi…

> If it was that easy, it would have been done.

Part 2: business model problems!

- getting money into the system is plagued by usual fraud problems of card TX for pure digital goods

- nobody wants to build a federated system; everyone wants to build a Play/Apple/Steam store where they take 30%

- winner-take-all effects are strong

- Play store et al already exist, why not use that?

- Free substitute goods are just a click away

- Consumers will pirate anything no matter how cheap the original is

- No real consumer demand for micropayments

=> lemma from previous 3 items: market for online goods is efficient enough to drive all marginal prices to zero

- existing problem of the play store letting your kid spend all the money

- friction: it would be great if you didn't have to repeatedly approve things, such as a micropayment for every page of a webcomic archive. But blanket approval lets bad actors drain the jar or inattentive users waste it and then feel conned

- first most obvious model for making this work is porn, which is inevitably blacklisted by the payment processors, has a worse environment for fraud/chargebacks, and is toxic to VCs (see Patreon and even Craigslist)

- Internet has actually killed previously working micropayment systems such as Minitel, paid ringtones (anyone remember the dark era of Crazy Frog?); surviving ones like premium SMS and phone have a scammy, seedy feel.

- accounting requirements: do you have to pay VAT on that micropayment? do you have to declare it? Is it a federal offence to sell something to an Iranian or North Korean for one cent?

Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=630862 Slashdot (2003): https://news.slashdot.org/story/03/07/22/138257/whatever-hap... HBR: https://hbr.org/2010/02/why-i-hate-micropayments.html

Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#129

Post by dredmorbius »

Treat information as the public good it is.

Pay those who create it.

Allow free access to public information.

The entire advertising market worldwide is $600 billion, which works out to roughly $600 per man, woman, and child among the 1 billion inhabitants of the US, EU, Japan, CA, AU, and NZ. (Or OECD states, if you prefer, or G-7.) Total media spend (print) is on the order of $200/year. Cable + broadband on the order of $1500 - $3000 per year (content and connectivity).

Seems to me there's some streamlining potential possible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes...

Re: Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology

#130

Post by omk »

> Around 8% of users who could have used the apology flow converted into paying customers.

Given enough time, game theory is bound to kick in and gaming the system becomes a norm reducing the conversion rate. That is what you get with rational decision makers combined with enough automation.

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