100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web • Hacker News Board

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#101

Post by makecheck » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:09 AM UTC

Instead of having payment systems that seem to go out of their way to make it inconvenient to pay, there should be a small number of very well defined friction points (such as: “maximum daily expenditure”) with literally zero friction anywhere else.

By now for instance we should really have a security technology that allows anyone to spend $5 a day any way they want, in any denomination (e.g. literally 2 cents here and 2 cents there), without having to go through ridiculous virtual-cash systems, cards and other hoops. The money should simply be there, and it should be able to go anywhere. If it’s a relatively small amount, it doesn’t require a lot of gate-keeping, e.g. you do not need a customer-refunds infrastructure or fraud protection scheme for pennies. The money can then either reset automatically, e.g. each day, or after some explicit more-secure action, e.g. you log in to something with your face.

I know that it would personally make me spend a lot more if a lot of transactions could “just happen”. Once I got a tap-here-and-pay watch, I spent more. Once I could shop online with a fingerprint, I actually did shop online. When I had to type in credit card details though, I hardly ever wanted to. When “fees” would appear as part of seemingly-small transactions, I hardly ever wanted to continue. Some things just sound like scams (don’t get me started on subscriptions), making me more likely to find an exit.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#102

Post by mr_toad » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:12 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #92

There's nothing new here. Micropayments have been tried countless times. We did it ourselves and came to the same conclusions that people just don't value content highly nor want to pay for it at any sustainable rate. [1] Advertising is faster, easier, more passive, and more egalitarian than direct payments. Many people you might not consider (like billions around the world) are happy to view ads in exchange for free…

> are happy to view ads in exchange for free content and services they couldn't otherwise afford

So advertising doesn’t work on these people? Seems unlikely. That would imply content providers are giving stuff away, and wasting bandwidth on adds they know will never work.

Seems more likely to me that the advertising does work, and people aren’t getting content for free. They’re paying for stuff they don’t need, with money they don’t have.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#103

Post by hutzlibu » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:32 AM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #32

None of these web monetization efforts address the fact that the pool of [all consumers' discretionary income they'd be willing to spend] is likely a small fraction of the size of [all commercial companies' marketing budgets]. No matter how much you reduce the friction for having people make small tips to websites, there's just significantly less money to go around, so it can never replace advertising revenue. The on…

Why does it not adress it? It is also about changing the mindset of people. Make it easier -> make it more common to voluntarily pay for thing you value -> more projects are financed that way -> more people see it is a way to make a living -> better content -> more people willing to pay, especially seeing the difference to normal ad madness

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#104

Post by skybrian » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:33 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #69

Having worked in ad-tech for much of the past decade, I don't really like the idea of ads, but the reality is that advertising is much too effective to simply "go away." The article also conflates "advertising" with "data mining" -- the former is relatively benign; the latter not so much. The effectiveness of Facebook and Google ads are mainly due to (for the most part) information that was voluntarily handed over (l…

It seems like a good chunk of money to help startups get started?

If a payment system can't make money or raise more funds, they're probably not getting anywhere.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#105

Post by donohoe » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

Forget micro-payments. Ban web advertising at the browser level. Create a browser that thoroughly and intentionally integrates ad blocking and has a statements of how it renders HTML with UX constraints (think Google AMP but actually good).

What happens?

Most content sources dry-up and stop. I no longer see that as a bad thing.

Out every every 100 content mills that are re-aggregating and summarizing someone else's original reporting you can wipe off 90 of them and still be fine.

Those that have a foot-hold, brand, or better reach survive through affiliate marketing (see WireCutter), donations, or subscriptions (NYT, WaPo, etc.)

I'm not saying there won't be casualties in this approach but you lose the alt-right and other reality-bending publishers pretty quickly.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#106

Post by donohoe » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:36 AM UTC

FreeHugs wrote: post #3

It's crazy, that we still do not have something like "Cash" on the internet. A simple, anonymous way to pay 10 cent or so. To use a website or read an article. That would make the world so much better for indie developers. Currently, an indie dev makes orders of magnitude less money per pageview then Google, Facebook and Co. Because those have all that advertising technology and ecosystem that indie devs don't have.…

This has been attempted so many times and they all end in obscurity of failure.

Might be about timing. Maybe this time it could be different.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#107

Post by IngvarLynn » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:39 AM UTC

snthd wrote: post #64

FreeHugs wrote: post #3

It's crazy, that we still do not have something like "Cash" on the internet. A simple, anonymous way to pay 10 cent or so. To use a website or read an article. That would make the world so much better for indie developers. Currently, an indie dev makes orders of magnitude less money per pageview then Google, Facebook and Co. Because those have all that advertising technology and ecosystem that indie devs don't have.…

GNU Taler is a WIP for that. https://taler.net

>Taler is a pure payment system, not a new crypto-currency. As such, it operates in a traditional banking context. In particular, this means that in order to receive funds via Taler, the merchant must have a regular bank account, and payments can be executed in ordinary currencies such as USD or EUR.

That implies high transaction costs to say the least.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#108

Post by eclipxe » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:40 AM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #102

manigandham wrote: post #92

There's nothing new here. Micropayments have been tried countless times. We did it ourselves and came to the same conclusions that people just don't value content highly nor want to pay for it at any sustainable rate. [1] Advertising is faster, easier, more passive, and more egalitarian than direct payments. Many people you might not consider (like billions around the world) are happy to view ads in exchange for free…

> are happy to view ads in exchange for free content and services they couldn't otherwise afford So advertising doesn’t work on these people? Seems unlikely. That would imply content providers are giving stuff away, and wasting bandwidth on adds they know will never work. Seems more likely to me that the advertising does work, and people aren’t getting content for free. They’re paying for stuff they don’t need, with…

How did you draw that conclusion?

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#109

Post by d0gbread » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:45 AM UTC

FreeHugs wrote: post #3

It's crazy, that we still do not have something like "Cash" on the internet. A simple, anonymous way to pay 10 cent or so. To use a website or read an article. That would make the world so much better for indie developers. Currently, an indie dev makes orders of magnitude less money per pageview then Google, Facebook and Co. Because those have all that advertising technology and ecosystem that indie devs don't have.…

Brave is doing exactly this with BAT on Ethereum but automating the whole thing. You can donate to any website, but you'll also auto-contribute if you choose to have that enabled.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#110

Post by dangrossman » Tue, Sep 17, 2019, 12:49 AM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #103

dangrossman wrote: post #32

None of these web monetization efforts address the fact that the pool of [all consumers' discretionary income they'd be willing to spend] is likely a small fraction of the size of [all commercial companies' marketing budgets]. No matter how much you reduce the friction for having people make small tips to websites, there's just significantly less money to go around, so it can never replace advertising revenue. The on…

Why does it not adress it? It is also about changing the mindset of people. Make it easier -> make it more common to voluntarily pay for thing you value -> more projects are financed that way -> more people see it is a way to make a living -> better content -> more people willing to pay, especially seeing the difference to normal ad madness

Nothing in that feedback loop will allow people to spend money they don't have. A big chunk of the money you spend on groceries, car payments, insurance, medication, etc is going into those companies' marketing budgets, and that ends up as the ad revenue that finances the web today. You don't have that money to give to website owners directly instead, as you've already spent it on those goods.