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On the Future of 12ft

12ft.io

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Re: On the Future of 12ft

#4

Post by whateveriforgot »

12ft.io does a great job of bypassing paywalls, which is needed because people want to avoid paying for the content they want to see. What's more, 12ft is basically an open CGI proxy server. The chances that it will be used to death without any efficient way to monetize it seems high. FWIW I do think it's a great service and is very helpful when you only need to access one article from a site you'll never need/want a subscription for. But I can definitely see there being people taking advantage of it when they want to avoid subscribing to whatever service.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#5

Post by poopsmithe »

Well this is ironic. Well intentioned developer creates site to bypass paywalls. Site is a popular success, and begins to cost too much money for the developer to maintain. Developer comes up with a solution which is to introduce an optional paywall.

I'm not just poking fun... I actually sympathize because I'm in a similar situation with one of my projects. I've had to reconsider being a 100% ideals-based person and actually set up methods for people to give me money.

I've always appreciated sites offering free content, but now I'm in the unique situation where I'm the one publishing content. It takes a lot of time and energy to put together and my other sources of income can only cover the bills for so long. The harsh reality is that free services require money to operate.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#6

Post by gkoberger »

So basically he makes it so people can steal articles... and then he's realizing that yeah, running a website is expensive and that's why companies have paywalls in the first place.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#8

Post by wrs »

The “Why?” section of the home page is rather disingenuous, since the Economist is not “SEO optimized garbage”, nor does it want you to “sign up for some newsletter”. It’s just an excellent newspaper that needs to pay the staff that writes all those articles. Just like 12ft.io needs to pay its hosting provider.

Re: On the Future of 12ft

#10

Post by waffle_maniac »

whateveriforgot wrote: post #4

12ft.io does a great job of bypassing paywalls, which is needed because people want to avoid paying for the content they want to see. What's more, 12ft is basically an open CGI proxy server. The chances that it will be used to death without any efficient way to monetize it seems high. FWIW I do think it's a great service and is very helpful when you only need to access one article from a site you'll never need/want a…

If it’s successful won’t publishers fight back like they did with outline.com?
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