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Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

robinwinslow.uk

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Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#81

Post by passivate »

paxys wrote: post #68
towaway15463 wrote: post #30

I’m still waiting for micro transactions. I won’t pay $5 a month for a newspaper I might read one article from but I would gladly pay 25 cents for that one good article. How are there still minimum amounts and fees on transactions when everything is supposedly digitized and networked?

How do you know what is "one good article" and what isn't until you actually read it? There is already an increasing problem with clickbait as sites have to fight for eyeballs to get ad revenue. Making online journalism microtransaction based will completely kill whatever is left of the industry.

You will come to rely on publisher branding, following the work of specific authors who you know do good work, etc.

Its no different than knowing if the food tastes good at the new restaurant.

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#82

Post by teeray »

melenaboija wrote: post #48
teeray wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy is a usability problem. People want to read one article, not subscribe for a year. This is just like pirating one song instead of buying the album.

And that is why Spotify exists and has been successful. Maybe is worth to try something different than digitalizing paper press and make people pay yearly subscriptions for one publication.

Spotify is an anomaly. We should have a bunch of services with names like Sony+, Universal Now, Warner Music Stream, and Atlantic Listen at this point.

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#83

Post by nkozyra »

_tom_ wrote: post #25
nkozyra wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given it doesn't seem to work all that well, I wouldn't be worried. There have been many attempts to federate paywalls but the publishers will never play ball.

If it starts making money, publisher will put in the effort to block it. It's not a viable business.

The federated paywall ideas were supposed to work with publishers.

They'd go to media company A and sell them something and when they negotiated with company B the requirements were completely different or they wanted different revenue shares, etc.

It was a pretty common startup idea in the early to mid 00s.

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#84

Post by spywaregorilla »

passivate wrote: post #81
paxys wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know what is "one good article" and what isn't until you actually read it? There is already an increasing problem with clickbait as sites have to fight for eyeballs to get ad revenue. Making online journalism microtransaction based will completely kill whatever is left of the industry.

You will come to rely on publisher branding, following the work of specific authors who you know do good work, etc. Its no different than knowing if the food tastes good at the new restaurant.

If you rely on branding then why not just subscribe the the publisher...

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#85

Post by mertd »

passivate wrote: post #81
paxys wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know what is "one good article" and what isn't until you actually read it? There is already an increasing problem with clickbait as sites have to fight for eyeballs to get ad revenue. Making online journalism microtransaction based will completely kill whatever is left of the industry.

You will come to rely on publisher branding, following the work of specific authors who you know do good work, etc. Its no different than knowing if the food tastes good at the new restaurant.

That's why people with strong enough brand have been moving to Substack.

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#86

Post by lp0_on_fire »

eganist wrote: post #73
paxys wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know what is "one good article" and what isn't until you actually read it? There is already an increasing problem with clickbait as sites have to fight for eyeballs to get ad revenue. Making online journalism microtransaction based will completely kill whatever is left of the industry.

For 25 cents, I don't think I'd care. If I get burned on five articles at 25 cents each, I'll probably stop reading their stuff though. And that might actually provide a usable metric to their editors.

How many people do you think will go through the trouble of signing up for an account and giving x publisher their credit card for a 25 cent purchase though?

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#87

Post by Sloppy »

I don't mind paying for content but not all content is worth paying for. If micro-payments ever become viable I'd be game for that but the paywall options of today are far too onerous!

I sometimes clear cookies, use Brave in private mode, edit the html to remove a fade out etc. But 12.io makes all that BS a thing of the past.

+10 12ft.io

BTW speaking of billionaire owned news... doesn't work on washingtonpost.com

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#88

Post by systemvoltage »

> Paywalls offend me. The Internet exists to share knowledge with everyone across the world. You shouldn’t need a subscription, all you should need is an internet connection to access the world’s knowledge.

Then who the hell is going to pay for the people that write articles all day for you? What makes you entitled for free information? How will the writers pay their bills and raise their families? Either we can complain about advertisements or we can shut up and pay for things.

Now that's off my chest, I think there should be a pooled version of news sites. One subscription to rule them all. No, not Apple news or Google news+ or whatever. Something that is sort of like Patreon but for news sites. I am totally happy to pay up to $20/month for them all.

But I fundamentally and morally disagree with the author of this site. If they framed it as "No, we cannot have $120/month for 12 different news subscriptions, until that is resolved, we built a paywall solution". But, instead they feel entitled to access premium content that requires funding and financing to produce, for free.

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#89

Post by dqpb »

paxys wrote: post #68
towaway15463 wrote: post #30

I’m still waiting for micro transactions. I won’t pay $5 a month for a newspaper I might read one article from but I would gladly pay 25 cents for that one good article. How are there still minimum amounts and fees on transactions when everything is supposedly digitized and networked?

How do you know what is "one good article" and what isn't until you actually read it? There is already an increasing problem with clickbait as sites have to fight for eyeballs to get ad revenue. Making online journalism microtransaction based will completely kill whatever is left of the industry.

Charge per token like OpenAI does. If the article is going nowhere, bail.

Re: Hate paywalls? 12ft.io is the answer

#90

Post by towaway15463 »

paxys wrote: post #74
eganist wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 25 cents, I don't think I'd care. If I get burned on five articles at 25 cents each, I'll probably stop reading their stuff though. And that might actually provide a usable metric to their editors.

Think of the number of links you click on in a regular day. The front page of HN itself contains 30 articles. Browsing a few pages of it at 25c each is already $40+ in costs. Is that something you are willing to spend?

The signal given by articles that make it to the top of news aggregators would be even stronger if they were all paid content. No one is going to post or upvote something they didn’t like and lost money on. It also sounds like it would be a healthy limit on your media consumption if you’re reading 160 articles per day right now.
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