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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

#111

Post by Gys »

zblesk wrote: post #106
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?

Blendle might be what you're looking for. Check it out: https://blendle.com/ (Today, the landing page loaded in Dutch for me for some reason. No idea why, probably some 'very smart' lang detection gone wrong? Either way, it _is_ available in english, so don't be deterred if that happens to you as well. After logging in, I saw eng again.)

I think internationally it never went beyond beta: https://launch.blendle.com/

They also changed the concept (in the Netherlands) from micro payments to a monthly subscription.

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

#112

Post by tpoacher »

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.

The "medium" model could be one way around this.

The first 10% or so of the article is visible, after that you need to sign in. Or in this case, pay.

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

#113

Post by rgavuliak »

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?

I've worked in paywall industry previously and microtransactions never work out due to the fact that for the newspaper it's not a predictable source of income that you need to manage your budget as an organization. It doesn't build loyal subscriber bases.

The other issue is that this only promotes click-bait journalism. If you want investigative journalism the newspaper needs to invest and they need to invest before the revenue happens. How can you afford that without a predictable revenue stream.

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

#115

Post by samsquire »

nagonago wrote: post #107
samsquire wrote: post #43

I would happily pay for well researched information and that is not on a website overencumbered with advertisements. And has a useable blog like experience. Is this the collective action problem? We cannot have nice news websites due to the profit from subscriptions is too low to afford business so they add adverts everywhere. I think microtransactions could work. But people need to be willing to pay and people aren'…

Besides simply being unwilling to pay, I think most people just don't want to spend the mental effort evaluating the potential value of an article they haven't read yet. When the question arises, "is this article worth $1?" it's much easier to just click away and read something else. We are spoiled by a wealth of free information, even if it's mostly low quality.

I recently bought the film Contact as it's my favourite film.

But I don't usually buy film or music and I use Spotify. So the advertless model works with me.

When it comes to seeing if you want to buy something that's pretty difficult. I like the bandcamp model of Pay what you want, so you can try someone's music and if you like it you can give them money to reward them. Spotify has PayPal links on artists pages.

What I want is an all you can eat subscription where I can direct what content gets created. So I would be responsible for the content that is produced as I funded it.

What's that community of Linux kernel developers that you pay for articles?

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

#116

Post by sofixa »

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?

Coil.com are doing something similar, you pay a subscription to them, and they send microtransactions to the site/user whose content you're consuming.

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

#117

Post by sofixa »

paxys wrote: post #69
sefrost wrote: post #32

In my opinion if we keep popularizing technologies like this we will lose them. Look at the number of websites that are now blocking ad blockers because we all installed ad blockers on our parents machines and popularized the technology. We should keep some technology under the radar and just for hackers.

No useful technology can be kept under the radar. In fact I think ad blocking is a good example of something that got so widespread that it became impossible to block. The "disable your adblocker to read this site" banners are quickly disappearing from the internet now that a critical mass of users has adopted them and companies are realizing they can't give up all that traffic.

Many websites just fail to load/work when an adblocker is enabled. Sometimes it's subtle like pressing a button does nothing, other times it's just a white page because React fails to initialise.

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

#118

Post by plebianRube »

slg wrote: post #63
plebianRube wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I point the finger directly at regulations. Who has the time to track lightning transactions for IRS capital gains reporting. Hopefully we see a bill where small amounts aren't taxed.

My bank sends me a 1099 when I earn $0.14 of interest on my checking account. There is no reason this hypothetical crypto company couldn't do the same.

Wow. HN really has no clue. 26k karma dude thinks Bitcoin is a company.

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

#120

Post by nottrobin »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #91

> 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. Cool. So remind me how anyone can survive creating high quality content online? Ads? Nope. Privacy nightmare. Subscriptions? Nope. "Offensive". What next? Tips? Please. We already know most people won't pay for co…

Yeah, it's a problem. I suppose badly implemented paywalls that tech savvy people can get around but others can't is almost worse...

I think we should keep searching for solutions.

I'm not a huge fan of advertising, but I also don't think they have to be a privacy nightmare. I don't think there's actually strong evidence that intimately targeted advertising works significantly better than simple context-based advertising (put an advert for bicycles in an article about bicycles). I think that's a myth that's been propagated by the tech giants who depend on it (Google & Facebook, obviously). So maybe non-invasive advertising could work quite well?

At the end of the day, I accept we're going to have a mix of models. A bit like tackling climate change - we need a mix. Some ads sponsored, some donation-based, some with affiliate links, some with billionaire patrons, some state-sponsored.

But to my mind, models that literally block those who can't pay, or are disadvantaged in some other way (not tech-savvy enough) are the worst models of all.

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