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Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

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Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#21

Post by michael_dorfman »

icebraining wrote: post #19
EwanToo wrote: post #4

The future of reading on the web is easy to change, all we need to do is pay some money for each article we want to read without adverts... Unfortunately, the primary impact of putting up a paywall for premium content seems to be to raise huge arguments about why "information wants to be free", not the reality of what happens without one.

I don't know about most people, but I don't read many articles from the same source: I read a few from some online newspaper, then some from another, then a blog post, etc. Now take NYT.com: the minimum subscription is $15/month - it's absurdly expensive for the three or four articles I might read there. You need to solve micropayments to make paywalls work.

Only if that's your business model.

The New York Times paywall seems to be earning them a fair bit of revenue, and they're more than happy to give you the three or four articles a month you'd read there for free-- you're not their target market segment.

Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#22

Post by funkah »

brigade wrote: post #13
funkah wrote: post #11

Readable sweeps all that shit away and puts the plain text on a plain background. Use it and you'll stop caring what lightboxes and other crap web sites festoon their pages with. Safari's reader is nice as well, it even auto fetches all the pages in a multi page article.

It's still an extra click. Most of the time I just close the window - the web is big enough that if you're desperate enough to use such scummy ads (or beg for survey results?!?) then your content likely isn't worth reading.

It's a click that I would have made anyway, because the type in a normal web page is not good for log form reading, where long form is more than a few paragraphs or so. ie, even if there were zero ads I would use Readability (or Instapaper, or whatever).

Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#23

Post by jasonkester »

funkah wrote: post #11

Readable sweeps all that shit away and puts the plain text on a plain background. Use it and you'll stop caring what lightboxes and other crap web sites festoon their pages with. Safari's reader is nice as well, it even auto fetches all the pages in a multi page article.

Article: It sucks that we need to use things like Readability just to read things on the internet.

Parent: Just use Readability.

In short, not very helpful as comments go.

Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#24

Post by lena »

franze wrote: post #7

the biggest thread for reading on the web is - in my humble opinion - the swipeware deployed on multiple small and big sites (i.e.: all *.wordpress.com blogs) for mobile devices like the iPad. swipeware has a horrific user experience, adds nothing of value to the page or the article and makes it impossible to read an article from start to finish. out of curiosity: is there anybody out-there who thinks swipeware on bl…

Yeah, that's awful. A tip: install iCab (I'm sure there are other browsers that do the same, but I have experience with this one). You can then set your browser-id per site. So, I set in my settings that wordpress.com sends the "Safari 5/Mac" browser header, and all is fine.

Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#25

Post by bmuon »

m_eiman wrote: post #18
EwanToo wrote: post #4

The future of reading on the web is easy to change, all we need to do is pay some money for each article we want to read without adverts... Unfortunately, the primary impact of putting up a paywall for premium content seems to be to raise huge arguments about why "information wants to be free", not the reality of what happens without one.

I'm still hoping that something like Flattr can work. It should be possible to have a middle ground between "everything is ad supported" and "everything requires subscriptions or credit cards", especially for niche "small" content (that don't take months or years to produce) where the audience can appreciate the work done and its value.

There are other services besides Flattr that have their own good parts. For instance, Tip The Web (http://tiptheweb.org/) is a non-profit that serves as a hub for micropayments and maintains itself from tips without taking a cut.

Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#26

Post by funkah »

jasonkester wrote: post #23
funkah wrote: post #11

Readable sweeps all that shit away and puts the plain text on a plain background. Use it and you'll stop caring what lightboxes and other crap web sites festoon their pages with. Safari's reader is nice as well, it even auto fetches all the pages in a multi page article.

Article: It sucks that we need to use things like Readability just to read things on the internet. Parent: Just use Readability. In short, not very helpful as comments go.

I suppose you've got me there. If the argument is "but it's an extra click", I can't say I feel much sympathy.

Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#27

Post by michaelfeathers »

EwanToo wrote: post #4

The future of reading on the web is easy to change, all we need to do is pay some money for each article we want to read without adverts... Unfortunately, the primary impact of putting up a paywall for premium content seems to be to raise huge arguments about why "information wants to be free", not the reality of what happens without one.

The fallacy there is that there is nothing to prevent ads from creeping in even though you do pay. That's been the history of cinema, cable, and internet radio.

Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#29

Post by jetz »

m_eiman wrote: post #20
franze wrote: post #7

the biggest thread for reading on the web is - in my humble opinion - the swipeware deployed on multiple small and big sites (i.e.: all *.wordpress.com blogs) for mobile devices like the iPad. swipeware has a horrific user experience, adds nothing of value to the page or the article and makes it impossible to read an article from start to finish. out of curiosity: is there anybody out-there who thinks swipeware on bl…

What's swipeware?

application controlled by swipes. you know ones you do on a touch device.

Re: Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

#30

Post by [deleted] »

michaelfeathers wrote: post #27
EwanToo wrote: post #4

The future of reading on the web is easy to change, all we need to do is pay some money for each article we want to read without adverts... Unfortunately, the primary impact of putting up a paywall for premium content seems to be to raise huge arguments about why "information wants to be free", not the reality of what happens without one.

The fallacy there is that there is nothing to prevent ads from creeping in even though you do pay. That's been the history of cinema, cable, and internet radio.

[deleted]
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