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Welcome to the ad-free internet

economist.com

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Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#11

Post by radicality »

littlefish444 wrote: post #9

Does anyone know why there doesn't exist a micro-transaction capability to buy one marginal ad-free item at a time? E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? I know there are significant issues with micro-transaction cost but I figure you could set up a little token service with minimum cash-in and cash-out amounts (say $5). Do companies like the Economist crunch the…

Also wish something like that existed. I imagine friction of payments could be an issue. I would only use something like that if it was as easy as doing an Apple Pay transaction.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#12

Post by Retr0id »

littlefish444 wrote: post #9

Does anyone know why there doesn't exist a micro-transaction capability to buy one marginal ad-free item at a time? E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? I know there are significant issues with micro-transaction cost but I figure you could set up a little token service with minimum cash-in and cash-out amounts (say $5). Do companies like the Economist crunch the…

I'm guessing it's mostly a psychological thing. You make the decision to purchase a subscription once (and ideally for them, forget about it soon after), but if you know you're paying $.25 per click, you'll make a decision every time - and perhaps not bother.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#13

Post by sakras »

I resonate hard with this, and I'm glad it's being flagged as a trend. I didn't quite realize how soul-crushing ads were until I got rid of them. Now I'm on YouTube Premium and Twitch Turbo and look forward to getting rid of more ads.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#14

Post by sanex »

littlefish444 wrote: post #9

Does anyone know why there doesn't exist a micro-transaction capability to buy one marginal ad-free item at a time? E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? I know there are significant issues with micro-transaction cost but I figure you could set up a little token service with minimum cash-in and cash-out amounts (say $5). Do companies like the Economist crunch the…

Agree, have been thinking about this for a while. Bitcoin on lightning could do it for really cheap if you had say a browser extension wallet or something you could do sub penny payments. https://yalls.org/ (not mine) already made a demo

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#15

Post by willwinger »

littlefish444 wrote: post #9

Does anyone know why there doesn't exist a micro-transaction capability to buy one marginal ad-free item at a time? E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? I know there are significant issues with micro-transaction cost but I figure you could set up a little token service with minimum cash-in and cash-out amounts (say $5). Do companies like the Economist crunch the…

All business inherently know that the most difficult thing is to get a customer to open their wallet. A subscription commitment is far more valuable than an impulsive/interest driven one time payment

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#16

Post by littlefish444 »

Retr0id wrote: post #12
littlefish444 wrote: post #9

Does anyone know why there doesn't exist a micro-transaction capability to buy one marginal ad-free item at a time? E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? I know there are significant issues with micro-transaction cost but I figure you could set up a little token service with minimum cash-in and cash-out amounts (say $5). Do companies like the Economist crunch the…

I'm guessing it's mostly a psychological thing. You make the decision to purchase a subscription once (and ideally for them, forget about it soon after), but if you know you're paying $.25 per click, you'll make a decision every time - and perhaps not bother.

Agreed -- my concern is that subscriptions are really negative in long-term expectation for the consumer, and companies are profiting off that and don't want to lose all the people who are paying $10 for only $4 monthly utility. My coworker hates the subscription era and pines for the days of buying a CD-ROM with software lol

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#17

Post by Buttons840 »

willwinger wrote: post #10

A 'path to profit' is the time tested lifeline of any enterprise. However this is never highlighted as it doesn't bode well with the general social psyche of humans. For last 20 years, tech enabled startups, chose 'postpone profit' strategy adopting 'free to use' or 'ad supported' approach helped by raising high capital to build moats around the target market. Now this trend can be either seen as a moment where the m…

An ironic thing is that companies that choose to postpone profits will find that when the time comes to charge for profit, they will have burned all good will, and people might finally be coerced to pay, but they'll pay any other company.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#18

Post by nojs »

gmuslera wrote: post #8

Good luck with that. The ones that can afford an ad-free internet are the same group as the ones that can afford the product you are trying to sell. Promoted links, selection/ordering of posts and other mechanisms will be use to lead ad-free people to the ads, in ways that won't look like ads. It's like gravity, there are forces in play that will make things end in the same way.

You could argue that unless the $10/mo subscription offers a dumb chronological feed then it’s not really ad-free. On the other hand consider YouTube - you pay to remove the annoyance, not the algorithmic bias, and a lot of people are happy to do that.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#19

Post by littlefish444 »

sanex wrote: post #14
littlefish444 wrote: post #9

Does anyone know why there doesn't exist a micro-transaction capability to buy one marginal ad-free item at a time? E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? I know there are significant issues with micro-transaction cost but I figure you could set up a little token service with minimum cash-in and cash-out amounts (say $5). Do companies like the Economist crunch the…

Agree, have been thinking about this for a while. Bitcoin on lightning could do it for really cheap if you had say a browser extension wallet or something you could do sub penny payments. https://yalls.org/ (not mine) already made a demo

Nice! Cool demo

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#20

Post by pierat »

nojs wrote: post #18
gmuslera wrote: post #8

Good luck with that. The ones that can afford an ad-free internet are the same group as the ones that can afford the product you are trying to sell. Promoted links, selection/ordering of posts and other mechanisms will be use to lead ad-free people to the ads, in ways that won't look like ads. It's like gravity, there are forces in play that will make things end in the same way.

You could argue that unless the $10/mo subscription offers a dumb chronological feed then it’s not really ad-free. On the other hand consider YouTube - you pay to remove the annoyance, not the algorithmic bias, and a lot of people are happy to do that.

> You could argue that unless the $10/mo subscription offers a dumb chronological feed

That's around what I pay to the maintainer of the Mastodon server I'm on. And I get that nice dumb chronological feed.

Oh, and it's ad-free. For everyone. It's amazing seeing Ublock Origin with "nothing blocking".

The true ad-free internet exists. But it doesn't exist within the FAANG space.

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