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The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

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21–30 of 134 posts

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subscription to a random entity I've never heard of before, for one article? Hell no. 50 cents flat to read the whole article, without being harassed by aggressive ads or tracked by 900 different companies? I'd be more than willing.

It's been tried many times and it always fails. How can you know if the article is worth 50c before seeing it? As you said, it's a random entity you've never heard of before. Why micropayments will never be a thing in journalism: https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-b...

You don’t but you have to put a base price on content for it to work. The point of a $0.50 access fee is that all articles individually would cost $0.50. Then you charge a subscription to unlimited access.

No one’s successfully done this because when they do they want to individually price articles and consumers like you for some reason want to attach a per-word-price for each article.

Implement a legitimate system and people will use it. Implement a system with work arounds and people will use the work arounds.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#23
post #15

Pretty sure we’re all being milked for profit. Thats kinda how this whole thing works.

Maybe that's bad?

Possibly, but it's been the human condition ever since currency was invented.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#24
post #15

Pretty sure we’re all being milked for profit. Thats kinda how this whole thing works.

Retirees are more likely than not to have built up at least a small pension or 401(k)[USA]: money sitting there earning interest and capital gains. You don't think the Aging Industry is going to just sit around and not try to grab as much of it as they can? They are going to do their best to ensure the system is set up to let them harvest those accounts dry.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#25
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subscription to a random entity I've never heard of before, for one article? Hell no. 50 cents flat to read the whole article, without being harassed by aggressive ads or tracked by 900 different companies? I'd be more than willing.

10 years ago a couple of sites I occasionally viewed used "agate", which is now called Axate. https://www.axate.com/ It worked well, I loaded it with about $3 and used it a few times. Clearly not something publishers are fans of though as it's far easier to carefully select 987 partners to sell your data to.

The reality is that most people just want stuff free.

They say stuff like they whitelist, or donate (it certainly brings lots os social praise) but if you have ever been on the other side, you know that virtually nobody does this.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#26
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subscription to a random entity I've never heard of before, for one article? Hell no. 50 cents flat to read the whole article, without being harassed by aggressive ads or tracked by 900 different companies? I'd be more than willing.

It's been tried many times and it always fails. How can you know if the article is worth 50c before seeing it? As you said, it's a random entity you've never heard of before. Why micropayments will never be a thing in journalism: https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-b...

I wonder how many of the people who say they'd pay 50c would actually pay 50c if they could.

I'd say I read an average of 10 articles per day (with various definitions of "read"). I can't see myself actually spending $5 a day.

At that point I'd be better off getting a few news site subscriptions, but I also highly dislike the idea of committing to a single news source, and committing to a few isn't much of an improvement.

Of course, you could introduce a "tip after you read" mechanism, which I assume would generate probably about 50c per article, and probably motivate various "remember to tip" mechanisms that (I suspect) the same people who say they'd pay/tip would hate with a passion.

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#28

Under capitialism, why would anyone think that this is anything but expected. These living communities are meant to house you, until you die, for a price. You have saved up money to pay for that service until you die. Why would they leave money on the table? Why would they spend any extra on someone who's "going to die anyway". Someone who is barely ambulatory; who has few outside connections. It's the horrible resul…

> Why would they leave money on the table? Because if they don't, the customer will go to the competition who does.

Ah, the "Perfect Competition" fallacy!

Re: The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit

#30
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subscription to a random entity I've never heard of before, for one article? Hell no. 50 cents flat to read the whole article, without being harassed by aggressive ads or tracked by 900 different companies? I'd be more than willing.

It's been tried many times and it always fails. How can you know if the article is worth 50c before seeing it? As you said, it's a random entity you've never heard of before. Why micropayments will never be a thing in journalism: https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-b...

I do agree with the spirit of your point, but there's an easy counterargument:

How do you know that the next month worth of articles from the publisher you are subscribed to is worth the fee before seeing it?

There is a such a thing as building trust in a brand, this is not a barrier to micropayments.

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