Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#1

Post by AndrewWarner » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 6:43 PM UTC

This morning alexandros asked if HN readers would pay $5 to use HN. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467825)

That made me wonder if any of you pay for ANY content.

Here's the content I pay for: Netflix Audible iTunes

Re: Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#2

Post by floozyspeak » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:24 PM UTC

I think netflix, audible and itunes are different in that they provide tangible "taste-able" content in that you get real something out of it.

The bigger question here is does anyone pay for news, informational content?

My answer would be no. I only pay to have my content managed- backpackit, flickr, animoto

Re: Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#3

Post by AndrewWarner » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:29 PM UTC

floozyspeak wrote: post #2

I think netflix, audible and itunes are different in that they provide tangible "taste-able" content in that you get real something out of it. The bigger question here is does anyone pay for news, informational content? My answer would be no. I only pay to have my content managed- backpackit, flickr, animoto

Like you, I tend to pay for tools. Version Tracker, Animoto, Flickr.

I wonder if anyone pays for any content, news or otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#4

Post by moxy » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:31 PM UTC

I do not regularly pay for any online service. Why? Because there are an enormity of free and open source alternatives. Granted, some "free alternatives" aren't entirely legal, however they're alternatives nonetheless, just with an associated risk.

For movies and music, I use torrents. For applications, I go open source or free -- I can hardly think of any non-entertainment media whose function couldn't be replicated by a readily available free alternative. For storage, there are plenty of sites which offer gigabytes of online storage, gratis.

Re: Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#5

Post by robfitz » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 7:33 PM UTC

casual games mostly.. peggle, world of goo, etc.

if hacker news is content, then basecamp & fixx probably also count (team & product news, respectively).

apart from that, i would pay for some TED talks, for high quality game reviews (http://tinyurl.com/cn5guu), and for most of Andrew Chen's blog (http://andrewchenblog.com/).

Re: Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#6

Post by pclark » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 8:52 PM UTC

I paid for Last.FM & Flickr.

I don't pay for content it's just one source. Show me a very good news aggregator and I'd be tempted.

Re: Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#7

Post by mikebo » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 10:31 PM UTC

Netflix, iTunes, amazon mp3, flickr

Re: Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#8

Post by apage43 » Fri, Feb 06, 2009, 12:34 AM UTC

amazon mp3, lastfm; that's about it here.

Re: Ask HN: What content do you pay for online?

#9

Post by robw » Fri, Feb 06, 2009, 8:41 AM UTC

I paid $5 for a MetaFilter account - good intentions, then never used it. That was about 3 years ago.

Other stuff - last.fm, flickr (although its not the content that they charge for), emusic. I wonder if the BBC iPlayer counts? There's a TV license after all.

In terms of news/informational content, I have a subscribtion to New Scientist (dead-tree format), which gives me access to their online archives. But I didn't pay specifically for those archives. I was also a paid-up member of Daring Fireball when John Gruber first went full-time with it. But again, that was to get a shirt more than the content itself.

As moxy says, you can get pretty much anything free if you look hard enough. Seems in my case I'm buying a physical item with 'free' content attached, rather than the content itself.