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Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

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Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#11

Post by jawns »

hinkley wrote: post #10
jawns wrote: post #2

No, no, no! Micropayments are not the way. We already know the way. It's the cable/streaming model. You pay for a single monthly subscription and get access to substantially all of the major news content. What would need to happen for this to be possible? Cooperation between most of the major news outlets. Not cooperation in an anti-competitive sense, but willingness to participate in this sort of business model. I'm…

We also have PBS as a model.

Until it gets defunded based on the whims of the administration :(

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#12

Post by eli »

This does not seem to reckon with the many, MANY times this has been tried and failed. (The LinkedIn post at least acknowledges attempts that "did fail in the 90s and 2000s" and quickly waves them away.) There have been at least a dozen serious attempts in the last 20 years that I'm aware of.

What about Blendle? They had NYT, WaPo and WSJ as launch partners in 2014 but give up on micropayments in 2023 citing "very low demand"

Or Flattr. Or Invisibly. Or Pico. Or Brave's goofy crypto token. Or Coil. The Washington Post themselves experimented with cheap "day passes" a few years ago but I guess they didn't work well enough to keep. Arguably Medium's rev share program was another failed attempt. Heck no less a content middleman powerhouse than Apple tried and mostly failed to do a rev share / micropayments scheme with Apple News.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#13

Post by nikole9696 »

eithel wrote: post #4
jawns wrote: post #2

No, no, no! Micropayments are not the way. We already know the way. It's the cable/streaming model. You pay for a single monthly subscription and get access to substantially all of the major news content. What would need to happen for this to be possible? Cooperation between most of the major news outlets. Not cooperation in an anti-competitive sense, but willingness to participate in this sort of business model. I'm…

Apple news is around with that model. Not sure how successful they are though.

Anecdata: I use Apple News+ for exactly this reason. I get many publications included, and some magazines, and over time it learns what stories I like and surfaces those more often.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#14

Post by carlosjobim »

jawns wrote: post #2

No, no, no! Micropayments are not the way. We already know the way. It's the cable/streaming model. You pay for a single monthly subscription and get access to substantially all of the major news content. What would need to happen for this to be possible? Cooperation between most of the major news outlets. Not cooperation in an anti-competitive sense, but willingness to participate in this sort of business model. I'm…

Oh, but don't you know? If our newspaper is on the same subscription as another newspaper which we don't like, then that means we agree with them in all their radical and dangerous opinions? No, no, no, people want to read only one newspaper, which tells them what to think and how to feel on every subject matter.

That's why streaming services also failed. Imagine Beatles and gangster rap and heavy metal being on the same music platform? Fans would never accept that!

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#16

Post by carlosjobim »

closewith wrote: post #8
jawns wrote: post #2

No, no, no! Micropayments are not the way. We already know the way. It's the cable/streaming model. You pay for a single monthly subscription and get access to substantially all of the major news content. What would need to happen for this to be possible? Cooperation between most of the major news outlets. Not cooperation in an anti-competitive sense, but willingness to participate in this sort of business model. I'm…

Centralised billing effectively makes serious journalism impossible. Omnibus subscription services will ruthlessly cut anything that affects the bottom line, and effective journalism is necessarily unpopular.

Exactly! That's why Spotify doesn't allow any noisy music or music with curse words. The mainstream public would flee from the platform.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#17

Post by renewiltord »

You're going to put all the work into finding the news and doing the leg work. I'm going to make a site called NewsTheft.info that just says "YourNewsSite.com is reporting that " and it's going to be free and people are going to use my thing. Then I'm going to shut it down when you all go bust. I am a rapacious eater of worlds. You can't stop me and the people love me because, since it's free, I can give them a better experience than you.

Information wants to be free.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#18

Post by post-it »

sanswork wrote: post #3

Micropayments work for games because there is some specific outcome I know I want and know paying this money will move me closer to that goal in the immediate future. That isn't the case for news content. In news it's "reading this might be interesting" or being generous "knowing this might improve my life at some point". That delay in outcome will kill micropayments because it again goes from a very easy calculation…

I think the site is right about the "coins" method. If I had an automatic subscription of $10/month to refill my news wallet, and I could pay $0.05 out of it to read an article, I'd do it, especially if it was a use-it-or-lose it system.

In fact, if they charged $0.20 per story if you pay directly, or $0.05 per story if you pay out of your auto-reload wallet, I think that could incentivize users to subscribe.

Of course, it would have to be shared across every newspaper, and publishers hate that. Apple News is the closest it's gotten - the app sucks, but you can share articles into it to remove the paywall and that works great.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#19

Post by post-it »

eli wrote: post #12

This does not seem to reckon with the many, MANY times this has been tried and failed. (The LinkedIn post at least acknowledges attempts that "did fail in the 90s and 2000s" and quickly waves them away.) There have been at least a dozen serious attempts in the last 20 years that I'm aware of. What about Blendle? They had NYT, WaPo and WSJ as launch partners in 2014 but give up on micropayments in 2023 citing "very lo…

The trick is market share. I'm not going to subscribe to a NYT/WaPo/WSJ trio because sometimes I want to read Reuters and I'm not going to pay for a partial solution.

I was very happy with my Apple News subscription because it has every English-language newspaper I've come across.

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