Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience • Hacker News Board

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#121

Post by r3bl » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

err4nt wrote: post #113

heinrichhartman wrote: post #51

I welcome this effort! Enabling alternative revenue streams for web content will be critical to make the place less abusive. Unfortunately, the big successful players seem to make pretty good $$ by selling customer data, so they have little incentive to change this. Mozilla/Firefox is in a unique position to launch an effort like this, since it controls a decent browsing platform with a significant user base. I'll si…

Mozilla's userbase isn't really that significant, https://caniuse.com/usage-table

Those stats are from StatCounter. Literally the second sentence in their FAQ:

> Our tracking code is installed on more than 2 million sites globally.

Having a low number there is a feature.

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#122

Post by jimktrains2 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:39 PM UTC

I don't understand why credit card networks (and banks in general) haven't stepped up their game with regards to micropayments (say, under $5). The marginal cost of any transaction is insignificant, and would be outweighed even by penny fees. Even if it required some extra steps for the vendor to become authorized to accept micropayments, and even with strict requirements around the number or total value of transactions a single card can be used with a single vendor during a time period, I think it could still work in everyone's favour.

One of the biggest fees on micropayments are the fixed transaction fees. Stripe is currently 27‰ + 5¢, which on a $1 transaction is nearly 8%! If those fixed fees could be made to go away for low-cost transactions, micropayments would work within the current system. Most people can accept 3% overhead, but most won't accept 8%.

It just seems like the entire problem is manufactured and not really an issue that can be solved until the banking systems just decided to solve it by changing their policies. I'm not even proposing a technical fix, it really seems to be a problem entirely with the current policies.

Edit: yes, I understand that Stripe is a gateway and processor, not an issuer or network, and that banks are often issures, but not the network. Yes, I understand that cards each have their own interchange rates, but many gateways like stripe have been just "averaging" them to provide low-volume retailers a fixed, predicable coat per transaction. I'm just saying that if the networks. E.g. Visa or MasterCard (or even discover or Amex despite being much smaller) could change their policies and requirements regarding fees for low volume transactions to remove fixed fees, and the vast majority of the issue with micropayments would be solved. I trust that the major payment gateways and browsers could work out a protocol to make use credit-card based micropayments very quickly and in a way that doesn't require additional third parties, beyond the payment gateway chosen by the person accepting the micropayment.

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#123

Post by smt88 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:39 PM UTC

dwild wrote: post #105

smt88 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Other excessive bloat" often includes malware. Less seriously, it also includes autoplay video and scams. If ads were safe (i.e. text-only, no JavaScript, no video) and the publishers actually vetted the products, I wouldn't block them. I don't care that a physical NYT has ads. It's the algorithmic sale and distribution of ads that broke the model.

> often includes malware. Can you define often? It seems quite rare actually for a malware to be distributed online without user intervention, with the recent Firefox 0-day being one of theses cases and only touched a small proportion of people. The web is quite secure already and sure ads network is a good vector but so is Hacker News, Reddit and Facebook, which nobody cares about (have you ever not clicked on a lin…

> Can you define often?

It doesn't matter. It could be 1 out of every million hits, but it's still a source of malware. Most of us don't upgrade to the latest browser version the minute it's released, which makes us vulnerable.

> ads network is a good vector but so is Hacker News

Uhh... what are you talking about? HN has minimal JS, and they wrote it. Some ad networks are injecting JavaScript into your browser that they have never seen before and didn't write themselves.

I may trust, let's say, NYT not to serve me malware with code they wrote in their offices, but NYT is not the entity that wrote the JavaScript delivered in their ads.

> have you ever not clicked on a link on any of theses platforms and looked at the URL first?

You seem to be arguing that hyperlinks are an attack vector, which assumes such a broad interpretation of "attack vector" that the word becomes meaningless. It's like saying that an airplane is an attack vector because it can fly you into a war zone. Yes, it can... but I get to choose where I'm going.

Regarding that choice: these platforms show you the domain you're clicking through to, so you have a chance to bail. And with an ad blocker, you don't have to be as afraid to visit a malicious site. I have JS and ad blocking on by default, and I whitelist a site when it seems trustworthy enough.

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#124

Post by aznumeric » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #66

speg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be in the minority, but I've never used an ad blocker. Content makers need to make a living and cutting off their ad revenue seems sleazy. That said, they may have gone too far with tracking and other excessive bloat that I might just start using one.

"Other excessive bloat" often includes malware. Less seriously, it also includes autoplay video and scams. If ads were safe (i.e. text-only, no JavaScript, no video) and the publishers actually vetted the products, I wouldn't block them. I don't care that a physical NYT has ads. It's the algorithmic sale and distribution of ads that broke the model.

Perhaps Javascript ads should be banned by law. It would be easier to enforce compared to investigating what the corporation actually does with the info that it collected from the user.

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#125

Post by petulla » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #122

I don't understand why credit card networks (and banks in general) haven't stepped up their game with regards to micropayments (say, under $5). The marginal cost of any transaction is insignificant, and would be outweighed even by penny fees. Even if it required some extra steps for the vendor to become authorized to accept micropayments, and even with strict requirements around the number or total value of transacti…

Hear.. hear.. This was one of the original features Marc wanted to add to Mosaic. We're so far past that moment and it's still not to be found.

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#126

Post by neves » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

dewey wrote: post #12

In case you are also wondering how that works and what's supported. Based on https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/02/25/exploring... it looks like it's a collaboration with https://scroll.com/ and supports sites like: - Vox - The Atlantic - Buzzfeed - Gizmodo - Slate

Any non american sites? Where can I find a complete list?

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#127

Post by krapp » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

kabwj wrote: post #119

cglace wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my guess is they aren’t going to support a website with whom 99.99% of their users probably find reprehensible.

If you’re implying 99.99% of users of Firefox are leftists, you’ll have to prove it.

If you're implying only leftists would object to The Daily Stormer, you'll have to prove it.

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#128

Post by ThinkBeat » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #22

As others stated, the submitted title of "Ad-Free Internet by Firefox" overstates what this actually is: pay $4.99/month for ad-free experience on a handful of media publishers' websites[1]. (I.e. it's not a universal ad blocker that lets you avoid ads on Youtube.) The Firefox webpage itself doesn't oversell the feature as "ad-free internet" so not sure why writing a misleading title for HN was necessary. [1] https:/…

I dont want this interated into Firefox. It should remain a neutral platform.

The only way to make this work is to track your id across many properties. (I assume)

I do welcome this effort, which is similar to the Apple News (or whatever they named it, I think) but it would need a lot more content before I am interested.

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#129

Post by kabwj » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #127

kabwj wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re implying 99.99% of users of Firefox are leftists, you’ll have to prove it.

If you're implying only leftists would object to The Daily Stormer, you'll have to prove it.

The guy is obviously being facetious bringing up Daily Stormer, but I agree that it’s odd (or maybe not so much) that Mozilla only went with leftist outlets.

Re: Partnering with publishers for a better journalism experience

#130

Post by jimktrains2 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #82

It's about time somebody tried this. $5/mo. is fair; I don't need a million sites to be in the catalog, but I would like a bit more variety eventually. People who complain about "modern journalism", take note. If this takes off, publications will be less incentivized to post those godawful clickbait articles that have soured the Internet reading experience. I'll read the Atlantic and Vox, but Buzzfeed is a no-no, unl…

> It's about time somebody tried this.

I mean , isn't this essentially the idea behind patreon? You batch the micropayments payments into single transactions on the credit card network to reduce the marginal cost of the fixed fees?

Didn't Google already do something similar with new subscriptions?

Didn't flattr do this a decade ago?

It's not a new idea, and as I ranted elsewhere, is only even required because of the fixed fees on credit card transactions.