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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

#31

Post by eli »

post-it wrote: post #19
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.

I like Apple News too, though they are walking a bit of a tightrope with their publishing partners which is why you can't just click a link to wsj.com/blahblah and have it open in Apple News, and you can't really just browse a front page. (Also it notably does not have NYT.)

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#32

Post by theendisney »

renewiltord wrote: post #17

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 bette…

And with your added layer of review the product would be superior.

I can think of many marketing formulas that would definitely work but since the game is not legwork but propaganda the industry should just die.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#33

Post by AndrewStephens »

I get the sentiment but micropayments just don’t work - the main problems are not technical but social. Even in the gaming sector, nobody really charges less than about a dollar for items - that is the smallest unit of money where putting up with fraud, complaints, and chargebacks becomes worthwhile.

Add to this the huge race to the bottom (they are charging 3 cents for their article, read my summary for 2 cents) and you quickly begin to see why micropayments have never taken off.

Finally, I wrote a blog post along these lines with more detail[0]. For those who disagree, ask yourselves; would you pay me 2 cents before you click that link.

[0] https://sheep.horse/2024/11/on_micropayments.html

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#35

Post by claytongulick »

> who want to bury us in deepfakes, extreme right wing bullshit

It's a shame with articles like this that are otherwise insightful, they just lose me with sentences like that.

Like, if you don't have enough insight to recognize that bullshit is a general political issue, and has been forever, how can I rely on any other analysis you make?

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#36

Post by bee_rider »

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…

Maybe initially you wouldn’t know if an article would be good. But over time you could probably make reasonable guesses from the author/headline/title combination.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#38

Post by Animats »

I want a lie bounty. If I pay for an article and find a lie in it, I should get a refund plus a bug bounty. That would make fact-checking pay off.

A real problem is that most of the fact-oriented sources are paywalled, while the polemic sites, especially on the hard right, are free. Fox News and X are free, but the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are paywalled.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#39

Post by bee_rider »

sanswork wrote: post #21
post-it wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cour…

People already can't be bothered clicking on the paywall busting links to view articles because the friction is too high. Having to decide if something is potentially worth 20 cents seems easy when you have to make that decision in your mind a single time for something you're obviously interested in but in reality it becomes multiple times a day for things that you are maybe only slightly curious about the fatigue wi…

What’s a paywall busting link?

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#40

Post by sanswork »

bee_rider wrote: post #39
sanswork wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People already can't be bothered clicking on the paywall busting links to view articles because the friction is too high. Having to decide if something is potentially worth 20 cents seems easy when you have to make that decision in your mind a single time for something you're obviously interested in but in reality it becomes multiple times a day for things that you are maybe only slightly curious about the fatigue wi…

What’s a paywall busting link?

archive.whatever links
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