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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

#301

Post by beeflet »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #166
bitwarrior wrote: post #164

Micropayments is something that I think the internet as a whole needs. However, I don't think the mental model people usually have isn't quite "micro" and frictionless enough. Imagine a world where your web browser essentially contains and controls your wallet. You pre-pay into that wallet, say, $20. I imagine we'll probably also refer to that as "credits" so internationalization isn't so tough. So let's pretend we h…

Taxes and AML/KYC kill this. People need to surveil their customers in order to comply with legal requirements. As soon as money is involved there's so much bureaucracy people just contract it out to intermediaries like Stripe and by then payments are anything but micro.

The real innovation of cryptocurrency is that it allows people to think outside the box of AML/KYC.

Stablecoins, which not decentralized at all (and thus defeat the entire purpose of cryptopcurrency) are allowed to break the rules by wearing the label of "cryptocurrency", with the implication being that cryptocurrencies are just going to break the rules anyways.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#302

Post by mmooss »

ggm wrote: post #74

It's a bit dispiriting to be discussing a 30+ year old idea which in turn is built on a 60 year old idea by Ted Nelson.

Much very successful tech is the progeny of failed old ideas - maybe most of it. Look at AI, as a glaring example. Look at video calls. ...

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#303

Post by akoboldfrying »

sanswork wrote: post #290
akoboldfrying wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "reading this might be interesting" I find it hard to take this objection seriously, since almost everything that isn't a physical commodity has some degree of "I don't know if I'm satisfied with this yet". Books and movies clearly do. But we expect to take a risk and occasionally pay for them, and it feels ordinary to do so -- so why not here? I don't object at all to people not liking micropayments -- I don't lik…

With books, movies, tv shows, music almost everyone is discovering based on recommendations or curation. Very few people are consuming much of that type of content with no outside input on its quality or interest. News is almost always a blind link with just a headline to work from.

The headline is a pretty big clue about what's going to be in the article, I think. (Though maybe headlines will become more coy, to entice readers to pay for the full article? We already see this with questions-as-headlines.)

Most of the news I read comes from the same handful of familiar sites, so I have a good idea of what I'm going to get, especially if they include an author byline and I recognise it. "Niche" news sites would do well to continue offering a small number of freebie articles to entice those who chafe at the thought of spending $0.40 on something they're Not Completely Certain Is Really Worth It.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#304

Post by mmooss »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #42
graybeardhacker wrote: post #25

I pay for the Ground News app. It's an aggregator that (somehow) gets me all the articles on a topic, shows me how factual each source is and which way they lean politically. It summarizes the articles so I can ignore the click-bate headline and know whether I want to read more. I'm honestly not sure why this isn't the standard. It solved all my news problems and fills all my news needs. I'm honestly not sure what th…

> ... shows me how factual each source is and which way they lean politically. Fact-checkers and whatever you call people that gauge political biases aren't impartial sources of information. Someone pays their bills and those people typically have agendas besides delivering objective truth. I'm not suggesting that paying monthly fees or paywalls are a solution to the problem either. The real solution is to stop readi…

> Fact-checkers and whatever you call people that gauge political biases aren't impartial sources of information. Someone pays their bills and those people typically have agendas besides delivering objective truth.

That's meaningless: It's like saying everyone is a liar or everyone is violent, or a potential murderer or everyone's partner is an adulterer. Yes, anyone can, everyone lies, nobody is perfect - but some people are 'honest' and some are 'liars' and there is all the difference in the world.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#305

Post by dynm »

salawat wrote: post #272
dynm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you say makes sense. But can you help me understand why this doesn't also apply to the LLM service I use today? Doesn't that service, in effect, makes a "micropayment" to the LLM providers every time I make a query? Is the key difference that there are only a small-ish number of LLM providers? (Not doubting, just interested!)

As mentioned above, it's not a micropayment. It's just a payment. You can transact in whatever amounts you want, and backend systems will bump the numbers around just fine, even for fractions of a cent. Hell, that's how interest and currency exchange settle out. The LLM provider runs a meter. The meter tallies your activity, wraps it in a transaction, hands it to the backend, backend talks to other banks/payment gate…

Not too interested in debating the semantics of "micropayment", but it sounds like if we swap in "news sites" in place of "LLM providers" everything should still still be possible? Consumers could pay tiny amounts of money for individual articles?

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#306

Post by derektank »

chongli wrote: post #282
munificent wrote: post #234

Let's say a journalist writes an excellent article about something political of serious import. I'm fine with paying for that article to get access to it. But, really, the article is a lot more useful to me if other people can access it too. Since everyone can vote, I want the whole populace to be informed, even poor people. I wonder if there is a viable business model where for each article, readers can pay to unloc…

I wonder if there is a viable business model where for each article, readers can pay to unlock it not just for themselves, but for everyone. The price would obviously have to be higher since you aren't just buying it for yourself. But perhaps the sense of "I'm helping build a better-informed world and helping broadcast my values" would encourage people to pay that higher price. What you're asking for is the system we…

>Many of the most mundane decisions made in municipal councils go completely unnoticed yet they can destroy whole communities in the long run.

They go unnoticed because of scaling issues, not because people are per se less interested in local politics than national politics. If you write a story about a decision on the local city council, it is of interest to maybe a few hundred thousand, whereas a story about Congress is of interest to tens of millions. Even if people were ten times as interested in local news (as measured by their willingness to subscribe or the amount of ads they are willing to be exposed to), it would still make more sense to send a reporter to the Capitol before City Hall.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#307

Post by 1659447091 »

landl0rd wrote: post #155
1659447091 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I _would _do is pay a flat fee to subscribe to several publications. Apple News+ is ~$13 https://www.apple.com/apple-news/ The list of publications included https://www.apple.com/apple-news/publications/

No bundling model is going to work with the papers worth reading, with high-value ones. Look at that list: no FT, only partial WSJ, no Bloomberg (only Businessweek), no Economist, no NYT, no Foreign Affairs, no SCMP. I guess Foreign Policy and Puck bundled could be cool but most "high-value" publications are excluded. This is like netflix where it's never worth subscribing because it's ten thousand things you don't c…

> No bundling model is going to work with the papers worth reading, with high-value ones.

The "high-value" ones don't need to bother with micro-transactions either. They can tell everyone to kick rocks or pay for their subscription -- because they already have a large well-established market of people that consider them high-value enough to pay their subscription fee.

On the other hand, many of the regional ones (for me) like the Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman and sometimes the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Los Angeles Times are not in the same position to do that. That doesn't make them not "high-value". Maybe they could get away with micro-transactions but instead of having to manage that they can sign up with services like Apple News+ and focus on the value they bring, regional news.

It's also subjective as to whether or not the other ones included are "worth reading". I personally enjoy quite a few listed in the Science & Tech section, but don't read them enough to pay for individual subscriptions, or deal with micro-payments that I have forgotten about a month later when the statement arrives.

There may be a space for these "high-value" publications to get together and form their own bundle, if they were so inclined

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#308

Post by chongli »

derektank wrote: post #306
chongli wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there is a viable business model where for each article, readers can pay to unlock it not just for themselves, but for everyone. The price would obviously have to be higher since you aren't just buying it for yourself. But perhaps the sense of "I'm helping build a better-informed world and helping broadcast my values" would encourage people to pay that higher price. What you're asking for is the system we…

>Many of the most mundane decisions made in municipal councils go completely unnoticed yet they can destroy whole communities in the long run. They go unnoticed because of scaling issues, not because people are per se less interested in local politics than national politics. If you write a story about a decision on the local city council, it is of interest to maybe a few hundred thousand, whereas a story about Congre…

I think a lot of our issues today are because people are too engaged in federal politics. It's turned into a massive spectacle on the same level as the NFL.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#309

Post by AnthonyMouse »

munificent wrote: post #234

Let's say a journalist writes an excellent article about something political of serious import. I'm fine with paying for that article to get access to it. But, really, the article is a lot more useful to me if other people can access it too. Since everyone can vote, I want the whole populace to be informed, even poor people. I wonder if there is a viable business model where for each article, readers can pay to unloc…

> I wonder if there is a viable business model where for each article, readers can pay to unlock it not just for themselves, but for everyone.

The thing that best approximates what you're asking for and is likely to work (i.e. doesn't need micropayments) is the "free to read" substacks. Anyone can read them, and anyone can pay to subscribe, and if enough people subscribe so that the authors can make rent, they keep writing.

The hardest part about either one is that it requires altruism and then people are often accosted by insufficiently schooled wannabe intellectuals who tell them that being altruistic is irrational. Meanwhile human beings would otherwise intuitively understand that once your basic needs are met, valuing the common good more than personal consumption of hedonistic luxury products is a perfectly rational thing to do, until someone comes along to lecture them on what they should want and try to make them feel stupid for wanting something better.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#310

Post by sanswork »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #303
sanswork wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With books, movies, tv shows, music almost everyone is discovering based on recommendations or curation. Very few people are consuming much of that type of content with no outside input on its quality or interest. News is almost always a blind link with just a headline to work from.

The headline is a pretty big clue about what's going to be in the article, I think. (Though maybe headlines will become more coy, to entice readers to pay for the full article? We already see this with questions-as-headlines.) Most of the news I read comes from the same handful of familiar sites, so I have a good idea of what I'm going to get, especially if they include an author byline and I recognise it. "Niche" ne…

It's a clue of what its about but it's not the same as a recommendation that its going to contain something you enjoy.

So every click is a decision on an unknown and that's where the problem comes in. You read the headline now you have a decision to make, is it worth spending money to continue. For longer form media your return on good stuff is going to be at least an hour of entertainment. For news you will almost certainly be done the article in 30 seconds on less. So you decide to click, you read the article, it's good, it's now 30 seconds later and you read the next headline and you have another decision to make, do I pay for this? Thats where the decision fatigue comes in and why it's so quick with this model. Even if it's just a penny you're not thinking well clicking this will only cost a penny, you're thinking do I really want to pay to see what the other side says?

And if you're at the point where you're spending a lot of time on a single source even if it costs more it generally makes more sense just to subscribe since then you are making a single decision once a month.

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