Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

blog.zgp.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 408 posts

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#351

Post by wvh »

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…

Wouldn't we just be reading what people like Musk would want us to read? Or content that makes either extreme of the political spectrum feel passionate? I fear it would drown out little truths and balanced opinions.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#352

Post by contravariant »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #226
contravariant wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should people expect high quality journalism if revenue is based on the number of views? Good journalism costs money, people should expect to pay. Though I'd point out that publishing news is now cheaper than ever, and people were more than willing to pay for access before, so why shouldn't they be willing to pay less now? Or perhaps more to the point, why are they _not_ willing to pay now? And is the reason somethin…

I interpreted your original post to mean that you found none of micropayments, ads or subscriptions to be acceptable. Now I have the impression that I misinterpreted you -- but I still can't tell what kind(s) of payment you would actually find acceptable. What kind(s) of payment would you find acceptable?

My preference would be free, single payment, subscription. Probably in that order.

I don't mind micropayments as a _method_ to achieve any of those, but I don't like them as a replacement for ads. And I don't accept the premise that ads should be replaced with something similar.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#353

Post by littlecranky67 »

sanswork wrote: post #342
littlecranky67 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mistake is, you overestimate the amount of people who want to be self custodial. You don't need to onboard every human being in the world on-chain.

Given the US example that would be several years in the absolute best for lightning case to onboard even 5% of individuals. Lightning is doomed from the start. And if you don't care about self custody then the overhead of using a blockchain is a waste.

It is not black/white. It is okay to have the freedom to become self-custodial anytime, but not everybody needs to transact in self-custody all the time.

Taproot was another major step that enables lightning upgrades in future versions (such as zero-fee channel opens) that is barely discussed. The number of X years for onboarding Y amount of people is not accurate, as it disregards all major developments of the last 5 years.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#354

Post by littlecranky67 »

sanswork wrote: post #341
littlecranky67 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the blocksize. The throughput of transaction on the lightning network is not at all limited by blocksize or the bitcoin blockchain.

The ability for users to access the lightning network is limited by blocksize since you need transactions to open channels.

Once channels are open, the users on the lightning network can transact back and forth without any new channel opens/closure and thus no on-chain settlement. Hence: Throughput in lightning is not at all limited on the bitcoin transaction throughput.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#355

Post by littlecranky67 »

sanswork wrote: post #341
littlecranky67 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the blocksize. The throughput of transaction on the lightning network is not at all limited by blocksize or the bitcoin blockchain.

The ability for users to access the lightning network is limited by blocksize since you need transactions to open channels.

> you need transactions to open channels

Maybe your understanding of lightning is wrong here. Yes you open channels, and transactions in lightning need open channels, but you do NOT NEED to open channels for specific transactions. You open channels once, and transact over them for years. I run a lightning node with more than 15 channels (each to different lightning nodes) that are all older than 1 year (I route payments, so I have way more channels than needed). You can batch-open channels, i.e. I could have opened all my 15 channels with a single on-chain transaction. Taproot update would make those "commitment transactions" onchain way smaller (in byte) than needed to in the past.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#356

Post by TuringNYC »

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…

>> Maybe you could do something cumulative and Kickstarter-like where there's a threshold for the article to be unlocked and anyone can chip in to getting it over the line. This would take advantage of human psychology that we like being part of something bigger than ourselves.

This sort of happens with Substack, albiet not as explicitly. People become "Founding Sponsors" or "Paid Subscribers" and they effectively subsidize it for everyone else because they appreciate the author's work and want the author to succeed. Authors often want to give away the content since it is indeed better if everyone can read it (as you note) -- but often cannot sustain it without a minimum set of sponsors.

I think you are speaking about this happening at the article level rather than publication level, which seems pretty hard since the readership would be fractured and long-tailed.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#358

Post by friendzis »

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…

> This would take advantage of human psychology that we like being part of something bigger than ourselves. > And it would hopefully have the emergent property that news that people feel is actually valuable gets spread more widely than useless junk.

There are at least two additional emergent properties:

1. That would essentially put a ceiling on revenue per article.

2. Articles close to the unlock threshold would be much more likely to get funding, opening huge space for manipulation.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#359

Post by vee-kay »

mschuster91 wrote: post #346
roysting wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be the point; WWE USA: Blue Team vs Red Team, The Democracy Simulation Show. Everyone has the same and equal meaningless vote.

> Everyone has the same and equal meaningless vote. There is one vote that is not meaningless: the primaries. A lot of the issues y'all have is that Democrats and Republicans alike don't bother to vote in the primaries. That is how you got people like MTG or Trump, that is how you get people like Chuck Schumer stuck in office for far too long. AOC/The Squad and Mamdani both proved that it is possible to succeed in a…

[dead]

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#360

Post by infecto »

I have long been a big proponent of micropayments. I wish more news sites tested it out. Heck any kind of site, don’t bother me with a notification that I am using an adblocker, just ask in same pop up for me to pay $0.1 to view the page or whatever the market rate is.
Post reply on HN