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What sites would you pay to use?

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Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#41

Post by pchristensen »

mattmaroon wrote: post #18
cellis wrote: post #15

Google obviously. Pandora.com - ($15/mo ... i already pay this to Napster for unltd dls ( but I would have to be able to press a back button to play the previous song,etc ), Hacker News ($20/mo ... keep the trolls off) Wikipedia? Well if it came down to it, i'd donate to it; if it started charging, i would use other alternatives. the beauty of wikipedia being free is that it is free from the undue influence of paying…

I think Pandora is the only one that could reasonably charge there. The rest would see massive switchovers to free, similar competitors.

I'm not recommending they do or that quality would remain if they became paid. I just wanted to feel out which sites people really valued.

Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#42

Post by aardvarkious »

baddox wrote: post #28
yan wrote: post #14

Wikipedia. I'd pay a pretty penny for that.

That's one that didn't immediately come to mind for me. I gotta admit, I almost certainly would pay for that (although it's almost completely hypothetical since paying for it goes completely against the entire philosophy of the service, and if it had always been a pay service, it wouldn't be as extensive).

If you did have to pay (I realize this is hypothetical), what if they charged per article you read and you got a free read when you contributed? Or part of a free article when you edited. Would that help to keep it extensive?

Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#43

Post by jrockway »

blinks wrote: post #10

As to paying for Hacker News, there are several community sites that have a low one-time (non-reimbursable) fee for joining. MetaFilter ( http://www.metafilter.com/ ) costs $5 to join, for example. I feel like it makes the community a little more invested in the content, and is worth it overall. I think that paying for community membership will become more popular in the very near future.

I hope reddit starts charging people to post. The "joke accounts" are ruining the site. $5 would kill those in 20 seconds.

Then we would just have to delete the non-programming parts of reddit. :)

Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#44

Post by ken »

Do I get anything out of this payment, or would it be exactly the same as now but with cash exchanging hands? I might pay for GMail if it meant actual support (can't get IMAP to work) and no ads, for example.

In general, no, I'd just switch. Everybody has competition.

I only spend money online when buying a physical product or human-generated service. Amazon already knows my CC#, and if one of my regular webcomics went pay-only I'd pay to keep reading.

Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#45

Post by Prrometheus »

markwweaver wrote: post #19

- Consumer Reports: When it comes to buying a big ticket item, like a car, the reviews and the user comments are very useful. Plus canceling my subscription after I bought my car was quick and painless

In a similar vein, Amazon. Not for the shopping experience (though it is nice) but for the reviews.

Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#47

Post by jfornear »

I have been thinking about this a lot in the past hour or two, too. Though slightly off-topic:

I've been thinking that a hassle-free solution for micro-transactions needs to hit mainstream before the average internet user will be willing to pay for more things online.

Most people (including myself) would pay for more things online if it didn't involve finding your wallet and typing in your billing address and credit card information. Paypal is the closest thing I can think of, but I still get overwhelmed thinking about logging in and all that. A simple one click button that could somehow be synced with your RFID chip would be great..

On my current project, I am thinking about ways to monetize a small feature similar to the old Facebook gifts, which as stupid as those are, could potentially bring in $15 million this year for FB? (Source: http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/facebook-digital-gifts-...) I bet FB could just charge users who upload more than 500 or so pictures $5/mo, and those sorority girls with 2500 party pics wouldn't think twice about pulling out daddies credit card.

It feels like it has become almost too trendy to give software services away for free lately. If you never charge you will never know how much people might have valued your service. If you start losing users drop the price? If you are trying to grow a user base, start out free and charge for additional features?

Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#48

Post by jfornear »

jfornear wrote: post #47

I have been thinking about this a lot in the past hour or two, too. Though slightly off-topic: I've been thinking that a hassle-free solution for micro-transactions needs to hit mainstream before the average internet user will be willing to pay for more things online. Most people (including myself) would pay for more things online if it didn't involve finding your wallet and typing in your billing address and credit…

Actually, just today I went to cancel my $6/mo subscription to www.mofuse.com, which I use to format the iPhone app for my music blog that I run for fun (http://rawberryjams.com). After I logged in, the mofuse team announced that they were dropping their rates to $3/mo, so I accepted the new terms and logged out, keeping my subscription. Perfect example.

Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#49

Post by derefr »

andr wrote: post #35
dcurtis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, you'd either pay and spend as much (or more) time on them, or you'd never visit them again and not subscribe. Sadly, there's no middle ground.

I'd be interested in paying per use or per minute. Something 8aweek could do and give proceeds to charity?

Or just invest it in some sort of fund for you that only pays out when your usage goes down.

Re: What sites would you pay to use?

#50

Post by derefr »

aardvarkious wrote: post #42
baddox wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one that didn't immediately come to mind for me. I gotta admit, I almost certainly would pay for that (although it's almost completely hypothetical since paying for it goes completely against the entire philosophy of the service, and if it had always been a pay service, it wouldn't be as extensive).

If you did have to pay (I realize this is hypothetical), what if they charged per article you read and you got a free read when you contributed? Or part of a free article when you edited. Would that help to keep it extensive?

It would increase the noise. People would make nonsense edits just to be able to read articles.
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