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Welcome to the ad-free internet

economist.com

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Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#51

Post by bluish29 »

solardev wrote: post #38
hedora wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple News Plus is exactly what you describe. The main problem (and reason I cancelled) is that is doesn’t disincentivize clickbait. If you could curate the homepage to only include feeds of publications you want to pay, then the incentive would be to create a good stream of articles. As it is, I got sick of clickbait from a few big publications, so their fucking clickbait headlines showed up, but grayed out with a n…

Isn't Apple News Plus just subscription news? That's not really the same as pay-per-article, where readers (not the middleman) can choose which individual articles to pay to read -- kinda like how we have pay-to-read scientific journals, but usually at the $50/article range, not <$1.

> kinda like how we have pay-to-read scientific journals, but usually at the $50/article range, not Most of the actual payment to read papers are from universities subscriptions funded by taxpayers money. And this particular example is why people will always be skeptical of this model.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#52

Post by AnthonyMouse »

freediver wrote: post #3
0xd1r wrote: post #2

Ironic that this article is paywalled. Here's a non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/0C0RQ

Not really, that fact supports the premise of the article.

But then fewer people can read it and the author's arguments reach a smaller audience, which does seem like a major disadvantage.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#53

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

solardev wrote: post #43
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit card networks impose relatively high minimums - so transactions under ~$4 USD don't make it worthwhile. PayPal has their own microtransactions scheme (which is difficult to get approved for), I assume PayPal has enough clout to pull it off. The other approach: having a PAYG balance, has the problem of requiring users to pay a somewhat larger amount up-front (e.g. $5 or $10) which is off-putting to people who'v…

This doesn't seem that hard to get around, with a bunch of $0.99 games and in-app purchases on mobile stores. iTunes did it too with songs, before Spotify took over. Seems like a simple opportunity for any payment processor middleman to just batch up transactions and run them through the CC processor at the end of the day/week/month. If the middleman doesn't want to, each individual publication can still just tally u…

The App Stores work-around that by invoicing customers once-per-month for all the accrued IAP microtransactions the user makes.

> Seems like a simple opportunity for any payment processor middleman to just batch up transactions and run them through the CC processor at the end of the day/week/month

That only works if there's enough independent publishers who agree to band-together and commit to using a single payment processor. I doubt this will happen.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#54

Post by fastest963 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #45
fastest963 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a space that my company operates in and we will hopefully provide this service in the future. First, publishers want more than what consumers are willing to pay per article, the credit card companies charge too much (even with special micro pricing we've negotiated) and no one has a market big enough to reasonably get $xx per month into a wallet from a massive audience. Google had tried something similar with…

Brave, the browser, started with some cryptocurrency micropayment idea. What happened to it?

I'm not sure if publishers could get enough from Brave Payments to make it worth it. Brave also blocks ads so they aren't exactly in the publishers' good graces. Some publishers would rather block Brave than try to work out a deal to accept cryptocurrency.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#55

Post by solardev »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #53
solardev wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem that hard to get around, with a bunch of $0.99 games and in-app purchases on mobile stores. iTunes did it too with songs, before Spotify took over. Seems like a simple opportunity for any payment processor middleman to just batch up transactions and run them through the CC processor at the end of the day/week/month. If the middleman doesn't want to, each individual publication can still just tally u…

The App Stores work-around that by invoicing customers once-per-month for all the accrued IAP microtransactions the user makes. > Seems like a simple opportunity for any payment processor middleman to just batch up transactions and run them through the CC processor at the end of the day/week/month That only works if there's enough independent publishers who agree to band-together and commit to using a single payment…

Well, or at the end of my comment:

> If the middleman doesn't want to, each individual publication can still just tally up your totals and then bill you each month.

It seems like a really easy middle ground is to just allow pay-per-article views on mobile, which already have batched microtransactions built in. But even that isn't a thing.

I suspect it isn't just a technical/billing issue, but a lack of willingness to pay the desired prices...

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#56

Post by summerlight »

littlefish444 wrote: post #9

Does anyone know why there doesn't exist a micro-transaction capability to buy one marginal ad-free item at a time? E.g. buy just this Economist article for $0.25 rather than subscribing for the whole month? I know there are significant issues with micro-transaction cost but I figure you could set up a little token service with minimum cash-in and cash-out amounts (say $5). Do companies like the Economist crunch the…

It's usually because people tend to pay much less money then how much advertisers are willing to pay. Also, there's much less flexibility on customer price changes while advertisers are kept happy as long as they can have a good ROI.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#57

Post by shiroiuma »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #28
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit card networks impose relatively high minimums - so transactions under ~$4 USD don't make it worthwhile. PayPal has their own microtransactions scheme (which is difficult to get approved for), I assume PayPal has enough clout to pull it off. The other approach: having a PAYG balance, has the problem of requiring users to pay a somewhat larger amount up-front (e.g. $5 or $10) which is off-putting to people who'v…

Unfortunately, a lot of American banking infrastructure is hard-coded on ancient systems, so it’s entirely possible that initiating a single transaction really has reached it’s price-bottom. That’s also why it takes 2 days to send money to people, in an era of instant communication. Many companies (like Stripe and Venmo) mask these deficiencies. But when you have to do something like a wire transfer, you find that it…

You shouldn't make up completely wrong claims to use as an analogy. The US grid doesn't run at either 110V or 220V, it's much higher. The 50/60Hz thing doesn't make any sense as an analogy either, because there's no significant advantage to either, it's just arbitrary.

You really should just delete your comment if you can't come up with a decent analogy, or edit it to eliminate the analogy that makes no sense whatsoever and makes me completely ignore whatever point you were trying to make. Maybe it's OK for some non-technical audience where they have no idea how electricity works, but this is supposed to be a technical crowd, isn't it? Or is it? Sometimes I wonder.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#58

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

solardev wrote: post #55
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App Stores work-around that by invoicing customers once-per-month for all the accrued IAP microtransactions the user makes. > Seems like a simple opportunity for any payment processor middleman to just batch up transactions and run them through the CC processor at the end of the day/week/month That only works if there's enough independent publishers who agree to band-together and commit to using a single payment…

Well, or at the end of my comment: > If the middleman doesn't want to, each individual publication can still just tally up your totals and then bill you each month. It seems like a really easy middle ground is to just allow pay-per-article views on mobile, which already have batched microtransactions built in. But even that isn't a thing. I suspect it isn't just a technical/billing issue, but a lack of willingness to…

> It seems like a really easy middle ground is to just allow pay-per-article views on mobile, which already have batched microtransactions built in. But even that isn't a thing.

That would require users to install an app in order to take advantage of IAP (which then means losing 30% of the revenue to Apple or Google). People aren't going to install an app just to view (and pay for) articles on whatever blog-host the writer is using.

It is the fate of any (and every) "Viewer app" to turn into a web-browser, and a sub-par one at that.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#59

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

JTon wrote: post #39
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, a lot of American banking infrastructure is hard-coded on ancient systems, so it’s entirely possible that initiating a single transaction really has reached it’s price-bottom. That’s also why it takes 2 days to send money to people, in an era of instant communication. Many companies (like Stripe and Venmo) mask these deficiencies. But when you have to do something like a wire transfer, you find that it…

> That’s also why it takes 2 days to send money to people, in an era of instant communication. I always assumed anti-fraud had something to do with it. Give the victims time to notice and the institutions the ability to reverse transactions without loss

I think it's naïve of you to assume that an inefficiency in the financial system is, in any way, for the benefit of the end-customer.

Re: Welcome to the ad-free internet

#60

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

shiroiuma wrote: post #57
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, a lot of American banking infrastructure is hard-coded on ancient systems, so it’s entirely possible that initiating a single transaction really has reached it’s price-bottom. That’s also why it takes 2 days to send money to people, in an era of instant communication. Many companies (like Stripe and Venmo) mask these deficiencies. But when you have to do something like a wire transfer, you find that it…

You shouldn't make up completely wrong claims to use as an analogy. The US grid doesn't run at either 110V or 220V, it's much higher. The 50/60Hz thing doesn't make any sense as an analogy either, because there's no significant advantage to either, it's just arbitrary. You really should just delete your comment if you can't come up with a decent analogy, or edit it to eliminate the analogy that makes no sense whatsoe…

> You really should just delete your comment if you can't come up with a decent analogy

I think you're being unreasonable. False/untrue analogies still work as a rhetorical device and we can appreciate the point being made.

Pedantry has its place (peer-review of scientific papers, for example), HN comments is not one of them. This is how a community develops a reputation for being hostile.

(Now I'm going to feel horrible about myself for even letting myself be tempted to respond to a comment like this in the first place)

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