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Exploring alternative funding models for the web

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Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#91

Post by solstice »

brycehamrick wrote: post #63

I've come to the conclusion that advertising is the only viable monetization model for most content businesses. This is not a new phenomenon, this is the same reason advertising is dominated television (even paid cable channels), print media like newspapers and magazines, and even in sports. The economics of it are pretty straightforward—customers simply don't value most content at what it costs to produce it. I do a…

> The economics of it are pretty straightforward—customers simply don't value most content at what it costs to produce it.

Well, but right now consumers don't even have the option of paying for single pieces of content as their only option usually is to buy the whole subscription to NY Times, etc. (The situation is a little like in the music industry where people had to buy a whole album to be able to listen to the 2-4 really good songs on it.) If it was easier for people to pay/tip for individual pieces of content, good content could amass a significant number of micro donations which in aggregate might become enough to cover the costs incurred in the creation of the content piece.

Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#92

Post by piyush_soni »

captn3m0 wrote: post #85
ericflo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News seems to really hate cryptocurrencies, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Despite whatever properties you don't like about them, those tokens are being used today and have real value. You can close your eyes but the world will keep spinning.

As an Indian Citizen, I can not legally trade in Crypto.

Are you saying it just because you read it in some online article? There is no current law that prevents your to trade in crypto in India. There is news of a proposed bill that might make it illegal in future, but that's about it. We don't know if it will ever see the light of the day...

Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#93

Post by chii »

jerrac wrote: post #74
xorcist wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest obstacle is likely that you need to be a licenses money transmitter in all major jurisdictions to carry out what you describe. The second you let an American tip an Iranian there will be trouble somewhere. It's not an unsolvable problem but you probably need to limit the scope a bit. There's a lot of implementation details hiding behind "accessing the tips they've received". I believe Flattr started out l…

Agreed, that is a large issue. You likely would need to limit by geographical region for a while.

And all these compliance requirements start to rack up costs to do the tipping.

Eventually, it'd be no better than using a credit card.

Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#94

Post by ErikBjare »

jerrac wrote: post #4

For a long time I've thought that we need a browser based universal tip jar. Some way that lets me read a blog post, and then tip the site with however much I want. 1 cent, 25 cents, 1 dollar, 200 dollars, any amount. From my understanding of things, the biggest thing in the way is that processing payments costs money. The second thing is making sure the money goes where it is supposed to. With services like Scroll,…

We're building something very similar to that with Thankful (https://getthankful.io/, https://github.com/SuperuserLabs/thankful). It's still early, but we have browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox (and are making a new release today with many long-awaited fixes and improvements).

Unlike Brave, we aren't building an entire browser/ad platform, we don't have a special token (we currently use plain Ether), and our plan is to make it possible to donate using stablecoins (most likely Dai) to get rid of the issue of volatility.

We'll solve the creator registration using a couple of smart contracts, one for handling the ESCROW-nature of pending donations (allowing for refunds if the creator chooses not register), and one for the address registry (that maps from emails/URLs to eth addresses). The details are still very much up in the air, but you can read the (early and unaudited) WIP contracts are on GitHub: https://github.com/SuperuserLabs/thankful-contracts/

Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#95

Post by jasode »

jasode wrote: post #5

>One such partner that we are collaborating with is Scroll. [...] The service enables web users to pay for an ad-free experience on their favorite sites, across their devices. To try and understand what this is, I go to the landing page of partner's site, Scroll: https://scroll.com/ Their webpage has no obvious explanation of what this is. Is this a tip jar? Micropayments? Subscription? I then go to Scroll's blog: ht…

Fyi... I later found an older article (2018) that said it was $5/month: https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/02/scroll-the-5-month-news-su...

Since Scroll's landing page today in 2019 does not prominently display "$5/month" anywhere, it signals to me that Scroll may have changed its mind about that $5 amount and has yet to commit to a publicized and transparent monthly price. With the "Request Invitation" button, are they collecting emails to gauge the level of interest to help them determine a price?

If Scroll is actually still charging $5/month, why not make that fact obvious on its website?

Google search doesn't show much written about Scroll by Tony Haile in 2019: https://www.google.com/search?q=scroll+haile+subscription+pr...

(To add more confusion, there's another unrelated website that charges $5/month with a similar name: https://scroll.in/subscribe)

Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#96

Post by captn3m0 »

piyush_soni wrote: post #92
captn3m0 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Indian Citizen, I can not legally trade in Crypto.

Are you saying it just because you read it in some online article? There is no current law that prevents your to trade in crypto in India. There is news of a proposed bill that might make it illegal in future, but that's about it. We don't know if it will ever see the light of the day...

You're right. I should have clarified (typed on phone). Financial businesses are not allowed to service any entity dealing with crypto currencies.

If I'm a publication business, if I start accepting BAT tokens, I lose my ties with my bank. Not really a ideal situation.

The circular: https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=11243

Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#97

Post by cromwellian »

I think the basic problem with all these schemes is people don’t want to pay for most content, the entire concept of ‘surfing’ the web is frictionless interactions with content and constantly needing to make decisions about whether to buy something, even if it were pennies, is a cognitive burden that forced accounting and a shopping mentality on a reader who just wants to fall down the rabbit hole of link chasing.

Sure, some high quality long form content can pull this off, but would I pay for the Verge, or say, MKBHD’s reviews? No. Maybe Anandtech once in a while.

There’s a paradox of choice as well.

Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#98

Post by specialist »

kdbg wrote: post #10
jerrac wrote: post #4

For a long time I've thought that we need a browser based universal tip jar. Some way that lets me read a blog post, and then tip the site with however much I want. 1 cent, 25 cents, 1 dollar, 200 dollars, any amount. From my understanding of things, the biggest thing in the way is that processing payments costs money. The second thing is making sure the money goes where it is supposed to. With services like Scroll,…

> So, here's a thought, Mozilla should create a tip jar non-profit organization. Tipping would be something built into Firefox. If you tip someone, it's sent to the non-profit's bank, and connected to the url. Site owners could then register with the non-profit, in manner similar to Google Webmaster tools, that would let them access the tips they've received. This is kinda what the Basic Attention Token is in the Bra…

The Basic Attention Token notion is inscrutable to me. It's like the corporate sponsored charitable giving campaigns. Why would I give WalMart $1 to forward to Children's Hospital when I could just give Children's Hospital $1 directly?

BAT is a bad idea done badly by bad people.

Given my track record of predicting winners and losers (eg JavaScript), I can only assume BATs will be hugely successful.

Re: Exploring alternative funding models for the web

#100

Post by ilaksh »

jerrac wrote: post #4

For a long time I've thought that we need a browser based universal tip jar. Some way that lets me read a blog post, and then tip the site with however much I want. 1 cent, 25 cents, 1 dollar, 200 dollars, any amount. From my understanding of things, the biggest thing in the way is that processing payments costs money. The second thing is making sure the money goes where it is supposed to. With services like Scroll,…

Cryptocurrency payments.
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