Slashdot Mirror
Why Won't You Pay for Content?
"For the record, I don't approve of the RIAA/MPAA/etc. money-grubbing, but even if all content in and of itself suddenly became free (and I won't get into that argument), content is meaningless in a vacuum--there has to be a way to get that content to people, and that costs money, whether it's money to run the printing press, burn discs, or send data. Somebody's got to pay for that, or it just won't happen. What do you find so wrong about sharing part of that cost--and what would you suggest as an alternative?"
The problem with this stems from the fact that not everyone assigns the same value to content. Let's say Joe finds a piece of info on the Internet and he's willing to pay $10 for it, Jack finds that same piece of info but only thinks it is worth $2, and Jill finds the information not useful at all. Now if the information provider sets the value of that piece of information at $5, he's lost 2 customers, not one. Content providers need to find their way around this problem if they want to start reaping monetary rewards. Micropayments may be the answer, but even in that camp there are still more questions than answers (for one, a good International micropayment system needs to be in place). Why do you think people are so unwilling to pay for content (without all of the "information wants to be free" arguments, please).
I'm sorry but I will and do pay for content. I have been for many years now. It's called advertising. And it's everywhere on the Web. When I go to view Slashdot there is always a web banner floating over head (at the top of the screen). The price I pay for the content found here and at other good sites is my attention. And that attention is able to be used by said site owner to promote a product, service, or company unrelated to my purpose for visiting the site. Micropayments are alive and well. They already exist. And they work (contrary to the coup recently orchestrated by online advertisers to get price dropped into the bucket).
I can go to the book store an browse through any part of a magazine or book before I make my purchase. How do I do this online? With digital content, once you've browsed, the horse already left the barn, there's no point in closing the door.
"Modern day Western socioeconomic culture has been deeply influenced by the "ideals" of capitalism, in which.....cheaper or for free we're ahead of the game"
I think you need to make a micropayment to the writers of the communist manifesto for that one...
"Most of us here wouldn't notice a cent or two coming out of our bank accounts..."
Oh,ok...just nickle and dime me to death then...it's only a small amount anyways...Yeah,the income tax started at 1% too,y'know...
"but if we can get away without paying, then we'll whine until the cows come home!"
WITHOUT PAYING?!?! I've already paid/paying for the freakn COMPUTER,the OS(or $$/time installing linux),my SOFTWARE,the DSL connection,the ELECTRICITY...and I STILL see ads popping up on MAINSTREAM sites(cnn,futureshop,etc) like I was on some PORN site!!
And now you want me to PAY for 'CONTENT'?!?
Sometimes without even seeing a sample?!?!
What's next? Posting tax? Linking fee? MS Knowledgebase lookup fees...Hmm maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas...
"people will always go for the free option, even when it leads to the end of the product they were after. Such is today's culture - firmly short-sighted and selfish"
Oh..I see...So we should blow money on people/services no matter what to keep them afloat...uhhh,no.
But I guess I'm selfish for wanting an open exchange of information like the internet USED to be,not the ad-bloated,demographic cookie swapping,credit card # losing,money ticker-timer that corporate interests have turned it into...
It's very simple: my time and effort of thought is valuable. To decide whether a given page is worth the pennies to view it, I must spend cognitive effort, time, and emotional resources worth more than that. However, should I not spend this time and click with abandon, I am not exerting any market pressure for content providers to serve information that is worth what they're charging-- for a free market to work, consumers must exercise discretion. Any web micropayment system put in place now or for the foreseeable near future would devolve.
Unfortunately, in some markets, evaluating purchases exceeds the worth of the goods. In these markets, transaction overheads are far too high, and alternative distribution schemes are not only what people prefer, but the only economically feasible option. (Happily, these are one and the same thing here...)
Making a purchase is actually one of the most complicated cognitive acts we do with any frequency.
There are 2 reasons I don't like to pay for
/. requires a
content. I can afford the money, but:
1. Payment systems are awkward.
2. The lack of anonymity. Even
'valid email address' for you to login (which is
the sole reason I post as an AC). I don't want
the world always know who I actually am, or what
I am interested in. Profiling is far to pervasive
as it is, and I have no desire to help it along.
If we had a payment system as anonymous as cash,
which was easy to use, and required no persistant
'relationship' between me and a content provider,
I'd be happy to pay reasonable charges.
An Anonymous Coward (and proud of it!)
Hi,
We put up an interview with game designer Robin Laws, then I asked this question of our RPGnet readers:
"If a magical payment system existed which simply zapped pocket change from your desk, would you have been willing to pay 10 cents to read this piece?"
The most significant result was many people saying "Yes, but then I would have felt cheated".
So you have front-end micropayments-- where some readers pay but are disappointed, and leave. Or back end tip-jars, which have no enforcement so many don't pay. And teasers-- you read 1/3rd of the article then have to pay to go to the next page, which annoys people.
So tech aside, micropayments need a better social or marketing model for where to ask for the cash.
Cheers,
Sandy Antunes
http://www.rpg.net (the Inside Scoop on Gaming)
I Just fill in bogus info on the form.
William J. Clinton
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500
Phone: 202-456-1414
Fax: 202-456-2461
No one ever reads them..
Some reasons why I don't bother with pay (or even registration) sites:
1.0) Money, payments.
1.1) Anonymous. That essentially what I am right now. If I pay, I have to register. If I register, I must be authenticated. If I am authenticated, I *WILL* be tracked. BANG, there goes my privacy because user preferences are about as valuable as anything I'd be paying you for. Provide me with a site where I can pay you and what I do with your information goes into a black hole. Yea, yea, ignore the obvious traceability arguments in regards to cookies/IP addrs/etc - My point stands.
1.1) It would be cool to be able to send $$ to a third-party account, get a one-time "passcode" of some sort, then apply that to paying for goods and services. Do currency translation on-the-fly. I'd be willing to establish an account at Pay-Site with a balance if I could send money to an anonymous account via nearly-untraceable methods.
I'm not talking big money here, I have no dirty money to clean.
1.2) Ok, so I decide to read a particular article. I think it stinks. I demand 1/2 my money back. What? Nothing but human-intervention methods to deal with that? Too bad you didn't implement a system where by this could be done automatically, but if you choose to get your money back too many times it is simply suggested that "this site doesn't fit your needs, please no longer be a customer". The social policies of this implementation has been left as an exercise for the reader.
1.3) I purchase access to an article. Forever. Not "one time view" or "for a month". Browers break, networks go down. I want to be able to get back to it. I want to "search the site" for
articles I've purchaed.
1.4) Service levels/Access levels. I want to choose between being able to read any article on the site at a preimum fee, or just choosing 10/month at $X/article. Allow me to sign up to a hard and fast plan (10 articles/mo, then cutoff) or a "floating" plan (10 article/mo, if read more then auto-move and auto-bill to next level of plan with a quick page inbetween letting me know what you're doing). Also, quality of customer service shouldn't depend upon the plan I purchase.
2.0) Content.
2.1) Content, verification. Slashdot (and may other sites like it) are very cool. But as we've seen in the past there isn't much "investigative reporting" and fact checking. I'm not worried about it -- I expect these things in a "free" (or ad-sponsored) site. But if I'm paying, it should be because I'm paying for FACTS, not rumors.
2.2) Content, quality. This is the difference between sound bites on the radio and National Public Radio interviews. I'll GIVE money to NPR, I typically don't care about my morning-drive talk shows with "cute 30 second stories", nor do I care about their sponsors.
2.3) Content, intensity. Push a few envelopes here. Example: if you provide Unix (any of them) content, then find a new way to do X that is more efficient. Find a way to build complex system Y to give me feature A,B, and C. Kind of like SysAdmin magazine in that occassionally there is a development shown that I can assimilate and make my systems better. Include practice and theory. Now, get your mind out of the computer world and apply this to what you are trying to sell at a pay-site. Challenge me about the assumptions that I have made about my area of knowledge.
2.4) Feedback of users for users. Slashdot's message boards are very nice. For a given topic that interests me, I find my answers and pointers to other information in the comments. This is important. Read {insert unix-magazine name here}. Feels a little bland doesn't it? Throw 12 system admins in a room and you'll have 6 different solutions in no time. THAT's what I want/need.
2.5) Just because the article covers problem X, with product Y, into solution Z, doesn't mean I'm not interested in solving the problem eight other ways for different reasons. Sure, I'd like to know how to set up a linux cluster across three datacenters seperated by 5km of fibre using product X. Thanks for the article. Now take an extra hour and stick in URL's for the 30 or so other clustering solutions out there. Apply method to other topics.
2.6) Don't be afraid to show the dirty details. Perhaps throw out two versions of the article: 1) General information (Scientists say neutrons have mass!) vs detailed and dirty (Scientists say {insert math here}). Include configuration files. Sometimes the syntax of conf files are the solution to my problem. Perhaps charge differently for each article.
3.0) Miscl.
3.1) Thanks for the option to view free non-technical information with a few banner ads. I appreciate it.
3.2) Thanks for the option to have no-ads for paying a little something each month.
3.3) Provide articles in a download-able format and/or an easy-to-print-from-the-web format. My laptap can't always be turned on and viewing in some of the enviroments I work in.
3.4) Link articles/news to other professions. That new database is cool and all, but is anyone using it? How did they implement it? Point me to more info if you can't provide it.
Anonymous? Yes.
Coward? No.
-PokeyBait
Most ATMs where I am (DC area) won't dispense less than $20, but if I need to buy something smaller than $20, I'm not screwed -- I write a check drawn on my account.
Stupid question, but why can't you take the $20, pay the product and then put the change to your pocket?
You bought the TV, why pay for electricity?
You ate yesterday, why pay for food today?
Because that's the way it works! This isn't about outdated Utopian ideals, it's about reality.
Your company hired you, gave you insurance, paid you last week, are you now working for free?
It's a shame that /. is so over run by so many people who think just like you.
The really bad part of this issue is, if no one can figure out soon a better way to implement micro-payments, Micro$oft passport WILL be the only system. It surely will work (and be the only one doing) on every big known site and newspaper.
All this money stuff is just so much bull shit. There are very few services worth paying for on the net, and none of them are "art". The most useful content is put up by people who want you to know something and are paying for the privalidge of doing it. They are folks like you who just volunteered time to write that karma whoring. The web has made it possible for people like you and me to publish without having to give someone thousands of dollars for a bunch of dead trees that are, if loved, just going to rot in the attic. This whole crowd of money grubbing loosers out to "entertain" you by cordining off chunks of popular culture so they can sell it back to you can go to hell.
Yeah, I expect free services cuz most of them are run by people who want me to read their stuff. When big services start to suck, someone else is going to come in and show them up, as long as they are allowed to.
Oh yeah, I'm also willing to pay $40/month to share what little I know. Now gimmie my bandwith, bitch, or I'm gonna take that whole public network right back from you and your greedy friends.
The internet has made me more lazy as a consumer and more of a workoholic as a developer. Neither of these changes has enhanced my life.
So go ahead, charge for content. Give the excuse I need to switch off!
Nevermind that the same machine with the same software is capable of handling more. You have to pay to have a certain few bits flipped in your own hardware to enable more "users".
Is it any wonder that Linux is making huge inroads in the server environment?
It's the war on "unlimited use" software.
the reason micropayments don't work is easy. People assign the value to things what they pay for them. Say I paid $1 for a ferrari because some old woman wanted to get back at her old husband. Now do you seriously think that I'll treat this ferrari the same knowing I paid only a buck for it? Probably not. The same thing holds true for micropayment. Charge a very little amount, and people either think of it as 1. a tax or 2. That the content itself is "cheap" (in the bad sense of the word). The fix to this of course is to provide higher quality content with a higher user liking to that content, and charge more for it. Sometimes, charging a small amount is actually a bad thing. (Although consumers will flame about this, because on the inside, everyone always wants to get everything as free as possible, but on the outside, people do not want to appear like a cheapskate (especially if they're rich.))
1) People won't pay for content because they're already paying for access - why pay twice?
2) Make it easy to do a micropayment, a simple one-click thing, and you'll see more people do it. I know I can't be bothered to enter payment info for a few cents...
We're all guilty of it. As your income goes up, so does your expenses. The people who don't want to pay 76 cents for a special ring tone on the cell phones are most likely the same people who can't really afford to have one in the first place.
Paying for stuff online is just yet another bill we all have to worry about, and in the long run - unless you are really financially stable, is something we could do without if we were forced to pay for.
Slashdot is a great site, with its faults, however if I were forced to pay for it, I would forget about it alltogether.
Fuck Ajit Pai
If somebody found a magically convenient, fraud-resistent method of managing micropayments, they'd succeed only on making users tentative to look in new places for content, thus making it even harder to run an independant website. After all, why check out www.indymedia.org if you know that www.cnn.com seems to provide reasonable news coverage?
--
- Much fewer first posts and goatse trolls -- they're just high school kids with no money and who only want free content
- No (or rare) Slashdot effect
- Fewer, but higher quality posts
I don't know if I'd pay or not, but it might not be the world's worst idea.---
One of the main misconceptions about paying for web content is that people won't pay for stuff they can get elsewhere for free. This is wrong. People pay for Windows when they can get Linux for free, people pay for porn when they can get it for free, people pay for lots of stuff when they get it for free. The difference is convienience and quality. Windows is easier to use for most people than Linux, for-pay porn sites are (usually) better then free, etc. If a hardware site were to charge for content but then provide better reviews, help, etc., than Joe Schmoe's Hardware Page, people would pay for the quality site. The for-pay site would just have to prove their worth. Your example of Google is a perfect one, they've proven (to you and I at least) that they're worth some money even though other sites provide essentially the same service for free.
Seriously, much of the thinking on this subject is already obsolete. People are talking about the Web like it's TV. It's not- the key parts of the Web are where people interact with each other, getting involved. There are a lot of places where it would make sense to pay the participants, not charge them.
Then there's the next level: I personally have run two articles on Slashdot. Anyone can. You just have to do the work. Even without loading your to-be-slashdotted target pages with banner ads, exposure of that sort is valuable- but it is most valuable when it is not a hollow victory, when the person's put some serious effort into what's being reported on. Now, in a context of payment, does Slashdot pay those people- or expect to be paid by those people? What if there is such demand for Slashdot publicity that 'pay for publication' becomes as prevalent as 'pay to play' in live music?
At that point you're looking at a pretty ugly situation- and to go that direction belies the amount of benefit you get just from being Slashdot. Because of the freewheeling, non-paying nature of the site, a huge amount of activity has been spawned, and Slashdot's got name recognition among linux geeks comparable to Campbell's for soup or Crest for toothpaste. This is a tangible benefit while it's in force- if you run Slashdot and interact with others while your site is thriving, you are treated differently from just a run-of-the-mill geek.
If you can't turn that into money- well, maybe money isn't your first priority. But it's the kind of situation that could _lead_ to entrepeneurial activities- and the situation has a value beyond a simple counting of the money it directly produces. Income is cash but reputation is credit...
Why not have some industry-wide cooperative system to piggyback content payments on your ISP bill? Say that right now you are paying $20 a month for access. Raise that to $30 and let your ISP keep $20, leaving $10 for distributed payments. When you visit a site that recieves payments under this new system, it tracks how much you have used it and sends this information back to your ISP. Your ISP keeps track of what you have visited and how much, and at the end of the month divides up the $10 among all the pay sites according to these weights and sends that data to their ISPs, who then deduct that from the pay site's bill that month.
The important concept here is to make the payment completely transparent to the user; no one would use cable TV if they had to drop a quarter in their cable box every time they turned it on. The privacy problems could be avoided through heavy use of encryption ("100 hits to [unique ID corresponding to www.goatse.cx] for customer [unique ID consisting of encrypted account information understood only by the payment server] on [encrypted]/[encrypted], 2001").
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I thought I DID pay for "content" when I pay my Internet connection bill. To put this in perspective, I do pay extra for HBO (gotta love the Sopranos :) but I don't pay "extra" for Discovery Channel or Animal Planet. The cost are already included in the bill. Maybe content providers need to team up with ISPs and work out some sort of payment scheme for "value added" content. I mean let's face it... If I could get HBO for free I probably wouldn't pay for it. But HBO's content is compelling enough that I AM willing to pay for it. This not only answers the "How do I make enough money to keep this site open" dilemna, it also keeps me from having to slow down my site with convulsion inducing, Think Geek adds.
I'm not interested in paying for content until I know it's content I want.
/.-type of content-provider charged a single micropayment when I clicked on the "Read More" link of an article's summary/precis. I should then be able to click it again at any time without being re-charged.
If I buy a tin of beans and it contains roaches, I can get my money back. If I pay for an article before I read it and it's rubbish, will I get my money back (hollow laugh)...
The best workable solution - or at least, one I would support - would be if a
Any attempt at a "Pay $$$/£££/&&& for a years subscription" or "pay every time you read an article" is doomed to failure as far as I'm concerned.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Just who are you trying to kid? Suck.com doesn't mean squat. Id was distributing retail versions of their shareware games at 7 bux a pop @ CompUSA (and friends) over 5 years ago and the process has only gotten cheaper since then.
In larger runs (100K+), the cost of the media itself is expressed in terms of pennies. Even in smaller runs, it's perhaps a dollar. For about 5 bux a unit you can have produced a complete shrinkwrap package.
You can't swing a dead cat on the web without it hitting a multitude of such sites.
You're simply on crack.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You are still trying to confuse production costs with engineering costs. The cost that was incurred by Ferrari in bringing a particular model's factory online is quite distinct from the costs associated with the steel and glass of an actual Ferrari.
The engineering cost of information is amortized across everyone who chooses to buy it. That is the ONLY cost that has to be considered in terms of profitability as it is so much larger than "production".
The idea that "the commonplace" should also be cheaper is also one that is typical in well developed capitalist societies. "Custom" products are expected to expensive, while common mass produced objects are expected to be cheap to the point of being pointless to repair.
A variety of observations from older examples of corporeal products tend to collide with the "infinite profit" possible with products where the cost of the first unit is 99.99% of the cost of all 100 millions that may be produced.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...all you've really stumbled upon is the fact that the web might not be the most efficient method of distributing digital content after all.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Anything that has made it far enough to be called "Anime" has already paid for itself anyways. He may be a cheap bastard. However, he's not doing anything to keep new content from being created.
Once the "engineering cost" has been paid for, the leeches can come out of the woodwork and have little actual effect.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, a studio is not a hard requirement and never really has been. If you're any good, a live performance recorded in a venue properly set up for this sort of thing will be quite adequate.
Infact, such recordings were quite popular for a time. Also, many older recordings were essentially this. Many classics were recorded with less sophisticated equipment than what you likely own right now.
"studio time" is just another sort of "fix" that labels get their victims hooked on.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Quite simply, advertisers need to get a clue and stop attempting to annoy everyone. I'll watch a good commercial if it has some entertainment value. I will also click through banner ads if they look interesting. However, I tune out of any ads that begin to annoy me.
Advertisers in general need to learn how to motivate their target audience to pay attention. This is not merely limited to the web.
Tivo's will "webify" Television soon enough.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I would have been happy to do that, since Salon did have some good content. But, I didn't, because I don't think they'll be around for another year. They've already laid off a bunch of people. By actually finding a way to make money they may have actually shortened their life, unless they're getting much more CPM for those huge ads they have now.
Heh, maybe the Democrats could bail 'em out... ;0)
And piracy is the boogeyman used to justify most of this. Unlimited use software, and infinitely reviewable movies will someday be redefined as "theft". Its about taking control away from you. Patented+homesteaded land cannot be taken away by gov't for any reason, so they don't allow this anymore. Europeans already scoff at "lucky bastards with flat rate phone service" in the US." while phone companies move towards eliminating this ancient practice.
It must pain the IP holders no end that their media must, in its final form, be presented unencrypted and in good quality to the eyes and ears.
Ultimately, it'll be pay-per-thought. We'll have cybernetic devices inplanted into the bas of our skulls to meter incoming content. Video/audio can then be sent encrypted all the way to our brains where final and untappable decryption takes place. Even think "Exit light... Enter night! Taaaake my hand! Off to never never land!" and ka-CHING, your credit account is charged a small fee.
1984 almost had it right, but misses profit as the basis of Big Brother.
I find the ads on sites like kuro5hin.org and slashdot are often quite helpful. I generally am actually interested in the things that get advertised on these sites. I would almost pay for more ads, and would certainly not be interested in seeing them removed. In that respect slashdot is no different from any other publication. They have the opportunity to market to a unique niche of people that they can pretty much guarantee is going to be interested in a certain set of products and services. Eventually advertisers are going to realize that this is the case and sites that are able to build large targetted audiences will be able to sell advertising without too much trouble.
The Case Against Micropayments
--
No need for payment.... *whistles*
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
kuro5hin is a really good technically biased opinion piece site - it reminds some people of 'slashdot before it sold out' or 'slashdot before it got filled with idiots and their hot grits'. The signal to noise ratio on there is very favourable...
kuro5hin
Regards,
Denny
--
Police State UK - news and
Personally, I've used the Internet for about 20 years. It has always been about the free exchange of ideas. I also believe that corporations should not be allowed to hold patents or copyrights. Patents and copyrights were a way for people to receive compensation and legal right to sue for infringing on their work. But corporations should not be allowed. That's how a true capitalist society works the state protects the individual from the corporation but the corporation gets no protection from the state. Charging for content should be for the individual artists. I have no problem paying to read a person webpage but I have a problem with a corporation making money off content. While most individuals would probably charge the $ .07 for their content I can see corporations wanting to charge $2.00 for the same content.
But why do we have to charge money. Why can't another type of barter system be used. If distributed networks will become more pervasive than why can't I barter my free cpu cycles at times when I'm not home for payment for content?
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
You are such an idiot. Jack wasn't willing to pay $10, he was willing to pay $2. And Jill wasn't willing to pay any money. So the only person who still wanted it was Joe, who would pay $10. Charging $5 for it lost two customers (Jack and Jill).
Either pay attention next time, or go back to second grade and brush up on the fundamentals.
The summary is that "content" is not something that people are willing to pay for (eg. see TV and Radio), but people spent a lot more money on things that let them communicate with each other (eg. phones, cell-phones etc).
Read the papers by Andrew Odlyzko that are referenced from this page for some historical background.
P.S. I got this link from a discussion on micro-payments on kuros5in.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Which forms of "content" are those? The best part of Slashdot (and sites like it) are the user comments. We can always go back to Usenet. It's the discussions between people that are more fun, not the stuff that "contents producers" think want to consume.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Additionally technologies available to HTTP/WWW content allow site authors to easily create user-based sites and offer granular free access to certain features of their site to give people a good taste/feel of what they could be getting if they paid for the service.
But like an earlier post mentioned, the minute I start paying for an on-line content site, I will be holding it to much higher standards than free sites, including site usability, server response time, spelling/grammar, integrity, squeaky clean and *clear* privacy policies and most likely no advertisement at all.
But paying for on-line content is far from being a new concept on the web. Look at all subscription-based porn sites, live smut cams and whatnot. People *are* willing to pay for quality content they can't find anywhere else. It's just that portals, on-line news sites and other forms of written content don't seem to be as readily gratifying as visual content. Still, there are 2 or 3 compelling sites I visit every single day before starting a hard day of work, and given higher standards described above, I'd probably pay $5-$10/year for each one of them.
Could Slashdot qualify? I think so. I agree Slashdot isn't perfect ... occasional spelling/grammar errors, at times redundant microsoft bashing/linux praising and other slight annoyances ... So What?!?. As far as I'm concerned, and I don't seem to be alone, it is still the best place to get news about stuff I give a shit about.
However forcing a paying subscription-based model onto slashdot would probably and ironically greatly reduce its value, because Slashdot's value comes primarily from the fact that many geeks from all walks of life and wallet sizes read it and contribute to it by story submissions and comments to stories. If Slashdot readers had to pay for content, we'd probably loose a good share of those valuable contributors.
In this way I think Slashdot really embodies the whole Open-Source concept.
Sorry Taco, I thought I could make a case for paying for Slashdot but in the end it really looks to me like things are good as they are right now :D.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
I'm a firm believer in small, limited government, but this one is a no-brainer, people -- the government should be the only organization allowed to mint money, of either the traditional or electronic kind.
The US Treasury prints notes and mints coins in order to facilitate exchanges of money, but these are obsolete means of commerce -- basically unchanged from coins that were minted by governments in 500 BC! It's time the Treasury set up an official farm of money servers, and require all online vendors to consider money transferred from accounts thereon legal tender. With one offical system, good for both micro- and macropayments, watch e-commerce take off in all kinds of interesting ways. And inasmuch as the demand for paper notes and coins would decrease, the Treasury's operating costs will decrease.
Lots of possibilities...
Without the limitations of physical currency, vendors could set fractional prices such as $0.124.
For convenince, you could choose to use your IRS refund to recharge your account.
A system of automatic transfers from your bank could be set up, similar to overdraft protection, so that the balance in this non-interest-bearing account would always be kept at $0.01.
Alternatively, the Treasury could choose to make it an interest-bearing account -- a money-market-like alternative to T-bills and US Savings Bonds.
With wireless internet access, even hot-dog vendors on the street could accept this form of payment.
The penalty for hacking the system should be equal to the penalty for counterfeiting, since that's really what it is when this system is afforded legal tender status.
Consumers would benefit because the surcharge imposed by credit card companies would be gone -- and smart businesses would pass some of the savings back to the customer in order to be more competitive.
Very tiny transactions that are not practical because of said credit card fees would suddenly become practical.
Sure, there will have to be security considerations, and the system could never be certified hackproof. But done right, the incidence of problems should be at least as low as online credit card payment systems -- and millions of consumers already trust those enough to use them.
No one would be forced to open such an account; any citizen who doesn't trust it would be free to forego the convenience and conduct transactions by more traditional means.
Of course, credit card companies would not like this scheme one bit. But they have no special right to benefit from these kinds of transactions. They've enjoyed great profits to date just because the Treasury hasn't been innovative enough to facilitate these transactions. There's no reason that shouldn't change, and a lot of reasons why it should.
Credit card companies wouldn't disappear, because there would still be a large demand for making purchases on credit, which is obviously beyond the scope of the official system. But they would be put back into their rightful role: dispensers of credit -- not unofficial, fee-charging substitutes for legal tender that inject friction into the online economy every time they're used.
A national system like this would be a great start. Before long, it would be internationalized as future NAFTA and GATT negotiators demand to be let in on this great system!
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Why does paying for the site require that it change? Its not like slashdot is claiming to be something it isn't (CNN/NYTimes/BBCOnline/.../). You know what you get for your money ahead of time, so if you don't like it, don't subscribe.
Oh, and I think they should charge based on user number, so Speare pays 84249*.01 per year or something.
Casca
The dream of free and easy money pouring in from a web-site is proving to be just that, a dream. It doesn't matter if you're pets.com or some schmork with a reasonably interesting idea and some web-space. The money AIN'T comin' in, even if people's attention does.
Slashdot is the Prime Example. It is easily one of the most popular and dynamic sites on the web, yet it's only real hope for revenue is by selling access to readers eyeballs through banner ads and maybe some 'product placement' in terms of story content. That's it.
So very, very much is possible and available on the web at virtually no cost, that the idea of paying for content seems ludicrous, which it is.
All the same, I can imagine the frustration that must arise when you create a popular site that draws billions of eyeballs only to find that you still have to work for a living!
The Web is poised for a return to Glory Days like we've never seen before, where Information, Creativity and Communication are there own rewards.
The Wild West of the Internet has proven to be extrememly fertile, but money still doesn't grow on trees, even though for a while there a lot of us thought it did. On with the Show.
**>>BELCH
REALITY: On the Net, space is cheap. Once you're in you're in. There is no easy way to leverage eyeballs into cash. Weep. Mourn. Get over it.
You wan't micropayments? Get a job in Human Services.
**>>BELCH
VALUE is for the most part based on scarecity, but on the web there's no scarcity of real estate OR attention to soak it up. A very unique situation!
The attention a clever site recieves is the only reward it will ever get. It's a very powerful reward, but it won't pay the rent.
There are a lot of very clever sites out there and more being borne every minute. If KuroShite or Slashcock or whatever close their doors to non-micro-paying customers, they will have given up a full half of that which drew so many eyeballs in the first place, that is to say the ability to observe and/or participate without any sort of payment, be it in terms of cash or personal information. The tide of eyeballs is massive but extrememly delicate. It turns and shifts elsewhere at the slightest resistance.
All this pseudo-intellectual drivel of mine cowers, of course, at the altar of Porn Almighty!
Vices, real or imagined, will always get a quick buck from someone.
Once again, weep, mourn, get over it.
**>>BELCH
#1 - It cost money. There is a huge difference in peoples minds between free and even the smallest amount of money. Free can be enjoyed without thought, but if it cost money, then immediately you must think about money. Do I have enough for this? Will this eventually cost too much and I'll have to stop? Every time I click, it's costing me money.
#2 - Ease of use. Almost every pay system takes time to use and they are not easy. If it were easy then I wouldn't have to think about the fact that it cost money. (see #1)
Neo
i pay for books because i get a book i can take off the shelf at any time and read. i pay for cable and movies to be entertained for a certain amount of time. but web content is more like a book. to take /. as an example, i would pay a monthly subscription. i would also pay for printed content that came from it (like the hellmouth book, or if there was a companion magazine). but most web content is more like a book, and i'm not all that inclined to pay for something just to view it for a few minutes (particularly when i might not be sure if it solves a problem i'm working on).
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
To bad "Interpretation" is not spelled with an "U", because then the first letters of each one of the words mentioned would spell ABUSE. I think a lot of the problems with paying for stuff can be summarized with that word. People do not like to be abused, but they'll try to abuse any system as much as possible, specially with the degree of impunity and anonymity available on the Internet.
Just face it: humans are predators.
--Moo
Hurry up! You've been modded up to 3, and people will start visiting your site! Strike a deal w/somebody and set up some banner adds on your tip jar page! Maybe you could, at the very least, capitalize on the slashdot effect!
--Moo
I, and just about every other user of the Internet are paying between $10 and $100 PER MONTH to view this content. If I could find all this stuff meatside, I'd have almost no reason to be online!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The problem with your Ferrari example, and others like it, is that there is a cost to produce every single automobile that rolls out of the factory. With electronic content, there is no per-unit cost, and so there is no starting-point upon which margins can be based. If we are indeed a capitalist society, our people probably know this innately, and so they begin to smell a rat when content providers, who traditionally have means of support (from advertising or fixed-rate subscription) start charging per unit of content.
First off, there is always a per-unit cost. It may be, as it is with online content, that the cost of distribution is much greater than the cost of production. But even then, just because you don't see something you can point to and say "there's an expense", that doesn't mean it's cheap or easy to make that content available to the public.
You're also missing my point, and in the process making it for me -- the price of certain goods is dependent more on what people will pay, than what it actually costs to provide it. Consumer Internet access is a perfect example -- price pressure has pushed the typical price below the cost of production (though it seems to be rebounding a bit in various ways), making it a loss-leader in any place that a national ISP is providing service. People just aren't willing to pay what it actually costs.
Put another way, somebody will pay $250,000 for a Ferrari, but there's no way it costs that much to build one.
I could get into elastic vs. inelastic demand too -- demand for luxuries tends to be elastic (meaning, among other things, that the demand goes down as the price goes up) while necessities like milk and bread tend to have inelastic demand -- you need those things no matter what the price is (note that for all the talk about the "digital divide", the market still treats Internet access as a luxury, not a necessity). Cornering the market on an item with inelastic demand is a quick ticket to riches (till you get hit with antitrust action, at least).
Monopolies do have to watch out that they don't jack up prices to such a point that they force the market to elasticize -- such as the increased use of fuel-efficient cars in the wake of the OPEC-induced gas shortages in the 70s. (Insert comment about software monopolies here.)
Books and newspapers cost money because they are tangible things.... The content itslef has no innate value.
Want to say that at a writer's convention? I'd pay money to see what happens next.
-- Old Man Kensey
First, everything's "worth" or "value" is subjective. I don't have much use for a hot-rod Ferrari, because I can't drive a stick and I'm not into the prestige factor of owning one. It will, however, get me to the grocery store, so I'd still pay some amount of money for one -- say $10,000.
Some guy with a lot more money than me may like really fast cars, or want to impress his rich buddies, so he's willing to shell out a quarter-mill for the same car.
In the Jack-Jill-Joe example, the smart thing for that content provider to do is price the content at $10. Joe pays his $10. If you price it lower, Joe will still buy it, but Jack won't buy it till it hits $2, at which point you've made another sale, but you lose a net $6. Jill's never going to buy it, so we don't worry about her.
This is basic econ, folks. It's not about cost, except insofar as cost of production provides a lower bound on price. It's all about how much money you make at a given price, taking into account that you may make more or less per unit, which may or may not balance out the difference in sales.
I agree with some here that we need a good micropayment system. What nobody seems to understand is that single-use pay-as-you-go and micropayment are incompatible with each other, but that is not a real barrier to micropayments. Most ATMs where I am (DC area) won't dispense less than $20, but if I need to buy something smaller than $20, I'm not screwed -- I write a check drawn on my account.
Eventually we'll reach the point where a few players have well-known, trusted micropayment account systems. Don't look for that latter bit for a while though -- it took a long time for people to regain their trust in the banking system after the Great Depression. I know people who still haven't.
-- Old Man Kensey
Why Won't You Pay For Content?
/me grins
'Cause information wants to be free. Hax0r the planet... hax0r the planet!
user@host:/usr/bin$ whatis
java: nothing appropriate.
Bah. I went to get a _haircut_ and the counter critter asked for my phone number and address for thier "files". I was bewildered for a minute, then said "No. You don't need that info". She persisted, eventually telling me to just make up a phone number. I gave her 190-9411.
All this to get a freaking haircut.
--
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
Tell me, how is this different from ANYTHING ELSE we pay for in this society? Everyone assigns different values to everything. This is why some people balk at the cost of name-brand items in the grocery store and reach for the store brands, while others don't even think about it. Not only that, but some people are not able to pay what they think it is worth. I would love to have a ferrari, and I think it is definately worth the $100k they are charging. Will I pay it? Of course not, I don't have that kind of money.
Please. This is basic economics.
Certainly for micropayments anyway. If you have a professional/business account (necessary to implement e.g. a "pay me" link on your page or other arrangement) they skim a minimum of $.30 US plus some (small) percentage from every transaction. Obviously, that doesn't make sense for very small payments (~$.10 US), let alone micropayments (~$.0002 US).
DNA just wants to be free...
"But I'm stupid and don't think through my ideas"
Explain to someone that having a computer and the internet is like having a TV. You paid For the TV (computer) and you have access to some content (installed software).
Pay a little more for basic cable (internet), and there's a lot more out there, but for the most part, it's not very good or very original, and is really just filler.
Pay even more, and you get premium channels (pay-for contect), where there is original work, new shows, and a better presentation.
And if it interests you, you can pay one-time fees for Pay-per-view shows (micropayments) fo content which is one-of-a-kind, short-term type viewing.
Ask the people you're talking about if they deserve to have HBO and Pay-per-view services for free just becuase they bought a TV and pay for basic cable. The ones that say yes are hopeless cheapskates. Most rational people understand how services break down, they just need to be educated on how that service layer model translates to the internet.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
MS wants a cut? Please. When people get nickle-and-dimed to death, they want to be the ones getting each and every last nickle and dime.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
As far as karma going down without corresponding down moderations, are you implying that there is some way to cause that other than meta-moderation, or some way to know who you're metamoderating so as to target someone in particular? I noticed that a post of mine to a different story seems to have been labeled informative without changing the score and without a moderation total appended to the bottom of it. Has someone with too much time on their hands found an exploitable bug in slashcode?
As to why you seem to think that they should have been modded down because somebody said it better on some *other* forum (is there anything said here that isn't?), I am unable to follow your reasoning.
No doubt someone will come along to moderate this post down as off-topic, which, of course, it is, or knock down the score with some other label.
I'll live.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
He/she (it?, they? that's the thing about anonymous posters, they're so...well...anonymous) didn't say that there was an abundance of know-nothing know-it-all posts in the rarified strata which you browse, so you could both easily be right on that point. As far as Slashdot being a good site, it is when one considers the price (free), but if the price went up (which was the thoretical possibility being discussed), then its faults would be more objectionable.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Re:Paying model (Score:-1, Troll)
... the list goes on and on.
by Anonymous Coward on 11:56 AM July 9th, 2001 EDT (#58)
No offense intended, just brutal honesty:
I honestly doubt Slashdot would get good response with any kind of pay model, at least not in its current incarnation. Insanely biased reporting, grammar and general english-language problems in the article write-ups that would make even a child cringe, an abundance of comments from know-it-alls who actually know nothing (and I'll save you the time, yes this is one of those)
Don't get me wrong, it's a good site, and I check it every day, but it's nothing I couldn't get somewhere else. Make me pay and I won't return. There are plenty of other places to go.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It's like the recent article about "Premium [sic] Slashdot" - what is there here that's honestly worth paying for? Links to other people's content? Commentary and opinions by people no more qualified than myself? That's not even worth $0.076 to me...
Most people are perfectly happy paying for a magazine that is mostly ads, but complain when they have to pay for something online, right? Perhaps it's because when they buy a magazine they have something to show for it. A magazine can sit on the couch, can be carried around, can be shown to friends, can be cut apart and hung up, can be folded into paper airplanes, and all kinds of other things. It is a physical object that your $5.00US bought. It is yours, and you can prove that. But something online is just another pile of electrons that you can't do anyhting with but read and hope it will still be there the next day. I have little interest in paying for something that I can't see or feel or tear apart if I don't like it. I would guess that is part of the reason people don't like the idea of paying for online content...
Posted from the wireless couch.
I take it you don't shop at Radio Shack or Compucenter much, both those stores want all your info everytime you buy anything, they wont sell it to you unless you give them the info (with the system they use, the cash wont register a transaction unless it knows who's making the purchase) Price Club, and a few others are essentially the same. Theres even a local computer store that does it.
So you have to ask yourself, do you want a professional, non-corporate, online press? One with professional reporters who research their articles and can write? Because if you do, you might as well just take a gamble and help them to exist.
The worst that can happen is that they do in fact go subscription-only. The best is that they continue to go both ways, because you helped them to stay afloat.
I don't think the problem is the money. If I could surf around and get good content all day for $50/month, I'd do it. People pay that for their cable tv.
I see three problems.
First of all, as someone has pointed out, there isn't a good micropayment standard in place.
Second of all, I'd be very reluctant to participate in a micropayment system that wasn't anonymous. I think we need something similar to digicash.
I stopped buying non-geek books online, because I don't want big companies to have databases of the things I'm interested in or thinking about. Any micropayment system that's likely to be put into place will probably allow the coordinating company to put together a horribly intrusive database about its users. I'm amazed that people buy porn online -- some day that db will come back and bite them.
Finally, there are plenty of sites like this one that keep me entertained reasonably well for free. I don't feel the need for more content. I wish there was less, so I'd spend time doing more productive things.
"Not willing to pay" is not always true..
CNet's write-up on Ars Technica's pay service
Honestly, it depends largely on the audience you're talking about. Some groups are cheap, some aren't. Some are only here to troll, and others aren't, plain and simple.
Its cheap and saves me money in the long run.
-==-
That's only useful, of course, for ongoing billing. If I just want to read one story on Slashdot ever (ignoring that I'm an uber-geek, addicted to /. :), they'd never make any money off of me. I suspect that many websites would find the same to be true, as many provide one-shot content.
-Waldo
I disagree. Regarding charging for a tallied payment, I must say that sounds suspiciously like a subscription fee, and not at all a micropayment fee. (I'd also addressed this earlier.) That's no more a micropayment fee than the offer from Dr. Dobb's journal that I got today: $1.45 / issue, paying everytime that the total hits $35. (ie, $35 for a two-year subscription.)
I also disagree about the feasability of such a group-aggregated micropament system. Though I think that it's a great idea in concept, I think that most people would hate it from both a privacy and a big-business standpoint. That system would likely require a single business (ie, PayPal) to handle all transactions, creating a little microeconomy, though controlled by a single company. Folks wouldn't like that, as you can well guess. Beyond that, we'd have to get some major credit cards to team up and work together to spread payments amongst themselves, which also sounds suspiciously unlikely.
They're both good ideas, IMHO. It's just that the former is dodging the question of micropayments, and the latter is effectively unworkable. I maintain the necessity of micropayments, and I maintain that it will happen when credit card companies make it possible through reasonable rate structures for merchants.
-Waldo
Credit card companies simply won't work with small-transaction systems. Further, it would be a disaster for a company. Let's say /. charges $0.001 / story. I load the front page and get 10 stories, which costs me $0.01. They charge my credit card $0.01. There's a $0.25 transaction fee from CyberCash, a 3% take from the credit card company and, likely, a $0.25 - $0.50 transaction fee from the credit card company, too.
Slashdot, of course, would go out of business within hours on a model like that. Of course, the credit card companies don't want 3% of a 1 cent transaction, either, and likely would not permit Slashdot to make such charges. And that's a shame, because I'd totally sign up for that. If they could bill my card monthly, based on my total views, perhaps that would be a bit less of a disaster (say, $0.60 / month), but we've still got a long way to go. Or, rather, the credit card companies still have a long way to go.
-Waldo
I'd pay for slashdot if there was more porn.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Another point is the economic difference between information and material goods. If Ford wants to build a million copies of its car, it has to spend about a million times more than for one car (more or less, after various overhead).
At this point, I enter commie pinko mode, though I don't typically see myself that way...
With software and information, making copies is close to free. This encourages people to take a communist (as in sharing) view, where each person pitches a contribution (intellectual, labor, economic, whatever) into the pot, and then we all share the fruit of the project.
The Internet (and its predecessors) were built on this sharing principal, and its adherents are defying the capitalists of the world who are still fixated on the brick and mortar view of production, capitalists who want to take the efficiencies of the information economy and apply them to their traditional system of greed.
The system I would prefer is a combination of Mojonation and online tipping. Basically, here's how it would work:
To pay for infrastructure you have a system much like Mojonation (http://mojonation.net) - every network action costs a bit of mojo, but it is simple to gain more by sharing some of your own machines resources (disk space, cpu, etc).
To pay for content have a "tip" or gratuity system in which everything that can be replicated for free costs nothing. However, a simple, international interface would allow you to tip the direct creator of the content. You pay what you want, when you want, for only the things you want. The consumer can never be "ripped" off.
I suppose then the content distributions sites would most likely be paid by the content creators. The creators are paying for the distributors ability to get their content into as many hands and eyeballs as possible.
You don't even want to know what I'd do to the copyright laws and patent system....
~Squiggle
Complexity Happens
An interesting model of a micropayment web was posed by Marc Stiegler (sp?) in a book called Earthweb.
Now, a couple of things for this model are necessary, and he points them out at the end of the book (like universal secure encryption). Apparently he is a teacher or professor somewhere and teaches a class about the web.
Main points - Micropayments are universal
What that means -
1)You can charge people for recieving their mail - Spammers must pay you to send you mail - also, you can not like someone, and raise the acceptance rate from that person, so if they want to flame you it costs them bunches.
2)People charge for their content - the better content gets paid for. When doing searches for info, people can see the abstract and decide whether to pay or not.
3)Reporters (not the Drudge kind) create articles online, and people pay for their content.
Note: we may begin to see the last happen as fall out from the recent Supreme Court ruling on freelance copyright.
The book itself is only OK, but the concept and technology is interesting.
Make your own judgements.
Perhaps when there is nothing left on the internet but IRC and a few lame-ass user-brewed sites, slashdotters will finally come to realize that the basic concept of intellectual property and the right to charge for it is fundamental to there being information in the first place.
Sorry, but "information" has been around a lot longer than the concept of "intellectual property". And somehow, artists and authors managed to not starve to death out on the street for hundreds, nay thousands, of years, while creating new ideas to share. (Ever wonder how much the creator of the trebuchet got paid?)
"Intellectual property" is a quaint legal fiction that supposes that you have some ability or right to control an idea that has been passed to me and resides in my mind. Never mind the fact that there are no true, 100% original ideas ("If I see farther, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants" and all that), things such as copyright and patents work because they used to apply to physical, tangible products -- a story had to be recorded or performed, and inventions had to be created from raw material.
When there is a finite amount of time and physical material to create products from, then it makes sense there is reason to grant "idea makers" some time to profit off of their ideas. If I take Fred's idea for a more efficient teakettle and can make more money off of them than Fred could (by producing more of themor charging less for them), then it makes sense to see Fred get compensated, since I'm making more money than if I used those materials to make my boring old teakettle design. The same goes with books; if I print and sell a J.R.R. Tolkein novel, I'll make more money than if I used that paper and ink to print "Photographs of Elbows, Volume 137".
But at some point, those ideas become known -- they become so commonplace as to be the basis for new creations. The original intent for copyright and patents was a codification of that principle; at some point, copyright and patent holders have to relinquish control over their ideas, to join the wellspring for new ideas; that's the price for being allowed to have a monopoly of distribution and production.
Current IP law is trying to make the free and easy transfer of intangible information as slow and difficult as transferring tangible objects, and it just won't work; the two are fundamentally different. And as the methods of production and distribution became even cheaper and easier -- look, people across the country and around the world are reading this, and all I had to do was hit "Submit"! -- the kludges intended to hamper them will become even more unworkable. And there will come a breaking point.
Jay (=
No, your ISP is making money off the content you want the cable modem for. They are in effect leecing off the content providers, since without the content you wouldn't have the cable modem. That, however, is an issue between the various ISPs and the content providers about compensation - and they seem to be moving towards a comp scheme in the 3G market, at least.
But there it's far easier to identify the user, and there already are micropayment schemes implemented for cell phones, where the telcos just add the amount you pay for e.g. a new logo for your Nokia to your bill. The same thing wouldn't necessarily work for "normal" ISPs, though.
Consumer Carl is web-surfing and comes across Vendor Vinny's website, which advertises something interesting to Carl, maybe an attractive GIF image to which Vinny holds the copyright, but he's willing to sell the image to Carl at a small fee. This sale does not entitle Carl to resell the image; he is licensing the image, not becoming its copyright holder. Let's suppose that Vinny is selling this image for a nickel.
One immediate problem Carl faces is determining that Vinny really has something worth a nickel. Vinny may offer a free low-res or blurry image to suggest what he's got, but ultimately Vinny can defect by accepting Carl's nickel and giving him nothing, or something obviously worthless. For now I will put aside this question and assume that defecting vendors will be selected against by market forces.
Carl isn't really going to mail a nickel to Vinny; a stamp costs more than a nickel. What Carl will do is agree to mail a $5 check to Vinny if a fair roulette wheel spin gives a prespecified outcome whose probability is 1/100. The roulette wheel will actually be a negotiation between Vinny and Carl.
At the beginning of the negotiation, Vinny generates Rv, a large random integer, and then computes H, a one-way hash of Rv. Vinny transmits H to Carl. After he receives H, Carl generates his own random number Rc and transmits it to Vinny. Upon receipt of the value of Rc, Vinny transmits Rv to Carl. Carl computes the hash of Rv to verify that it is equal to H. Both of them can now compute the roulette wheel spin value, which is ((Rv + Rc) mod 100), and if the value of the spin is zero, then Carl agrees to mail a check for $5.
In order to cheat, either party would need to manipulate the value of ((Rv+Rc) mod 100). Vinny can't cheat because he has committed to the value of Rv before Carl generates Rc, and Carl can use H to test his commitment. Carl can't cheat because he must generate Rc and transmit it to Vinny before he sees the value of Rv. Carl can't compute Rv from H because the hash function is one-way.
Both parties have equal amounts of work to do. Each must generate a large random integer and perform a one-way hash.
If it turns out that Carl must pay the check, Vinny's website will create a transcation record in Vinny's database, including a transaction number. Carl's browser will show a form, which Carl should print out or copy onto a piece of paper, giving the transaction number as well as Vinny's name and address, so that Carl has an easy time making his payment.
It is prominently obvious to Carl that the transaction has been recorded; if he welches on the check then Vinny will know about it, and Vinny may then deny him access to any other payable goods. There's the question of how Vinny can tell whether a later visitor is the same person who welched before; Carl could make up a new user-id, or telnet to a different host and visit from there to have a different IP address, or do other tricks, but these fall outside the scope of this protocol.
How hard would it be for a single vendor (say, Scott McCloud) to set up a system like this? He would need to provide the client-side executable for his visitors to perform their side of the protocol. He would need to explain the protocol clearly enough to convince them that it's fair. His customers would need to agree to the probabilistic micropayment idea at all, but that's actually easy enough to do: he puts a link from his website that says, "go here if you agree to the probabilistic micropayment protocol, and you can shop for stuff", and they go there and get to see low-res fuzzy versions of interesting and amusing comics. When they do the protocol, they get the high-res sharp versions, and in 1% of the cases, they are obliged to mail in a check.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Haahahahahaha!
Ahem. Hehehe.
If this ever happened, I might pay *JUST* to see integrity on Slashdot.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH! HEHEHEHEEH!
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
And if I may expand on this a bit...
The content is going to stay free due to basic free-market effects. The barriers to entry are so low as to be non-existant. Therefore any idiot can start producing content. You can even produce pretty good content for next to nothing (like /.). In a market where anybody can enter, competition will drive the price down to the minimum amount that will allow the manufacturers to stay open. And since there are nearly no fixed costs, that cost is the marginal cost, which as stated before, is darn near zero.
A meatspace example is farming. The barriers to entry to farming are pretty low. Anyone can get a loan to buy a couple hundred acres, get a load for seed/equipment/chemicals, and pay someone else to actually do the work for a low hourly wage. As a result, the cost of food has approached the cost of producing it. That is because as soon as the price of food rises much above the cost of production, somebody else will enter the market and supply more.
The only reason that more products aren't that cheap is barriers to entry. Take, for example, CPU's. It takes a lot of money to develop a CPU, and it is very risky. The barriers to entry are quite high. There are, then, only a handful of major CPU makers (Intel, IBM (S390), AMD, Sun (UltraSpark), Compaq (Alpha)). Since there are only a few firms competing, they act like an oligopily (read: sorta-monopoly), and can charge a higher price. On the other hand, RAM is dirt cheap (as far as chips go), mainly because it is so easy to design and fab RAM, leading to low(er) barriers to entry. Can you even count the number of RAM-chip producers? I thought not.
Now, that doesn't mean that you can't charge for information. Copyright allows an easy way to manufacture a barrier to entry (legally too). For example, take a look at how much the ACM's Digital Library cost (for the lazy, $38 for students, $185 otherwise, must already be a ACM member too). I pay that (and get my money's worth), because there is no other way to get that particular (and very high quality) content. The material is copyrighted, and ACM is (usually) the copyright holder (sometimes ACM doesn't have the copyright, but is one of few holders of distribution rights).
So, yes, that's exactly it. It's cheap because there is a "strong incentive" (market forces) to provide it for cheap.
1. It costs me money. The more it costs, the less I enjoy it. Right now the internet as a whole costs me about 40 dollars per month. At this price I am getting good value in exchange for those dollars. Open Source software is saving me license fees, kids are learning a lot, and don't need to go to the library as often. Long distance calls can be made now. One really long call can easily justify the cost per month. Services are ok now, but will get better.
.net is about. Owning communication and identification in such a way as to profit from it --smart bastards.)
2. There will never be anonymous payment systems. Too much potential for abuse. I don't enjoy people knowing what I am looking at. It's the principle really. Going into a bookstore with cash means I get what I want, can read it as many times as I want, and nobody really knows that I have it, unless I tell them. This is the way most things should be online.
3. What can they really sell that I have to get online that I need, and would be willing to sit at my computer to enjoy? Think about it. Online access to information is easy and fast, but the real value so far is in the communication, not so much the content. Hard to sell that given the current structure of the net. (This is what
4. When I actually buy content, I expect to be able to refer to it as needed anywhere I want, any time I wan't until I choose to give up that right. This applies to books, cd's --basically any thing that comes to me on physical media. I have media from 20 years ago that sometimes is interesting. How long will you have access to online content you have paid for?
If the media is more fragile than the value warrants, then I expect to be able to make backups to protect my investment as well.
5. Basically I don't plan on doing pay per play at all and this looks like the model that most corporations want. Some things are worth it. Concerts, movies in the theatre, shows, these all involve some experience that makes them worth doing and paying for. Hard to point to anything online that has this quality now. Nobody likes pay per play. It forces you to keep track of what you are spending. takes the freedom, fun, whatever out of the whole thing.
Why do you think they only do day passes at Disneyland? People don't want to keep track of their cash! Would not be any fun to realise that the Dumbo ride sucks, and costs almost as much as Splash Mountain would it? Would getting a bad ride be more or less of a big deal if you had to pay again to find out? Nasty questions for a place all about fun.
This also is the same reason the casinos like to get you to put some cash into the little cards. You just plug into the machine and just press buttons for a while. Gets the actual act of handling the money out of your immediate attention so you can ENJOY LOSING IT!
Finally, paying for the internet until now implies that you can view most of the content and participate. If that changes, then the actuall connection to the net is worth less. How many of you think that connect charges are actually going to go down if that happens?
Thought so...
Blogging because I can...
As long as I find alternatives I won't pay anything.
You are absolutely right. No one wants to pay because of the competion by 'free' sites. When A charges for its service and B is available for free, people go to B. Simple economics.
To come back at the example in the story: ringtones are available for free on many places. They aren't transmitted to your phone, but you'll have to type it in manually. Many, many, peoply prefer the cumbersome typing over the confort of the payed option.
When you think this doesn't apply to websites: think again. Paying is troublesome. You'll have to do stuff to get what you want. Not paying is easier, so people choose not to pay.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
...indirectly. Fact of the matter is that given a free story from Associated Press, and one from the New York Times (also free, but registration required), I will choose the AP story because it's more convenient. So the paying for a site directly, every time you go, may never get off the ground, because there are site's that don't charge and have the same stuff. The exception is pr0n, where they pretty much all started pay per use at the same time, but gnutella is starting to reverse that.
Cable TV beat this by making cable usage functionally equivalent to flipping normal channels. would you pay for cable if it meant a convoluted process every time you flipped a channel...like a patch bay?
The keenbeans of industry realize this, and know that the one place they can reliably charge for content is in the service bills. I spend more money on DSL than cable, movies, print and whatnot each month.
It's equivalent, only instead of per use payment, it's aggregated payment.
Given this context, it's a lot easier to understand the AOL Time-Warner merger. They want to get paid for access to media, so they merge with the largest provider of access, and live off the service bills.
Sony is the most hypocritical of the people embracing this kind of billing. Their music division is crying foul about mp3, but their electronics division is making money from mp3's. If you download Sony Music's mp3's from napster, and burn them on a Sony CD-R drive, you are indirectly paying Sony for those mp3's, because the money ends up in the same place, eventually, that it would had you paid for the mp3 directly...especially if the reason you bought the CD-R in the first place was to burn their music, and wouldn't have otherwise (which is usually the case for consumers these days).
So yeah, people are going to be reluctant to charge for content which is nearly identicle to the free stuff, because people will stop coming to their site. However, a site investing in the infrastructure needed to get to their site can charge their viewers indirectly, and still seem like a free service to their audience.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
PayPal does something like that, as I recall.
This is the obvious reason where a digital currency (read: cash-like, send a "token" automatically or via a single click and away you go without doing any of the above steps or directly revealing your personal info) would be great.
Unfortunately all current governments like to keep their monopoly on minting and controlling currencies so the concept has never been properly implemented in such a way that it could catch on.
The cost of running online services combined with basic greed makes current sites want to collect personal info and subscriber habits because that information is considered valuable and is needed for poor credit card "authentication".
One idea: Paypal or someone similar should make open source browser plugins for all platforms so that a simple tag could be used to indicate when a zero or one click micropayment is needed to the server. (the current several clicks, into another site, system that both they and amazon offer is too cumbersome)
The server should then refuse any more requests from that user (a session id in the URL or a session only cookie is required) until they have paid.
Trusted sites should be configurable (one-click automagically) in the software to say "pay this content provider without asking up to this much over this period of time"
...
get the picture?
that's doable ontop of existing stuff today.
A similar UI structure to the above would be needed for a digital token based content payment system.
Reasons this will never happen anytime soon:
* providers would need to start charging reasonable and consistent tiny fees per chunk of content. haha.
* contracts for royalties as written today would likely require keeping detailed accounting of each micropayment and fraction of where it should go. This makes micropayments useless as the cost of such accounting is too high.
In the '80s, this was the method used to get patches and support for most computer-based products (hardware and software). The free section had generic information and the chat rooms. To access the support sections of companies hosting forums there you were charged per-minute for access. Bills could be extremely high if a large patch was needed and you were limited to 1200 baud modem connections.
Then came the Internet, and slowly companies closed their CompuServe forums and directed customers to access their new (and free) website. The fact that 1) access was now free, and 2) people could access the site through highspeed connections at work, school, and eventualy home made the pay-for-access model obsolete.
To now, nearly a decade later, try to reimplement a pay-for-access model on top of that which has been free all along - is destined to fail. The Internet now is too large and diverse to clamp down upon. That's why so many .com's have gone under. They set up, went public, and based their entire business upon a fallacy that they can charge for content on the Internet. Once they went online, they found that too many free alternatives existed online to make any money. Poof! They exhaust IPO capital and disappear.
Personally, I pay for things with lasting value - a book, a CD, an OS or Application's installation media, etc. I don't view this as paying for the contents of that media - I'm paying for the media itself. That's what adds the "lasting" to the value. Internet content is far too dynamic and temporary for me to get anything "lasting" from it's content. Therefore - I see very little value outside what it costs for me to connect via my ISP.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
The middleman aspect is bad, it's true. I'd almost prefer to see a co-op of sites (as described by Scott Kurtz in a recent rant) that work together to provide the subscriber one billing contact for a collection of high-quality content. You still have a middleman, but at least they wouldn't be out to make a profit. Think credit union as opposed to bank, for example.
The RIAA without a profit motive could remain truly focused on getting the artists the money they deserve, without needlessly hyping just one or two obscenely popular acts.
It will never come to pass, but that's what I'd pay for, anyway.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
From my reading it's only a subscription if you wish to avoid the banner ads. Personally, I don't find banner ads annoying enough to pay to avoid them, since I've developed the fine art of ignoring or scrolling down slightly to block them. But it would be a good thing to have the option.
OTOH, there is good content out there that I would pay for. I'm not sure if user-contributed discussion sites will ever be able to transition to full pay-per-view since the whole worth of the site is the user comments - asking users to pay in order to contribute to an online resource is basically the dumb idea that Napster's currently having.
What we need is not smaller payments (micropayments) but bigger (or "chunkier") content. If I could pay $10-15/month to a central authority and know that I would have free reign to reload /. all day, a metered number of posts at k5, and get my daily online comics as required, I'd jump at the chance to support my favorite sites. But I don't want to follow the recording industry system and subsidize sites that I can't stand with my $10. My contribution has to go to the sites I actually want to support, and the user has to be able to specify that they want to be able to read some sites in an unlimited manner, read others in a limited manner (I only need so many Google searches per week, but I do need them), and specify that others will only be hit once per day, etc.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Paypal has to be able to make money off of their microtransactions and they probably cost money themselves -- they have an infrastructure that needs feeding, and more than likely pay bank costs to implement some of these charges.
I think there's probably some minimum level at which small payments can't work due to the transaction processing costs. It's not just a dozen encrypted packets ensuring the payments, its a whole infrastructure, auditing and so on to make it work.
It just seems unlikely that a third party can process sub-dollar charges and make any money on it. What does make sense is some government entity (federal reserve? post office?) getting involved and creating a centralized clearninghouse for financial transactions. It would still cost money, only be available in US dollars, but it would likely make transactions down to the $.05 practical for payers and payees alike.
I was talking about micropayments with a friend of mine, and he brought up the fact that there's an expression "nickel and dime you to death" for a reason. Lots of little payments are hard to keep track of, and they add up fast; if you view 1,000 bits of web-content that cost you a nickel each (like, say, browsing through archives of a comic strip), all of a sudden that's $50.00. He feels that people aren't going to want to subject themselves to a system where it's so easy to end up owing more than you realize.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Here's another detail: I started getting a PayPal
account, and noticed that my spam rate at least
doubled after I gave them my email address.
If they're not selling your email, someone is
doing something clever to spy on their traffic.
It certainly didn't make me feel inclined to
continue with the process of getting an
account.
Consider the fact that people are willing to pay quite a bit of money for computer books, even if they (or the equivalent information) is available online.
It all comes down to the fact that computers really, really suck, in many ways.
And the ways in which computers *don't* suck have largely to do with providing new ways for people to interact with each other on a personal level. It's got little to do with connecting to big batches of canned content.
(Weird thought: celebrities could probably sell pen-pal rights. A well-known person can't possibly respond to every piece of random email, but maybe they could follow the email from 100 people willing to kick in $1000 each for the right to that consideration...)
If we have to pay for the content, shouldn't we get paid for providing the content??? If I provide an article to a site that charges for access, I should be paid for it. After all, I'm providing the content they're getting paid for... I'm also unsure that the pay-for-no-ads model will be all that successful. I don't know about anyone else, but I've gotten to the point where I can tune out the banner ads for the most part. Admittedly, I do get annoyed when I have to wait for a page to finish loading, but the ad appears in the first couple of seconds. But, when the ads are just hanging out on the top and/or bottom of a (fast loading) page, it doesn't bother me.
The problem with this stems from the fact that not everyone assigns the same value to content.
Not everyone assigns the same value to candy bars either. So if a candy bar is 75 cents, some people will pay 75 cents, and some people won't buy any. (And some people will shoplift.)
What's special about "content" that we need to find a way around the same supply-and-demand pricing issues that exist in every other market?
It's really not any more complicated than that.
Maybe if there were actually content online, I'd pay for it. In the meantime, if you're going to run a public server from which I can download things for free (from a you-charging-for-it perspective), don't be surprised if we happen to not give a shit about your new subscription services (insert sound of Salon swishing around the edge of the toilet bowl).
Also please explain the voodoo Slashdot logic in your example that went into the idea that since Jack was willing to pay $10 for a chunk of information that was priced at $5, that suddenly he decides not to buy it.
----- The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they will be when you kill them.
Don't buy a pig in a poke.
Once bitten, twice shy.
Those two little phrases sum up why I tend to be reluctant to pay for content. The times that I have, I have frequently found that what I paid for was worth less than what I could have gotten for free. Sometimes not, but it's quite difficult to tell ahead of time. And as for testimonials... Do you believe the candidates surveys? Do you believe Microsoft sponsored software comparisons?
So there are two problems. Establishing credibility and proving incremental value. Both are quite difficult. A lot of people get bitten a few times before they learn, so there's an early bulge in the demand. Then it quickly drops off, as the ex-customers start going out of their way to avoid repeat business.
OTOH, some vendors I deal with repeatedly. But I'm charry of new ones. And new products, even from established companies. They are so often quite disappointing. Usually I'll only purchase a new item to display support for past favors. If, say, I purchase a subscription to the Black Adder from the Kompany then it's likely to be because I've heard of their donations of software to KDE. If the product is good, then I'm likely to purchase upgrades from them. If it's terrible, I don't feel too ripped off, because it was really a gesture of support to a friend of the community.
This wouldn't be a good business model if things cost much per each to make, but as it is it may work, and in any case, it's one that the on-line vendors need to live with. Or not, but the model isn't going away.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It's quite simple really. I can go to one site a be entertained for a while for some money, or I can go to a different site and be entertained for a while gratis. Which would you pick?
....right? :-P
Failing the availability of sites that don't charge for content (ha ha), there's always coding which we're all supposed to be doing right now anyway... right?
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Yep, I've had that with Rat Shack. Odd thing, though. When I've got folding green in my hand and I tell them "I don't see why you need to know that. Now, either let me pay for my stuff or tell me you don't want my business and I'll cheerfully go down to Fry's from now on where they'll be happy to take my money no questions asked.", the cash register suddenly becomes quite happy to take the sale without any information. Money talks, loudly.
People won't pay because they're angry.
(Warning: this post will break the long-lived social belief that opinions should be entirely devoid of human emotion lest those opinions lose their credibility. If you happen to be someone who believes this adage to be true, then you shouldn't read this post; and instead should please yourself watching the bevy of security camera footage tapes that I'm sure exist. The rest of us human beings can read on.)
That's right, angry... and for a whole lot of reasons, too.
See, when I want a new shirt, I can go to the store, look at it, try it on, ogle at how it looks on me in a mirror, and decide whether or not I want to purchase.
When I want a new car, I can go to a dealership, drive the car around town, inspect every part of it, and make up my mind as to whether or not I really like it.
When I want an apple, I can pick the one I think looks, feels, and even smells the best out of a huge stack of apples at the grocer or at one of many farmer's markets around town. (At the markets, in fact, I'm encouraged by the mom-and-pop vendors to taste the product. But I wouldn't really recommend putting produce up to your nose and smelling it in public.)
However, suddenly, when the product I'm interested in happens to fall into the "information" category, I'm now expected to pay to even find out if a bit of information I want is even available, much less find out what the quality of that data is.
If I want to know what a particular band sounds like, I'm told (by the artists, on more then one occasion) that I should "buy the CD and find out." (A CD costs anywhere from $15-$20 brand new; that much money routinely feeds me nutritiously for a week. I refuse to spend a week's worth of food money only to find out that a certain group's latest offering sounds like crap.
When I want to know whether or not Word XP will fill my word processing needs, I have to not only buy the CD's, but also call Microsoft to get permission to USE the farking things. And that permission only lasts a year or two! (Just when you thought that only shareware was time limited...)
And yes, there are ways around all these problems - but you utilize these methods at risk of being branded a criminal (and possibly persecuted as one) by greedy people with too much free time©.
If a department store hired bouncers and enforced a cover charge at every door - so you'd have to pay ten bucks before even being allowed to go in and see if there are any clothes you might want - how long do you think they would stay in business?
If you bought a book, but were told that several armed police officers would come to your door after a year or two and arrest you if you hadn't paid for that book again by that time... how many bookstores would stay in business?
If your only choice of produce were limited to several small, online pictures and word-of-mouth reputation vouchers, how long do you think it would be before your online-only grocery store went out of business? (Oh, wait... we know the answer to that one already.)
As a people, we're angry. Angry that someone went out there went and changed the established, customer-is-always-right, service-with-a-smile rules around. Angry that the new system of commercialism is based on blind purchases, leaps of faith, zero-privacy, and other, similar systems designed from the ground-up to screw the customer at every turn. Angry that a group of well-funded, shiny-toothed suits have decided to try and turn what was designed to be a free system of communication into yet another way to make money. And angry that anyone who thinks this is a total crock and peacefully subverts this mockery of a system (even for perfectly legitamate reasons) is branded a criminal and consequently sent to jail and/or robbed of their (legally purchased) equipment.
At this point, it's a wonder people aren't routinely sacking and pillaging the nearest Virgin Records Megastore. I know for me, on a personal note, if Anger were People, I'd be China.
--WorLord
You're shopping at the wrong store. By going to the store that requires a card, you're encouraging that stupid behavior. I go to the stores that DO NOT use a card system. And I periodically call up the managers of the stores that do have them and ask them "Have you dumped that stupid card system yet?". You're letting THEM win.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I can give you my personal reason I'm averse to paying for online content: A percieved lack of value-add, with a concrete chunk of money extracted from my account regularly.
A good example of this is Ars Technica. I wanted to read an article. I noticed a link to download a pdf version of the file. I figured "great, I can print it out and read it in bed!". I click the link and it turns out you not only have to register, you have to pay a monthly membership fee.
So now I've got two options: pony up $50 a year for a membership, for which I may or may not ever want to print an article out again, or just print out the (lousy due to paged html setup) web pages.
In other cases I'm reluctant to sign up for a site because it's one more thing to explain to the wife -- but honey, I really need this!
I would be more willing to 'pay as you go' if I could use some form of digital cash/micropayment system that didn't hassle you to sign up and if the products in question didn't cost too much. Back to my original example, I would happily have paid $0.50 for the privilege of printing a nicely formatted pdf over the crappy browser printout. But I am unwilling to if I have to register, give out tons of personal details, a credit card, etc. etc.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
Pay for music? Only if it's EXACTLY the song I want, in the format I want, and I have the ablity to tranfer it to other devices or use it however I see fit (not including piracy or distribution). It would also be nice to be able to recover my music in the event of hardware/software failure. This would stimulate & fill a need in my life.
Pay for Slashdot? Only if I can avoid hotgrits, goatsex, Natalie Portman, Pirst Fost, Jon Katz, Anonymous Cowards, and advertising. Util Taco and company can filter the noise and give me nothing but signal -- I won't pay. This also applies to other forms of "pseudo-journalism" on the Net. It doesn't stimulate me or fill a need in my life.
As the author pointed out -- information has different value to different people. What is worth $10 to you might be worth $0 to me! I think we should stop killing ourselves by trying to figure out ways to make a "quick buck" off the Net. Ever since 1992 everyone has been asking the eternal question: "How do we make money off it?"
Answer: You don't.
The sites that DO make money? Porn: it stimulates people (literally) and fills a need in their life. Money: The finance sites that charge for content appeal to our greed and stimulate us with dreams of wealth.
But, unless you can create some compelling new type of infomation that fills the goals -- you aren't going to make money charging for it.
What artifact do you get when you get a massage? What artifact do you get when you go to the theatre? What about taking a class in school, what artifact (aside from books) do you get from that?
And how is this different from any other type of publishing? Magazine publishers need to set the appropriate price for their publications. Same with newspapers, book publishers, music labels.... If the price is set too high, they lose sales. Too low, they don't turn a profit. It sounds like the same problem to me. So why is this an issue? What's different?
To my mind, the answer is perception. The Web is perceived as being this huge, egalitarian town square, where everyone has a voice, and everyone has equal access to what's being said. Nice dream, but it's just not true. Being connected costs money, for the content provider and for the content viewer. But these costs are hidden for the most part - I can easily see that the book I hold in my hand required resources and effort to produce. The end results are here, physically in my hands, and I have no problem paying for it.
But I can't hold web content in my hand (unless I print it, using my own toner and paper). The costs of the web server or hosting service are hidden from me. I'm already paying for my ISP, my PC, the software that I'm running to get on the web. Isn't that enough?
I think that is the true problem here. People don't understand the publishing costs on the web, because the costs are intangible. And while that's true, I think it will be very difficult to get people to pay for content on a regular basis.
Oh, for the record, I would have no problem paying a small monthly or annual subscription fee to sites that I find particularly useful (like Slashdot). And the micropayment schemes mentioned a while back in Bob Cringely's columns here and here make a lot of sense to me.
I'd pay ten bucks a year for slashdot.org content. I figure, viewing the site once a day (workday that is, subtracting days off) and the number of articles of interest, that's about a penny an article. Not bad for me, and hell, you guys need the money ... right?
:)
Now consider a similar subscription model with the RIAA,MPAA, or some corporation in the media industry. What is it worth to listen to streaming audio, news, and movies? To me, I won't give the RIAA, MPAA, or the any more than necessary. And for that price, they probably aren't interested in me as a customer
But then, I am not the custoomer they are after. All those NASCAR watching, Microsoft using, WWF fans out there (lowest common denominator) are the target. They would pay a nice chunk out of their cable bill to watch a streaming video of TheRock beat the hell out of some wanker in make-up with Dale Earnhardts limp body on Window Media Player.
rm -rf ms/*
I find this question rather disturbing question, especially since it's on slashdot. Most information should be free just like most software should be free. Source code is essentially just information, after all.
The reality is very few sources actually produce real "content" - newspapers for instance - and usually even these mediums make their money from advertising, not subscribership. This is NOT a new phenomenon, it's the standard. Typically most printed publication's cover price only cover production and distribution - which incidentally is much lower with online publishing! Their cash cow is advertising.
Not that it's fair that online content providers don't have that income, but let's be clear - it's not the principal source of income for other publishers. Why should it be for them?
Many sites - slashdot, for instance - simply link other people's stories (Imagine having to pay separately for each story you read!). This means the principal added value is convenience by having interesting stories bundled together. Many people (myself included) don't see this worth my hard earned dollars. I pay for access to digital TV, I don't pay for each individual show.
I'd pay to read Slashdot, as well as all the other daily sources I read online every day.
The real question is... how do I pay $0.076? The person who figures that out (and makes it convenient and ubiquitous) will revolutionize the online world...
This is a factor I hadn't considered in why people won't pay for content.
I think this relates to the mistrust between people and large content providers now - do we REALLY trust the MPAA, RIAA, etc.? I don't. Once micropayments start, I do expect people to search for even MORE ways to gouge us.
Come to think of it, the trust factor explains a LOT about aversion to paying for content, perhaps the critical factor.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I've thought about this issue myself, and first of all I don't think there's one answer. Any complex question like this isn't going to be answered simply.
However, I believe there are several specific answers:
ACCESS: We've got a lot of free information out there - libraries, personal sites, etc. Or we can pay a small amount for a book then hand it around making it free for the borrowers.. People like this, people are used to this. If you want them to pay, they'd like to see a good reason as to why.
BACKLASH: Let's face it, we're tired of the RIAA, MPAA, DMCA, and all the other collections of letters that have been screwing with us. We don't want to pay because the money always seems to be going to a bunch of pompous, controlling a$$es. If people knew more money was going right to the folks doing the work, there'd be less whining.
INTERPRETATION: Cable in my area is basically information delivery you pay for. People understand that, but payments for content on line have been pitched very poorly, and usually when someone suddenly needed a buck to keep a site going. People need to see that paying for content (in one for or another), isn't unusual in the non-computer world.
SELFISHNESS: People don't want to cough up $$$ sometimes, even if it'll help keep a writer or artist in business.
ENTITLEMENT: People were used to all sorts of free net services before The Crash. They still feel like things should be free.
Well, those are my theories, my 1/50th of a dollar (US please, the exchange rate is pretty good).
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Its funny. This is the second time in less than a month that a Slashdot article has been addressing a question we are covering in our "editorial" page. :)
Look for an article titled "Got to pay the Freight" in the July edition of Cat Tracks (available later this week at http://www.heavycat.com/cattracks/)
Here is a preview of our thoughts:
The bottom line (pun intended) is that small businesses are being hurt by this irrational distrust of anyone who even attempts to sell something on line. There is a huge amount of inertia in the "get it free at any price" approach to doing business on the internet.
Yet, every single one of the IP addresses from which the complaints are heard is purchased at a monthly subscription rate (even the "free" ones). So there is money out there somewhere.
Anything good on the internet costs money to produce. Sometimes a lot of money. People complain all the time that they are tired of all the content being produced by big faceless passionless corporations, yet when a small company comes along and takes a risk to produce something worth paying for, everyone starts carping "oh, they're just trying to rip us off."
In reality, they are trying to make a profit so they can continue to produce cool stuff. There is now a means for producers to reach their customers directly, with little or no markup. Here's a good example:
Our company is getting ready to release our first game volume. We found a way to reduce our bandwidth costs (costs of delivering the game) substantially, and so we immediately cut our prices by almost 50%. Why? Because we want people to play and enjoy our game. We want to be good business participants on the Internet and not just be "in it for the money." We think that will invite people to continue to buy our products precisely because we aren't trying to rip them off.
However, we have to make a profit, otherwise we can't justify doing the next project. If we have to cancel our plans, that will deprive people who like our games of future products, and they'll have to go back to the faceless corporations for their games.
Its simple economics. There is a demand for good content on-line, and therefore there are businesses, many of them small businesses, that are trying to provide it. Don't automatically assume that everyone with a credit card logo on their site is a greedy, money-grubbing profiteer. Vote with your dollars. If you find something you like on-line, help that company continue to produce it. That company likely spent a lot of money to get that content produced in the first place.
Our $0.02 :)
Because there is a demand for better content. Producing that content takes time and materials, and equipment to deliver it, and all of that costs money. Those costs have to be recovered. Food, housing and clothing costs money. People have to make a living.
You can not like it. You can complain about it, but the bills arrive at the same time every month. That's the reality.
Hypothetical product:
A search engine that returned five results of extremely high quality with precise and exact information regarding the search terms or question, and did so with 90% reliability.
Cost to subscribe: $99/year.
I think such a site would probably do quite well. Its primary value would be its quality. You can go wade through 100,000 results on a free engine or get 5 high quality results on the pay engine.
For development information and documentation, I think the value of such an engine would far exceed its cost. This is one potential business plan that might succeed.
Just a thought.
Fortunately for you, the media and telecomm titans are working 80-hour weeks to accomplish the remaining mergers that will make this possible, albeit at a slightly higher price to the consumer. :-)
More seriously, it does get to be an incredible nuisance to juggle even a half-dozen snail mail periodical subscriptions, and I agree that people will only agree to pay for content when it is made one-stop subscriptions for content rather than piecemeal subscriptions or dime-at-a-time micropayments. And I do think there is some hope for that.
Babar
Why pay for what you can get for free? That's the cold, hard truth. I'm not going to pay for something without a reason. And 'well, if nobody pays, we might go out of business' is not a good enough reason.
When everyone goes out of business, and there is only one good discussion site left, then maybe I'll pay to use it, as I have no other choice. Or maybe I'll just go outside and play catch with the neighbor's kids.
I don't pay people to come over and fix my computer because I can do it myself. Am I depriving some kid of his job?
It's about ease of use. If I get the same results, subjectively, whether I pay or not, I won't pay, because it involves less work, and there is no additional reward.
It has to get to the point where the convenience/reward I percieve is greater than that sense of loss I have when parting with my money (and the effort required to do so).
Back in 1995, everyone was trying to squeeze a way to get money out of the free Internet. Content on the Internet was free and people only paid for access.
Capitalists believed they could get money through portals, but they were very wrong. Now the Internet is populated with free content, there's no way they can profit from that.
Tha Internet is a great medium for *individuals* and not so for corporations, get over it.
Hugo
Well, one of many problems is the unwillingness / inability of content providers to charge realistic rates. Partly, this is due to the very low conversion rate of free->paying customers and to the high overall cost of customer acquisition, but it also seems like many providers have their heads in the sand.
Take, for instance, LinuxGram, which I definitely enjoy. I'd even pay $20 a year for it, which is what I pay for Dr. Dobbs. But their subscription price is $100.00 a year, which I find ludicrous. Or look at the They Might Be Giants Unlimited service on eMusic.com. For access to TMBG songs, plus interviews, they want $10 a month! Isn't that a bit shameless for access to content from a single band?
--JRZ
- Most online content is worthless and the consumers know it. Stuff like
/. may be mildly entertaining, but the SN ratio is nearly 0. Most other online content providers are in the same basket.
- This is a classic example of the cartel quandry: a cartel is only stable so long as absolute control can be exerted over the members of the cartel. As soon as one member of the cartel breaks ranks (in order to increase their income by decreasing prices but increasing quantity) the cartel pricing structure collapses. With most cartels, there is a small matter of minimum investment necesary to enter the market, which restricts the number of possible players and eases the quandry somewhat. With online content, however, the barriers to entry are almost zero (especially with a fluff site like
/.) hence there is no opportunity to install a cartel pricing structure.
Since information, in general, is a fluid comodity, all profit from information properties is based on some form of cartel or monopoly. For copyrightable information, these monopolies are support by legislation and judicial action, but this only works if the information itself is, somehow, unique and valuable.Most online content is either non-unique or of very little value (or both. /. falls into this last category). You simply can't charge money for something that the market doesn't value or can get elsewhere for free.
So, the point is that the vast online readership will probably never pay for most online content. The only way to squeeze any revenue out of online content is to either produce something entirely unique and unreproducable (difficult and costly to do, both because of production costs, and becuase you will probably need to defend ownership and control of the content in court) or you will need to establish a reputation which ensures a consistant readership, and trade access to that readership to third parties (advertisers).
All that said, I'm admittedly writing from a perspective where I've never had to deal with $1000-a-month server bills, or worry about going broke from rampant popularity. And that's a real issue for some people, and I agree that people who create good content deserve to be rewarded and supported in their efforts, in a way that doesn't compromise their creativity.
But I don't see a magic solution to these issues emerging anytime soon - if ever. Because there really are a lot of intertangled issues involved, and it's taken this long (*ages* in internet time) just to get people to start asking the right questions, and thinking about the whole issue in a suitably nuanced manner.
I'll also mention that, from where I sit, the most useful thing people can do is get involved somehow on a personal level -- create your own content, write a substantive fan letter to the creator of your favorite semi-obscure site, talk about the issues with your less-techie friends and family. I completely agree that a good, popular site can't happen without money, but I also think that untangling these dilemmas is at least as much a cultural issue as an economic one.
I am worried that if I have to pay $5/month for EVERY site I visit while I waste 10 minutes at work, I will go broke.
I don't read kuro5hin regularly, so their "pay $5 or the kitty gets it" doesn't directly affect me. On the other hand, my bookmarks include about 15 daily timewasters (/. being the number one of them). If in six months, 5 of those 15 ask me for anywhere from 5 to 10 dollars, I will think twice before paying. That's 25 to 50 dollars a month just to keep me from doing work. The reason I (and everyone else's grandmother) read 15 websites a day is that no one website provides ALL the information I have grown to need. Paying $5 for the miniscule information each ONE website provides does not look like a reasonable micropayment.
Paying $0.49 of "pain-in-the-ass-micropayments" for a month of Penny-Arcade/Goats/Dilbert/(even UF though it has become bad IMHO) is not the problem for me, because I know I'll read each and every one of them and get a few laughs. The problem is paying $5 for each website (freshmeat/k5/rootprompt/slashdot/fuckedcompany) that fails to attract me for longer than 2 minutes a day.
just my two cents.
P.S. I am probably not going to visit k5 now. but they won't miss me.
I was thinking of how to intentionally fail my drug test... It would make a good memoir story someday.
I won't pay for content because I don't want all the sites on the web to be pay sites. As long as people refuse to pay for content, there won't be any incentive for sites to go pay.
-J
---Joe Merlino gnupg public key ID: 1E91EBAF
--Ben
I think you just said that you want a .NET environment.
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
Micropayments won't work, as others have mentioned it would just stop people from searching.
The big problem with online content is the lack of advertising dollars available to support it. I have a few sites, I get not bad traffic on them, in 4 days I managed to display 20,000 ads on 20,000 page views, I made $0.09, umm, there's something wrong with this picture. My local newspaper reaches 17,000 homes, yet I know I can't call them up and offer them 9 cents to run an ad there, no matter how small I make it.
Granted most of the ads were for affiliates via cj.com, it doesn't work, now CJ is trying to get me to run ads for Ebay and other networks, pretty much for free. Not likely, why should I contribute to branding campaigns for companies with no payment? I wouldn't stick a Coca Cola banner on my pages without Coke paying per impression and I'm not about to start with well known sites like Ebay either.
What did I do? I pulled most of the ads from the pages, they weren't worth the bandwidth costs for the banner code.
Something needs to be done that's for sure, but who knows what. For now I'll keep the sites up and if someone wants their ad in front of the visitors to my sites they can pay me directly, in real dollars for each impression, regardless of whether the viewers click their banners. I see lots of ads in magazines, television and elsewhere but I certainly don't run out and buy the products being pitched every time.
Trips
and it's hard to change. Let's face it -- everyone on the Internet really expects most (if not all) things on it to be free. Email, newsgroups, IRC, /., open source are all "free" (there are maintenance costs that most end users don't see). If something is free, people don't want to start paying for it. Even if it's something new, if it looks like it would have been free, people complain. We're incredibly attached to our money, and don't really like spending it (well, I can think of a few who do :)
But the real issue with paying for content is that you're not really getting anything. Sure, you're paying for the information, which costs money to gather, but in the end, you have less money for nothing physical. And not just nothing physical -- what you got has no resale value because you can't resell it. So you pay money for something that's practically worthless. What you get might be useful to you, but if it's not, you're screwed. You can't return it, you can't sell it to try to recouperate what you spent, you just lost out. So maybe you like your new cell phone jingle, and if so, it's probably worth the money you spent on it, but if you don't, you're out of luck. I think that's the real issue. It's not that people don't necessairly want to pay for content, but that if the content isn't what they want or need, they can't return it or sell it to someone else.
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
It's even better than that.
I sign up for "Everything" with my cable company. They charge me like 60 bucks a month, and I get every channel they offer (except for PPV), 24/7.
Let's put it this way. I love the Sopranos. It's the best thing on TV these days. But I wouldn't want to have to give you my credit card every time I watch an episode, nor would I pay 2 bucks an episode to watch it. I pay $20 a month extra to be able to watch all the Sopranos I can handle, as well as all the other stuff I can handle on 20 other movie channels (yay Digital Cable).
If you could offer people the same deal on the net, they'd take it. But the net _isn't_ tv. Part of what makes it great is that it isn't tv. I don't want an Internet where every site I visit is controlled by one of 3 major companies.
So, we're screwed. People are used to paying one fee and getting a bunch of stuff with it. They pay their ISP 20 bucks a month (more for cable/dsl) and expect the same sort of deal.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Like I said -- cable service is a service, not a thing. I pay for cable once, and not again when I watch the show. For those that say I pay again with advertising -- true, for channels that run ads. But when I watch HBO (or any of the other 20 movie channels), I get no ads.
You pay for a newspaper subscription. Yes, you can physically touch the newspaper today, but once the recycling truck drives off, it's gone.
But the point stands -- I get something to hold in my hands. I can read it on the john. I can take it to a friend's house. I don't get 404 errors when I try and follow a link (i.e. turn the page). And I pay _once_, and get a wealth of stuff. I pay my measly 10 bucks a month, and I get all the news I can handle, with rather high quality reporting on world and local events, as well as sports, commentary, and comics (why pay a micropayment for Penny Arcade when I can pay a micropayment [50 cents] and get an entire newspaper, including 20+ comics?).
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
The things you describe, to me, are either services (massage, education), or entertainment (theatre). They don't really fit the web paradigm.
Let's say you're at the massage. You paid $100 for this massage. The guy applies pressure to one spot on your back, and then says, "If you liked that, would you mind paying an extra dime for a little more pressure?"
Ok, obviously I'm stretching an already bad analogy.
As for entertainment, I don't spend money on movies I've never heard of. I already spend 20$ a month to get 20 movie channels. I'm only going to spend 20$ a night to watch a movie if that movie comes highly recommended to me.
And that's not a micropayment anyway. It would be more like I went to the movies, paid my 20$, and then every so often I had to pay more to enjoy some part of the show even more. "Would you like to recline your seat? Insert a dollar. Would you like the guy in front of you to take off his hat? Insert a dollar." Look, I already paid for the movie, stop nickel-and-diming me.
I already paid for my internet, stop nickel-and-diming me.
I know it doesn't work that way. You know it doesn't work that way. But John Q. Public doesn't know that, and as long as companies keep selling the Internet like it's another kind of cable TV, people will expect their flat rate to pay for everything.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
"And you "pay" again by watching advertising during your shows. "
... legality doesn't come into play here, folks. If someone says, "I'll wash your car for 10$" and someone else says, "I'll wash your car for free" you're likely to get it washed for free. This is true even if the guy offerng to wash your car for free seems to be a little shady. And let's say that guy gets put out of business by the feds for washing cars with stolen water. You don't think you'd still be reluctant to pay $10 for something you got for free a month ago?
Sorry, I neglected to address this in my first reply.
Let's say I'm new to the net. Let's say I'm told it's like my cable TV access. With that, I might imagine I need to suffer through commercials to get programming I want.
After being on the net a while, I realize I'm getting a half dozen ads in my mailbox every day. More, likely, if I'm signed up with someplace like emachines for my PC.
So, I think, I pay for my net access a second time in the tons of spam I get.
Nope, you're paying for the privelege of getting all that spam. Whee!
Ok, maybe I pay for my net access a second time in the form of banner ads -- ads which are deliberately made to confuse users (popups with fake "close" buttons, etc) in a way no "real" advertising would get away with. Oh, that doesn't pay for it either?
How many times do I have to pay for this internet, anyway?
Not only that, are you trying to tell me the quality of service on the net is anywhere near the quality of service I get when I pay for my cable TV? How many times has your ISP been down compared to your cable TV in the past year? How many times has slashdot been down compared to CNN in the past year?
Add to that the fact that it's silly to pay for something you can get for free
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
"well sometimes 2 hours cuz I'd get sucked into the next show which always had some sensational expose"
:-)
America Undercover kicks ass.
That's all I have to say about that
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
There's a few big reasons people are reluctant to pay for "content" online.
One is that they don't have anything to hold in their hands in exchange for their money.
If I buy a book, I have a physical artifact which will last much longer than my lifespan.
I still have tapes I bought when I was in middle school.
I still have the original floppies from computer games I bought around the same time.
What do I get to hold on to if I buy a year's subscription to a web news site, for example? Do I get access to archives of that year forever, even if the company that made the site goes under in the next recession? Please.
Another big reason is that if people aren't thinking in terms of buying a "thing" they're thinking in terms of a service. We pay for plenty of things we don't get to hold onto -- electricity, cable television, taxes, etc. But the thing is, you're already paying someone for the "service" part of your net connection -- your ISP.
It's just not in the normal buying pattern of people to pay for content on a medium they're already paying for. You can get people to upgrade to a higher quality service (sure, I'll buy digital cable), but to pay for the very thing you're already paying for?
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
If I buy a book, that book is MINE. I will never need to renew my membership to re-read that book, nor will the book evaporate when the publisher goes out of business. I can read my book in any kind of light, not just light produced by GE Soft White (TM) light bulbs. US Law protects my right to cite portions of my book in my own writing. I can lend my book to a friend, donate it to a library, or even sell it.
Have you ever seen a for-pay scheme for online content that granted all of these benefits? Neither have I. That's why I will gladly pay for books, but never for online content.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Sure, but many people get "pay per view" movies on TV, or special events like boxing matches, etc. They're willing to pay extra for that content on top of the delivery cost. Why won't people pay for (non-porn) content on the Internet?
Slashdot is a good source of relatively independent and informed (they could do better in this department, but as other media outlets show, they could also do much, much worse) news. On the other hand, sometimes the grammar and spelling is so bad that the writing verges on the unintelligible.
Professionalism and integrity are not mutually exclusive; really, it's plain sad to see Malda say he doesn't care about the professionalism side of it, because, if nothing else, it means that slashdot will never reach its full potential.
--
You're a suburbanite.
I've never seen anyone properly address the issue of fraud and micropayments.
What will happen when I download content that costs me 0.01 USDollar and they make an "error" and charge me 1.00 USDollar. They have my micropayment account numbers so they can do this. How am I going to fight it? Never go back? Well, I've already been ripped off. If one site does this to me, I'll be mad, but I can afford the extra 99 cents. But what happens when several sites do it and your bill is now 30 dollars more than you expected? How about 300 dollars? It will cost you far more than 30 dollars (or 300) to fight it.
I have seen Fraud take place online with a couple of friends who tried some bad pr0n sites that continued to charge after the "trial" period was over. How do you fight them? I have seen fraud take place with AoL (not being able to get them to stop charging you after you wanted off the system). I have seen fraud in the long distant billing that gets tacked onto your local phone bill.
All these are examples of very small amounts of fraud that doesn't hit one customer enough to warrent the cost to fight the fraud in court. However, when multiplied out over tens of thousands of users, it makes the entity commiting the fraud a lot of money.
Quack
ConsumerReports.org. Charges something like $2.50 for every month that I use the service, plus an annual fee.
But, most sites try to do it via advertising. And even if I do micropay, I still have to see those damned banner ads. And once I micropay, then they can more easily track me and my habits. If some site like NYTimes would ditch banner ads for paying subscribers, I'd sign up in a flash (even though it's currently free).
Every time a new magazine shows up in the mail, the first thing I do is go through it and rip out all the blow cards and mailin cards. After that, I read the magazine.
I walk into McDonald's and order a hamburger and fries. They charge me $3. The hamburger is over done and the fries soggy. I think this meal is only worth $1.
The next day I walk into the same McDonald's order the same burger and fries. The service is excelent the burger and fries scrumcious. I think that the meal is worth $10.
The consumer NEVER sets the price for goods or services. It is the consumer's choice to intitiate the transaction at all.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
The web is in many ways a new media type. It incorporates parts of other media types like the print of newspaper and the broadcast ability of TV. We pay a little for a newspaper or magazine but not anywhere near the cost of creation. The exta cost is paid by ads. On TV, we don't pay directly to _any_ of the programming. We pay our service provider for cable or satellite but broadcast is free to recieve with an antenna. Same with radio. In the broadcast area we are willing to have a certain amout of time dedicated to "paying the bills" and interrupting the broadcast.
The web has tried both of these methods with little success. I think the banner ads on Slashdot are what I like best but they don't seem to generate the revenue companies need. Popups just annoy me. I think the culture is different enough to justify a new approach. People viewing websites expect things to be instant and fast.
So, basically what I'm saying is the new media needs a unique way to advertise that works with the culture of the people that use it.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
But how do you do micropayment?
/. and the content has now changed do you get charged again? I can see lots of people with $1000s of bills for these micropayments. Just like 900 numbers, sure it is only $1.95 for the first 3 minutes but then watch out! And they'll do things to make you stay on the phone longer. So then websites will do things to charge you as well.
Do you pay every time you view the page? How about hitting refresh? When a new AC posts to
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
Aren't the basic mechanisms in place for this? .0025cents or something.
Pgp keys and fairtunes. If someone smarter than me could write a plug in that would:
1: Ask me if i wanted to pay to read a page when it comes up, yes, no, always.
2:with the always, alert me if its going to be more than
3: negotiate between the web page and fairtunes using my pgp public/private key to make sure its me.
4:send the money to fairtunes, then out to the person. (or some sort of service.)
I know i've got some of this wrong, but how about the basic concepts?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I think that the PC is the worst platform for PPV or pay per use. It has been pretty successful for television, though. I believe it has a lot to do with the easy of use an convenience. If, for example, you got my TiVo to download 'special content' over the Internet via a broadband connection, that might be worth paying for.
Paying to read a news story? Almost silly.
Ok.. here goes. Just a few stats and other numbers. On an extremely expensive T1 line, assuming that 100% of the bandwidth is utilized, it would cost one cent to transmit 4 megs of data. Electricity costs, equipment costs, etc contribute to the cost of owning and operating a high volume website. We'll consider low volume websites run off of DSL lines are not in need of funding their existance. For a 28.8 modem user that spends 4 solid hours a day downloading data, over a month they will cost content providers a collective total of about $4. Someone with a high bandwidth connection that downloads 300 megs a day will cost a total of a little more than $22. What could be done, is the ISP, or even the user depending on the arrangement, would take a flat rate total based on the average user bandwidth and charge that much extra a month. This money would then be stored with a trusted central repository. When the user connects to a site, that site has the option of drawing from this central repository a fraction of a cent based on the bandwidth consumed by that user. At the end of the month, the site will recieve a check for the bandwidth consumed, averaged out over the total amount of money available. This would be primarily for sites that have no interest in making a profit, but don't want to have to pay through the nose for the privilage of simply existing. ISP's and/or users would not be required to do this, but the sites could always excersize the option of not allowing non-member users access to the page. Sites that rely on banner ads or subscriptions would be ineligible, and any site could opt not to take advantage of the service, as it would likely probably incur additional headaches. However, it is an option that would solve the thorny problem of sites that can't exist due to the bandwidth requirements. -Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
it's just a links-and-discussion forum. If you want to see a web journalism site, visit Wired or better, The Register or The Inquirer.
All Slashdot does is verify submitted links (if they remember) and add a bit of spin to the story.
The real action happens in the discussions later, and I think even the principals would concur....
The problem with most web subscriptions is that they're overpriced. The web was supposed to bring good content at a low price because there was no middleman or shipping. However, many of the subscription sites are "content" sites (Salon, WSJ, Economist) who want to charge almost as much as I'd pay for a paper magazine. And, let's face it, the dead tree version is a whole lot more convenient. If I could get Salon for $10/year, I'd sign up in a heartbeat. I'd pay the same for slashdot. However, for $30+ year, I think more carefully about what I'm getting, and I usually decide against a subscription.
--
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
Actually you can get automatic Ferrari's, and considering that the top speed limit in the US is 75mph, anyone arguing that they need stick vs auto for performance gain in full of it. On a test track typically only professional drivers can get more performance from a stick vs auto exotic, because most people don't have the ability to shift that perfectly. Ferrari also have semi-autos which IMO are really a better option anyway.
:)
:)
/. is so visited is because everytime you come back... there's a boatload of new stories to poke through.. this site moves at a very fast pace. slow down the traffic, and everything will slow down i bet. Dont forget that slashdot is unique.. and special.. yes even the trolls.. without people to mod down, the +,- equilibrium change would almost throw off the whole balance of what has come to be. It would significantly change... so be careful what you wish for.
:) (and yes our ATM system is light years ahead of the US i'll be the first to troll it.. i've seen both and don't feel bad... we just have a better federal banking system... but I can proudly say i carry less than 10% of cash i spend and the only person who gets a cheque is my landlord)
fewer posts would be nice... i remember when i could actually read everything
who cares about the slashdot effect... if people put something on the web they obviously want it to get some attention... if their server crashes because a gizillion people hit it at once, it's a good lesson. if nothing else, it's funny. Like when victoria secret crashed during the superbowl.. who were the ad wizards that came up with that.. and why wasn't IT informed (or formed
However... the reason that
I wouldn't pay for slashdot but I *would*.
that means if I payed for slashdot like I pay for a newspaper and a coffee everyday I would pay. But I'm a minority in this world who doesnt see the efficiency of paying 10-30% interest on things I buy, when I'm already paying 7% tax. hence, you won't find a credit card in my wallet. (i seriously doubt i would pay the whole thing off every month)
trust me... this seems to be getting harder and harder everyday. We have a very efficient and reliable direct payment system here in Canada (interac) but paying online for anything... sucks.
I'll probably have to get a credit card soon, but if interac figures out a way for websites to take money straight out of my chequing account like McDonalds does, you can put your money on.. nope
well this turned into more of an anti-credit card thing, and I know 95% can't imagine living without theirs but web content isn't the same as tangible content and that's a fact. one more analogy... yea i pay for my digital cable every month but if CNN went pay per view, (think internet costs over and above your ISP subscription) I'd just watch CTV newsnet.
You have paid for a total of 0 pages and so far 0 have been used up (0 today).
Don't believe me? Here's my PayPal experience. (PayPal being arguably the most popular micropayment system on the 'net).That's why I'm not using PayPal--I don't need to, and it's not worth the hassle. Most of the other micropayment systems online either require you to install some lame program that doesn't support my OS, charge steep transaction fees, or are just too small to be trustworthy.
What will it take to get people to pay for content?
Good, simple micropayment system. This is critical. Imagine if a brick-and-mortar store owner told you that you had to pay him in 1957 pennies, and nothing else would be accepted. You'd just walk out, unless you absolutely had to have whatever he was selling, and he was the only guy selling it.
Lack of free content. People will only pay for shit if they can't get shit free (easily). Duh. I've always wondered how all the pay porn sites exist when there are so many free porn sites, but I suppose people don't act rationally when they're horny and lonely.
Content worth paying for. Most of the content people look at on the net is for entertainment (I'm counting most news in that category--if you're not the freaking President, it's not your job to know what's going on). To be worth paying for, content has to be significantly better than TV. TV content is free (sure, you pay for cable, but that's like paying for your ISP, and you don't have to think about that, nor does watching an episode of Seinfeld cost you extra), and TV is a much higher-bandwidth medium than most people's internet connections. To be worth paying for, content providers either need to come up with some very good original content, or bandwidth needs to get better.
Reasonable prices. I am not going to pay the RIAA $2.99 for a single track at less-than-CD quality when I could either pay $12 Canadian (yes, that's right--our CDs are way the hell cheaper than yours) for the entire CD, or just download it free from Gnutella. I'll probably just not bother, if I can't get it easily for cheaper than a dollar.
What do you really need on the internet, that you can't get from a million sites? Weather, I can always look out the window. Web comics are nice, but not essential (although I did donate to Penny Arcade). Online technical support and product information should be provided free, and I'd avoid any company that tried to charge for it. Slashdot? I'd expect editors who can spell and fact-check before I'd pay for this (and it would be nice if they didn't ask such ridiculous questions as whether it's OK to burn private property of people who disagree with you). The only thing I'd pay for is Google. Think about it--if you can still remember back to the pre-Google days, remember how bad the other search engines were? Think about how much time Google has saved you. That's worth something. Not much else is.
I would be psyched to pay 2 bucks a episode. I would also be happy to pay 5 bucks per channel.
.. Mwhahhahhhaa"
Either would be way better than my current deal of paying 40 bucks a month to watch "The Daily Show" and "Southpark" or my future deal of 55 bucks a month for "The Daily Show", "Southpark" and "The Sopranos".
When I moved to my new place and got the cable turned on I somehow got all the premium channels without paying for them. I never subscribed to the movie channels before because I really wouldn't get much out of it: I've never found myself wishing that I had, say, Showtime so I could watch whatever they happened to be showing at that time (softcore porn).
Anyway, it was months before I even discovered that I had the extra channels and then I came accross The Sopranos and then I got addicted and watched HBO illegally for one hour a week (well sometimes 2 hours cuz I'd get sucked into the next show which always had some sensational expose). So the season is over, haven't watched HBO since but one day I get a call from an AT&T telemarketer trying to sell me movie channels and I was in a hurry and blew them off. A week later I noticed that the HBO was gone! Now, I'm not complaining, but I am knida bummed cuz now I *HAVE* to get HBO once the 4th season starts and AT&T will probably make it as painful as possible: "Well, I think that for a $40 dollar installation fee we can send someone out sometime on the 18th
- bridgette
If someone new to computers and the Internet buys a computer just to hook up to the web and then pays their monthly fee to AOL, Earthlink, etc., they probably think they are *already* paying for content.
Well, you run into two problems right off the bat:
1. Perception - People will suddenly perceive that they are "not getting their money's worth". And the number of "eyeballs" visiting the various sites will decline. End result: Venture fails
2. People like to know what they are spending. When someone is thinking about their bills, they don't worry about the cost of their basic phone line, cable, etc.... These are after all, "stable" and monthly. They worry about the cost of long distance, pay-per-view movies... The variable bills in a modern humans life.
But, they will worry about how much they will end up spending in "micro-charges". Be prepared for the first set of "micro-payment" lawsuits, from groups of people who feel they were mislead into clicking on a particular site!!
Also, look at what happens whenever someone "opens up a new market on the internet". The first thing they do is patent everything they have setup in their process. Automatically, other companies won't use it (Oops, I seem to fit into that group). What do you get? Multiple methods of doing the same thing. You really can't expect any sane, semi-technical (if even that) individual to not go into cardiac arrest at having to sign-up for multiple micro-payment engines. Especially knowing that they will all hit his/her/their bank account every month.....
The internet isn't going to do what people are hoping.
My thoughts? The internet isn't currently, nor will become in the near future, a great forum for commercial endeavor. It is one of the tools, though!
Use the internet for the exchange of information. Hell, maybe even for the betterment of mankind. Well, at least until the DMCA makes that illegal.
What can I say. Try the micropayments thing. I'll watch for your company's demise on f***edcompany.com....
For me, the problem is the computer. I don't think that a computer screen is a good way for consuming most content (computer-games aside). I don't think I'm cheap -- I'll plop down $4 to rent a DVD, or almost twice that to see a movie in a theater. If the same movie were available for streaming over the Internet for free, I doubt I would bother. Who wants to sit at their computer watching a movie on a monitor? Not me.
I happily pay $20+ to buy books to read. Recently, several books I would like to read have been made available for download over the Internet for free. I generally haven't bothered, unless I felt that printing them out on my laser printer was a wise use of my toner. There is no way I am going to sit a read a whole book on my computer.
What about shorter content, like articles? Most are of little value to me. The trouble it takes to find good content often overwhelms the positive value of that content. As long as content is free on the Internet, I'll browse through it to see what is there. As long as car dealerships don't charge for window-shopping, I'll do that too. But when you ask me to go through the trouble of paying (never mind the value of the money itself), it just stops being interesting. I consume content on the Internet because it is free. If it were all charged for, I'd stop using it (except as a medium for exchaning free software with others), and I can't see how my life would be worse off. Maybe I'd miss it, and then be willing to pay.
Just my thoughts.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
I just don't pay for garbage web content. Sites like slashdot are just a waste of bandwith for the most part. They rarely provide any new and/or useful information.
On the flip side I do pay for access to assorted electronics databook and publication sites as well as buy a lot of books. For instance the IEEE page is worth the money. The Intel Developer site is worth paying for as is the National Semiconductor site but they are free because these sites make their money selling the product. The techical documentation is an aid in use.
There is another type of site that makes money on the internet. Its the type of site that provides a REAL service. These are sites like REALTOR.com, bill payer services, job search services, dating services, etc that work well on the web.
The problem with the web is this pay for bandwith scheme that is kicking everyone in the butt. Take internet radio for instance. You could be part of a band co-op and try to put your music on the web. If your site becomes popular though you could potentially be paying a whole crapload to serve the content. With IPv6 you only pay for a miniscule amount of bandwith required to send a single stream which gets broken up by the multicast routers. Sites like slashdot which are dynamic couldn't benifit from this because they try to tailor their views for every user. A nice idea, but completly useless when you compare the cost of running a site that doesn't provide a useful service and the tons of bandwith required to give ever user a unique experience. Slashdot could provide 99% of the user experience with just static content that could be cached in web caches.
-------
Caimlas
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I think there are some (like me, I would like to hope), that would make micropayments, but I think it's more or less just ingrained into the culture. Just like the concept of a lending library (where you actualy _pay_ to borrow books) is a foreign concept to most, because they think you should get them free "becasue they've always been free". Now I know the quick-minded will point out that we DO pay for library services through taxes, but I think it's just in the geek culture that it has to be free.
There are many reasons I don't want to pay for content. First, I don't like any of the methods proposed so far to pay for it, I won't use them, but I still want to use the content.
Every method I've heard about utilizes some form of credit card or similar method (Don't go off about debit cards, smart cards or anything else, they are essentially the same thing a unique number that identifyes me so I can be charged, and information can be collected).
All of these let me spend money without knowing how much I'm spending, and can let such charges build.
One question: How would charging be done? By the minute? As I type this, I have a slashdot screen up, but I'm not actually communicating with the Slashdot site. This is going on on my computer, and will be sent to slashdot when I click submit. I would be rather upset if my browser ticked off seconds to pay to some site just because their information was on my screen. I'm not actually costing slashdot anything until I submit or preview. Perhaps by packet? I really don't want to have to pay for lost packets that are my ISP's fault, or worse the fault of some router somewhere between me and whatever site I want to view. What about by the month? That sucks if I only care to pop into a site for a few mintutes every few weeks. If on a monthly basis, would I still have to pay if I paid for entry, found the site to be worthless to me, and never came back? If so, why should I pay the same amount that month as someone who made heavy use of the site.
Using current technology and infrastructure how would you set up a pay by site for service internet infrastructure? Requiring people to have some type of card reader on their computer would be impossible since most people don't have one. The current option is for every site to get credit card information each time the site is accessed, either manually, or by cookie. Cookies would work, but have the tendency of shackling a person to a single machine. Slashdot does ok for keeping user profiles, but If I go to a machine wihout that cookie I must log in again. Of course on machines with more than one user, this creates a problem. Tracking by IP is worse, since many places and ISP's use assign IP's dynamically (modem pools for example).
There is currently no way for more than a couple of sites that any given user frequents to be pay sites without causing the user all sorts of headaches. How do you track me? Entering all that data each time is a pain. Saving it on my computer is insecure (I might want to be able to move around). Logging in to a lot of sites is a pain. Users will tend to use the same password for each site, so once one is compromised, all of them are.
In the furture, it would be possible to have a credit card reader (try getting drivers for that open sourced), which could be plugged into the computer. Ignoring the security of such things (I'll discuss that later), It is still a problem. Let's say most sites are a pay by access. They may charge only a small amount, but it can add up.
Let's say I go to slashdot premium, and pay for that, then I go to userfriendly and pay there, meanwhile I set my music browser to go get a good selection of classical music (which can't be downloaded and saved, only played from their servers), and I pay some small amount for that. With everything people do on the internet, all of these small and 'insignificant' charges add up to something rather substantual. Which then must be paid back quiclky (remember more will be on the next month's bill.
Credit card debt is currently a national epidemic. People all over the United States are going further into debt than they can handle because credit cards make it so easy. Going to pay for online services makes it a whole lot easier to go far into debt.
Now we come to the privacy issue. Several businesses (mostly ones that sell your data), have said that their customer lists and demographic information are the most valuable resource they have, not because they can sell to you, but because others will pay so much for that data. Marketers are no longer satisfyed with demographic data, they want specific data in order to force what they think you want down your throat. How do they get that data? Look at every purchase, and all of your online viewing habits in order to 'taylor' the advertising content to you. This is a complete violation of privacy.
Then there is the entire security issue. Most companies aren't sufficiently careful with their credit card information anyway, this just opens the door to all sorts of other potential violations which could occour.
Of course there is also always the potential of evesdropping. Even though the U.S. has lightened up some on the encryption laws, it is my understanding that there are still strange quirks in the law which would make encryption of reasonable strength impossible for widespread use. This opens the door to all sorts of attacks. Smaller keys can be brute forced in minutes or hours. Even if the encryption is sound and strong, the proceedures can often be attacked. In fact this is often how data is compromised.
Finally, if I pay for content do I still have to look at ads? One might think not, but that isn't how cable television has gone. I'm even beginning to see advertisments for various products on rented video tapes, and one DVD I own won't even let you bypass the previews. Not only do I have to pay for a commerical, I'm not allowed to skip it (I have to watch it to even get to the selection menu). I don't think that sites requiring pay for service would be any different than cable television. Of course premium channels don't have advertising (except for upcomming shows), but most regular ones, that I still have to pay for, do.
Some of the privacy problems and security problems can be solved by intellignet lawmaking, but I don't see that as being too likely. After all the United States Congress doesn't have too good of a track record with making laws having anything to do with computers.
Pay for access as a rule rather than an exception won't work well. There are too many problems to be resolved be for I would be involved, and I think that there are a lot of others who would also have similar problems.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns
So all those Beanie Babies you bought, thinking that they'll be worth $25K in 20 years, because the _Ty Beanie Baby Collector's Book_ said so, well you got suckered. In 20 years, I think many people will flood the market with 20-year old stuffed toys, making them essentially worthless. Just try to take them to the Antique Road Show...
The best books I've read on Economics are Ludwig von Mises' _Human Action_ and Murray Rothbard's _Man, Economy, and State_. Economics is not a science (sorry all you economists trying to make it "scientific") with a bunch of equations, it's the study of basic human actions (choices, decisions).
--
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I second that. After helping hundreds of thousands of people understand TCP/IP (at Daryl's TCP/IP Primer), I decided to add the ability to "tip the author" via PayPal or Amazon. So far, after having the "tip jar" up for about 4 months, people have sent less than $100. Which pays for less than an hour of my time at my standard billing rate, and doesn't begin to cover hosting.
Frankly, I wish I had never added those links. I was more than happy to provide the information pro bono, but since so many people wrote to tell me how the site was more useful than their stack of $30 books, I figured, "why not?" The effect has been:
1. I now feel like I'm wasting my time maintaining the site, as if casting pearls before swine;
2. Now, people rarely even send thank-you emails anymore. (Which are free, except you'd have to take 10 whole seconds out of your life to do so, after having spent a few hours reading the information I've put together over the last 8 years or so.)
My advice to anyone else considering implementing this: don't! You'll just find out everything you didn't want to know about human nature. (Or, if you're a pessimist, your suspicions will be confirmed. The nice thing about being a pessimist is that pessimists are never disappointed.) Either way, you'll just wind up bitter.
"There is a diminishing return on caution."
There's a lot of reasons why I won't pay for content. There's also some reasons I will. It all depends on the circumstances.
Reasons I won't pay:
1. What am I getting for my money?
When someone pays for something, an assumption is made about the quality of the purchased item, be it information, software, books or what-have you. This is based on the fact that real-life businesses are subject to a host of regulations, and it's easy to enforce. A real-life business owner can't just make his building disappear when the feds get wind of his fraud. So if he sells you an empty box, you're gonna be back -- not only that, but you're gonna be back pissed, and you're gonna be back with the cops.
In contrast, websites, even ones which are just selling information, have a serious problem in that area: if they screw up, it's easy to take a website offline fast. Sure, you might be able to track down the original owner, but that's a lot of work, and a whole host of techniques are available to muddy the waters if you're on the hiding end. This leads us to the second problem:
2. Are they liable? Hell, are they accurate?
There's no guarantee if you buy medical advice from a website that it won't kill little Jimmy in the ICU. There's no guarantee if you buy car advice that your engine won't blow up in your face. All bets are off.
Basically, whereas brick-and-mortar businesses are subject to laws and litigation (so they HAVE to verify their information, and they CAN be sued), online content providers aren't. But don't rush to legislate -- people who actually make the laws have demonstrable short-sightedness towards that sort of thing (*coughcough*DMCA*coughcough*). Do you really want your personal video game tips fined because you didn't verify a tip a reader sent in? Laws filtered through government bodies tend to accumulate problems as they go. For that matter, do you really want your government feeling like they can meddle freely? Personally, I suspect that any attempt to legislate such things would be (a) internationally unenforceable and (b) host to a staggering number of problems.
3. How much is it gonna cost me?
People have an overinflated sense of their own self-worth, as demonstrated by things like shareware pricing. I'm not likely to pay $20 for a webpage -- any webpage.
Furthermore, do I have to subscribe? I'm not likely to pay $5 a month either. I don't like recurring charges.
4. What happens if the site folds?
Sites are temporary things. They're arbitrarily killed off all the time. If I've paid for content, what happens if it goes away?
5. Who am I paying?
If I'm paying, say, Pete Abrams, I'm happy to do so (Sluggy's stayed free and is now Pete's full time career -- see, it does work). If I'm gonna be lining the pockets of some RIAA fatcat, I'm more likely to decide that they've already got more than a fair amount of my money.
6. How easy is it to pay?
I'm not willing to put a lot of effort into the deal. If you want me to give you money, you'd better make it easy for me to do so.
7. What's the atmosphere of the site?
(This one sounds weird, I know, but humor me.)
I don't like being pestered incessantly. Pop-ups and the like irritate the bejeezus out of me. Make me like your site, and I'm more willing to help out. Also, if I'm paying, I don't want to see banner ads -- or any ads, really. The whole point of paying is to create a revenue stream, after all. Lots of sites are latching on to this idea -- for example, for a fee you can get Sluggy ad-free. Lots of us still use the free, ad-supported version, but Pete reports that ad-free Sluggy is doing very well.
8. What am I getting for my money, anyway?
Lots of sites insist on a prior payment method, where you pay before you actually see the content. And this makes sense, to a degree -- why would you pay for content you can get in a demo? Some sites realize this, and provide a sample, but others go the all-or-nothing route. And even if you've seen the sample, you have no way of knowing that the rest of the site's as good.
And last but not least:
9. Does your site WORK?
Everyone hates broken links. Everyone hates missing files. Take better care of your sites, folks, or you'll never get anyone to pay you.
(There are people who do a good job with this. They're just outweighed by the crap.)
I have paid for things before. Tipjars and optional payments and such do work. But if you want mandatory payments from me, you'd better make sure that I'm gonna get something for my money -- and that I know it.
Consider for a moment all the information I can get without directly paying a cent. (Yes, TANSTAAFL, and all of these get paid for one way or another, but they seem "free" at the moment of choice.)
I can turn on the radio and listen for hours.
I can turn on the ol' boob tube and watch broadcast TV. I can even watch basic satellite/cable for about the same cost as a basic ISP connection, so if you consider that more "service" than "content", it's free content.
I can shuffle down to my local library and find enough content to last a lifetime.
I can rummage though the recycling bin at my coffeehouse of choice and pick up the day's newpaper (the Baltimore Sun is definitely not content worth paying for), or the local advertizing-support "alternative" weekly.
I can get all that for "free" (see above), and you want me to shell out to see you webpage?
We're inundated with content. It attacks us from the Muzak speakers at the supermarket and the gas station, the animated billboards on the streets, the ubiquitous glowing eye of the video monitor. Supply and demand...the supply is so high, and many people are feeling so overwhelmed that demand in some cases is going negative.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Now I'm considering taking it down because I'm worried that it's building more resentment in me than when I just didn't have it at all.
Go the other way. I first saw the PayPal button on your main page a long time ago and I said to myself I'd definitely kick you $5 if I ever had a need to get a PayPal account myself. Then, when I got one not too long ago, I popped by your site and simply didn't see see the button anymore, so I thought you gave up on it then. The main page has no PayPal link, and the content pages have it in "banner space", which simply doesn't get far enough past my mental filters to be processed.
My suggestion is to move it to the bottom of every page as a footer just before (or after) the copyright with a little descriptive text to go along with it. Screw the unappreciative leeches who get offended by the fact that it costs money to put a site up. I somehow doubt they'll be so offended that they stop using your resources.
And the other thing is, the corporations want to make the net "for pay", but it has always had free commentary/news posted by individuals and probably always will. You can't force a business paradigm on something as open as news.
Unless it's sung, then the RIAA will controll it ;)
Actually, people are already paying for content like on-demand TV programs and Minitel.
People refuse to pay when something has been free for a while. It's mostly an internet-only problem. There have been tons of free resources on internet, so people don't want to pay. In their mind, Internet == free for use. If you change this, they will yell.
It's just like Napster and software piracy. People who got free music and free software will know that it's possible to get free commercial stuff. So they will try to get them for free forever, even if it's illegal and immature. You can have strong laws, add filters and crazy control systems. People won't play the game. They used to get something for free, they don't want to pay any more.
They would pay for something that has never been free. Going to a cinema isn't free. Going to a disco isn't free (well... sometimes it is, but you always drink something) . Having food on the table isn't free. A car isn't free. People accept it. People buy these stuff. It's why the traditionnal commerce works, while e-commerce is a joke.
-- Pure FTP server - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
{{.sig}}
Paying $40 a month for "extended basic" cable
so I can have 200 channels and nothing good to
watch. The "only" reason I don't have plan basic is cuz of scifi (farscape) & tnt (witchblade).
When you're coercesed into paying more for your
TV entertainment than it's worth, no wonder
people won't pay for online content. Content these
days is recycled and boring... Impress me and make me "want" to spend my money, not loathe.
Peter
--
www.alphalinux.org
www.alphalinux.org
Uh, only in an ineffecient capitalist economy like the US.
If the economy were perfectly efficient, the price would fluctuate at each sale to maximize both social and producer benefit.
Not all economies are as wacky as the one the US has (and subsequently exports to "economic partners). In many economies, the individuals who sell their goods actually know the cost of their goods (!), and can make informed decisions about the sale price at any given time!
Do you think McDonalds employees have the same knowledge about their product, and the flexibility to adjust for waning demand in a given time period? No. Instead, fast food restaurants create a "different" and "new" product/atmosphere/image to fight waning demand macroscopically.
This, of course, harkens the soda machines that can to raise the price as the ambient temperature rises... but of course those machines usually have a local monopoly, thus are not good examples of the operation of a "free market."
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Three bucks for your newsstand copy of Playboy? Not even close.
If Consumer Reports can afford to sell a year subscription of 13 magazines and 2 books for $26 without running ads in the magazines, I don't see why three dollars doesn't come close to covering the cost of a Playboy.
Well because people don't like to be nickel and dimed for stuff. As the post mentioned I don't want to pay $0.0076 (exaggerated) for an article. I be more inclined to pay for content if it was bundled like the cable companies do. However, for an online "subscription" I would also expect much more quality.. so turn on your spell checkers :P
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
I don't have a credit card, and have no intention of getting one.
Since there is apparently no other way to pay for online content - either directly or indirectly e.g. PayPal, i won't be buying anything off the internet, including 'content'.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
i like to pay the people who make content for their services. but a problem that i have is that there are so many filters between me and the creator, so many people getting a cut (some of them justifiably, for hosting, say) that i get suspicious.
while the issues are somewhat different, i believe that the reticence to pay for content online has a lot in common with people's willingness to illegally download music. i do it, too, and while i'd like the artist to get paid, i simply don't see a very meaningful relationship between my clicking a button to pay someone for something, and the talent getting paid. in addition, all content has the same try-before-you-buy issue, which i'm constantly using to soothe my conscience -- after all, how can i say what content is worth to me unless i've actually consumed it already? it's like those goat-head baby booths at coney island. you're afraid to go in, cause what if it sucks? you feel like an idiot, and besides, i've paid enough to see goat-headed babies in the past that i should get something for free, non? and again, how much of my $2 does little Goaty get, anyway?
so for me, it's a combo of payback, suspicion of corporations, and my love of freaks.
god is just pretend.
There is a certain kind of conent that a lot of people pay a fair amount of money for on the Internet, and it's porn. Porn is probably the most successful business on the Net, and probably will be for a long time.
Evidently, this is just a question of priorities. We won't pay for news, we won't pay for art, but we will pay for pictures of naked girls. If there's one thing that the Internet has taught us, it's that human beings are very, very interested in sex.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
A- I can't preview it to assess it's worth to me before I make the purchase like I can in meatspace, ie. flip through a book or magazine, hear peices of a CD, etc.
B- If I lose my connection midway through downloading the page, do I have to pay again?
C- Do you pay to use a library? Even those who don't pay taxes get to use it...
D- What rights do I get with my purchase? Right of first sale (& right to resell)? Can I shift that content to other media? Can I quote it? Am I liable if I mis-quote it? Is this a read-once purchase? Will every site that sells "content" have a different license? How do you enforce provincial licenses through a globally accessible medium? Eventually we'll have to really decide if click-wrap licenses are enforceable at all...
I've used several sites that ask for payment on the honor system. Stephen King tried his online book "The Plant" as a pay-per-chapter on the honor system (I got the first 3 chapters and paid AFTER I downloaded each) and did well initially. Some sites Like this one ask for upkeep payment if you use and enjoy the service. I know this wouldn't work for the MPAA folks, but if more site POLITELY asked for upkeep, I'd pay a buck to keep the ones I use up and available.
Sure, the worth of the information may be subjective, but how much time it required of its creator is not. That time is either worth money to you, or it isn't.
In the case of a good reporter, you ought to pay them (if not directly, then through a subscription to that media source) so that they can continue to produce that content for your consumption.
Many forms of content that we enjoy on the web today will not be here in a few years -- then we'll be starving for that great content we had for free, and they'll be able to charge for it -- because we'll see the value of it after its gone.
Lets actually pay for and sponsor those who deserve that money now, instead of later.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Micro payment is just too much trouble, once you give your credit number the site can physically charge as much as they want and with dozens of sites at pennies per visit auditing your credit card bill can become impossible.
Maybe we could use web clubs..say you buy a tech club membership...pay one bill and get access to slashdot, arstechnica, acehardware, and freshmeat for example for a year...that would be more manageable.
Or perhaps some better technology, instead of giving out a credit card number have your computer generate for every purchase a one time transaction id that the bank will only recognize as being good for a specific amount, one time, to a specific company.
-Viktor
It might be more useful to reverse the question: what would I be willing to pay for, and how much might I be willing to pay?
I guess the summary here is that I (and I believe other people) am willing to pay for content of a certain quality. Most of what is available on the Internet doesn't measure up to existing standards for print, audio or video and while people will consume poor quality stuff if it's free, they won't pay for it.
Should Slashdot decide that they want to charge, they need to keep in mind that they're selling "community", not high-quality writing, and figure out how to charge appropriately.
I think this boils down to inconvenience in payment and
in usage. First, how to pay? Do I need to subscribe
to a service that allows me to pay over net?
Second, do I have to manually agree to pay
(ie click thru) for each story? each issue?
If the process is automated - say by a cookie of
some kind, do I then have to keep checking my
micro(or macro!) pay account to be sure its been
charged correctly? How do I even being to keep
track of this for 4 or 5 services?
Then there is the whole issue of reading stuff
online. I don't know about you, but I've a very
limited attention span when it comes to reading
text on a computer. Go beyond 2 screens and I'm
moving on. It is just *not* the same as a news
letter/magazine/newspaper/book. Even on a laptop.
In a related theme, what I would pay extra for
(say $5 or $10) would be an online back up &/or
supplement to an existing magazine/newspaper
subscription. For the tiems you are away from
home, bored at work, or just want a little more
depth than the print version. But I would never
pay only for the online version (see above).
I personally think that people won't pay for online content as of right now because people are used to exchanging money primarily for material objects. If I spend $0.076 on a phone ring I actually don't "get" anything. Now if you compiled these phone rings on a CD and sold them to me for $5.00 for a CD of phone rings I think I would be more likely to buy it. Even if you put the equivalent price per units worth of phone rings on there (about 65 songs). The reason is because I recieve something I can throw at the cat. I think it's the same for burning audio CD's with tracks you downloaded. I have already purchased the material object, it just lacks the data. The same goes for almost anything you can snag off the net. I guess that's the reason I don't see it working in my head.
--
"The problem with this stems from the fact that not everyone assigns the same value to content."
I don't see this as the problem at all.
I've seen this happen in communities other than online ones, where people are unwilling to pay for the efforts of others. Why? Their argument goes as follows:
"You love doing this. Why should you get paid for it? You should do this for the good of the community and give it away for free."
Now, as lovely as this idealism is, you'll find that the very same ones protesting this idea of "getting paid for what you love", are the last ones to actually volunteer their time and energy to give back to the community themselves.
What really sets my blood to boiling is that these are also the same people that will gladly pay for outside services (cell phones, clothing, etc) from anyone else, or services provided TO the community by an external source, but as soon as it's someone FROM the community, they expect them to give it all away for free.
If I seem like I'm on a rant here, it's because I am. I'm involved in an offline community revolving around a common interest. Myself and my boyfriend spend a good 30 - 40 hours a week together planning events (lunches, discussion groups, club nights, etc), which we charge admission for.
Even though our events cost less than half of what some other, non-community organizers charge, we're still fingered out as being evil for charging people for doing what we love.
Trust me, if we didn't love it, we wouldn't do it. It's too much hard work, stress, and sleepless nights for that. And not only that, but without some revenue to pay for our expenditures (advertising, DJs, webhosting, etc), the whole thing wouldn't last long.
How does this apply to the online scene? I see the same arguments from the same type of people when it comes to free content/software on the web.
What it all boils down to is this: Unless you're willing to go out, put in the time, effort, and money to provide a similar or better service for free, don't expect anyone else to do it for you just because they're "part of the community".
Besides, wouldn't you rather see your own members benefit from your support, rather than a bunch of faceless strangers? Isn't that what a community is supposed to be about?
end rant.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
Here's what everyone's forgotten:
What we end up with is a point about half-way between what Scott McCloud is saying (Micropayments are the way to go) and what Jonathan Rosenberg is saying (Micropayments won't work): Micropayments have an inherent societal barrier that it has to overcome to work. And usually, those types of barriers are not overcome, and the technologies fall to the side. And free content is available everywhere. And often free content in the past has been of higher quality.
Ted
Whatever you do... don't read this.
...one in which slashdot remained free, but derived shared revenue from sales of high-margin-but-useful-goods at Thinkgeek. It COULD'VE been so beautiful...
;-p ) Since ThinkGeek is one of the most heavily circulated advertisers remaining on Slashdot, I'm led to assume that it must generate SOME business for them...
Ironically, given the way things have turned out, it seems like one of the best potential models for continuing to grow Slashdot from a revenue/profit standpoint, while NOT requiring a subscription and NOT alienating the audience would be for Slashdot and ThinkGeek to merge and exist independent of VA Linux.
Why?
Slashdot attracts a specific demographic / psychographic. The readership, scattered across the globe, skews heavily towards young male programmers, offering "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters".
ThinkGeek has amassed a gigantic-and-still-growing product line that targets that population very well- and created a brand that states overtly who they are going for. ThinkGeek offers "stuff for smart masses".
I wouldn't ever pay for a subscription to Slashdot, though I'm a fan, because there really isn't much in the way of proprietary value offered here. Slashdot's 'original' content consists of useful product reviews (for things I, as a Mac user, don't need) and Jon Katz editorials about Columbine. So the primary purpose Slashdot serves for me personally (and probably for many of you folks) is to serve as a news filtering service. Given that I care more than the average CNN.com reader about technology related matters (and sometimes technology humor), I read Slashdot. It is, despite the criticisms of many old school users, still a good source for breaking news (via links to disparate sites). Occasionally, it even leads to interesting discussions (as often as it does to "All Your Base" jokes (still!) and ubernerd debates at technical levels I can't follow closely enough to care about...)
While I wouldn't pay for this service, because the value isn't tangible enough for me to want to exchange currency for it, I would DEFINITELY buy things from ThinkGeek that provided tangible value, and would be especially motivated to do so if I thought the good people at Slashdot would benefit financially from it. A lot of the stuff on ThinkGeek has to have pretty good profit margins (shirts, mugs, posters, etc...), so the opportunity to 'share the wealth' would be there. I don't know about the margins on caffeine, but I suspect they aint TOO bad (especially since ThinkGeek marks up some of their stuff over other online sources!
Now that the bubble has popped, we are left to see things as we should have always seen them. The redefinition of value, from a business perspective, emphasizes those old school concepts of stable revenue growth, high profit margins, low operating costs, etc... VA Linux, for a while, was a poster-child for the repudiation of these business values (hence the $350/share stock runup, despite huge losses, low margins, gigantic operating costs, etc...). I'm making assumptions here since I haven't seen ThinkGeek's financials, but it looks to me like they probably have real value as a business, because they probably keep costs low, have good margins, no need to advertise (outside of this narrow community).
So in the end, a model that probably would've really been built to scale would have been to have Slashdot serve the news needs of their community, and ThinkGeek serve their more material needs, and you'd have a classic case of one-hand-washing-the-other without all this stupid talk about creating subscription fees for Slashdot as the viable way to generate revenue.
The unfortunate reality, kids, is that in the heat of the insane mania of 1998-2000, the destinies of really valuable sites like ThinkGeek and Slashdot ended up being alloyed with the base metals of VA Linux. They (the powers that wanted a hot stock offering) threw gold and platinum in the melting pot with tin and aluminum, and created a compound that diluted the valuable to enrich the base metals. They then sold junk jewelry made of the stuff to greedy speculators who thought the alchemy actually worked. Now, the metallurgists have rendered their analysis, dispelled the myths (that VA Linux was the next Microsoft, etc...) and have told anyone who can hear, "You wasted your money. Your jewelry has traces of gold and platinum in it, but its mostly tin and aluminum. Not worth much, and sadly, a waste of some good jewelry."
And what can VA Linux say in their defense at this point? Having conjoined the destinies of two valuable sites to their own? I think the only thing that they CAN say to the opensource community that they may have alienated with these machination is:
"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US." .
(you didn't think I was going to miss my chance to put that joke to work, did you?)
I think the issue is INFOGLUT, both in terms of the number of sites and the expense of each one.
There are simply too many friggin sites out there to subscribe to them. Period. People here have alluded to what a pain it is to register and give your life history and to the "camel's nose in the tent" leading to higher and higher charges, but I think those are both symptoms.
The real issue is that I (like a lot of people I imagine) get my news on the Internet from probably 100 or 200 different sites at different times. It is CERTAINLY not worth $5.00 or even $1.00 per site per month to subscribe to all these. My opinion is that until there is some kind of aggregation model for these payments it will never happen.
Cable/Satellite TV is a good example. I pay $50 a month for my Dish Network and I get about 180 working channels for that (no premiums of course!). Would I pay $.50 a month to get American Movie Classics by itself? Hell no. But as part of a package, I buy it and sometime I might watch it if something catches my eye. But even though it includes things I don't want, it also includes most everything I do want and it is ONE bill.
Now that I think about it, those economics are probably about right. I pay $50 for 180 channels. Call it $5 to the aggregator, and it's $45 to all the channels, which are each averaging about $.25 a month per viewer then. Would I pay an average of $.25 a month for Slashdot, CNet, CNN, NYTimes, Playboy, Yahoo, ESPN, SciAm, Gamasutra, Google, and 100 others? Yeah I might if they were on one bill.
The problem is that no one is charging $.25 a month and no one will be able to make any money at $.25 a month either, given that they are depending on $10.00 a month to stay alive right now. Until the Internet content industry figures out how to fix this, they are going to be broke and people will not subscribe.
Crash
"The difference between theory and practice is small in theory and large in practice..."
The first is that people are disinclined to start paying for what has been free in the past. Some of this has to do with falling into a habit of not paying for things (and habits are notoriously hard to break) and some has to do with perceptions of worth. Take, for example, Salon.com-- because it was originally offered for no cost, people perceive it as being worth, well, nothing (or close to nothing), and are unwilling to start paying for a subscription at $30/yr because the value of the magazine's content hasn't changed substantially. What if you had been getting soda for free all your life, and the price suddenly jumped to $5 a can? Would you pay for it? Likely not, even if the soda company tweaked the flavor to be slightly more to your liking.
The second reason relates to the ephemerality of on-line content (and to a lesser extent electronicm content in general). People pay for content all the time-- books, magazines, CDs, etc-- but all of it is physically present in a way that electronic content is not. It was postulated some years ago, when the Web really started to get going, that people would place less emphasis on the value of physical representation and more on "pure information". In practice, this seems not to have happened to the extent predicted. We pay for (say) magazine subscriptions in part because we can hold the magazine in hand, and thereby feel its worth. Without the content, it's just some pieces of paper stapled together, but put the content on the web and the perception of worth will not be the same. Rightly or not, we perceive electronic content as less permanent than physical world content-- and indeed, I have magazines from 1985 but any data I had from that year has since become unusable due to storage issues etc-- and are therefore less willing to pay for it. People view computers as inherently unstable, and stability is a big part of perception of worth.
---- I'm going to lead you kicking and screaming, giggling and laughing into the future.
Then the web happened and Compuserve's business model collapsed. All those hardware and software vendors moved their content from Compuserve forums to their own (mostly free) web sites. The user base followed and the Compuserve technical community, which was in some ways more vibrant than anything on the web today, faded away.
CompuServe was not cheap, but at the time it was well worth the money and we paid.
Paying for web content is a much harder sell. As an aggregate, today's web content outweighs yesterday's Compuserve content by orders of magnitude, but web content is very diffuse. It's unordered, unbalanced, of widely varying quality and is served from a kaleidoscope of individual, independent sources, 99.99% of which are free. Compuserve's content was densely packed, uniformly packaged, well indexed and, most tellingly, unrivaled.
It's hard to compete with free, especially if you are selling to this crowd.
--Former CompuServe Internet Publishing Forum Sysop
I would happily shell out dough for content, just not at the price points that old school content providers have the gall to expect.
I *will not* pay $4.95, $2.95 or $1.95 US to download a single music track in some obnoxious format. I *will* happily pay $0.25 US each to download hundreds of my favorite songs from years past in MP3 format. I'd happily sign up for a service that allows me to download 75 songs for $20.00 US. I'd probably spend $100/year on such a service just for the convenience, assuming it had a good search interface and reliable downloads.
I will also not pay $1.95 to access a story from a newspaper's archives, nor am I interested in a subscription to that newspaper's archives. I'd pay $0.04 US for an article. Since there's no way to microcharge me that much, just serve me a targeted banner ad instead.
--
I Can't Stop Thinking #5
and
I Can't Stop Thinking #6
My apologies for a repeat post, but I goofed on what I actually wanted to reply to. The links in here point to Scott (Zot!, Understanding/Reinventing Comics)McCloud's "I Can't Stop Thinking" "columns" where he gives his take on micropayments:
Coin of the Realm #1
Coin of the Realm #2
I don't think people are as adverse to paying $0.076 as they are to having to deal with paying $0.076.
For myself I like the freedom that comes with surfing the web without having to worry about what my "tab" for a particular online session is. I don't want to have to read a ten page "agreement" at every website I visit to fully understand what I am going to be charged. I don't want to deal with sites that sucker people into paying a lot more than they think they are being charged (ala 1-900 numbers that charge $50/minute). I don't want to have to give a mini-biography to every site I visit so that they can bill me. In the end I don't care about the money, I care about the time and effort that goes into thinking about how much of money is going where.
But you wouldn't be paying for the information, you would be paying for someone to supply the information to you. The information itself is usually free.
Say for example, you want to learn how to bake some flavorful bread. You could ask your mom how to bake good bread (if she knows how to bake bread), and you would gain that information free of cost, or restrictions.
You could also go to a pay site all about baking bread, and they have the information all written down, put into nice little organized recipies, etc. You're not paying for the information itself, but you're paying them for the work they have done with the information, putting it on a server for you, writing it down and organizing it for you. They're doing work, it is only logical that they would charge you for it.
--Curious Mike--
Because you call it "content." As if someone's (everyone's) artistic creations are simply filler for your computer or TV or car stereo. My presence on slashdot aside, the internet is not the be-all and end-all of personal interaction and fulfillment.
Quite frankly, most of the so-called "content" out there sucks, because of precisely that attitude: new media company comes along with a snazzy new business plan, and needs some stuff to fill it up. So they hire underemployed musicians, writers, and visual artists to "produce some content." There's nothing artistic about the transaction. Business needs filler, content provider obliges, money changes hands. End of story.
You can argue that it's always been this way, that art hasn't degenerated seriously since the onset of the internet. Overall, I suppose you'd be right; there's always been trashy "art." But electronic connectivity has ushered in a new wave of "hurry up and get it out the door" that's at direct opposition to insightful, well-thought art, music, and literature. Before the sound-scan system put in place at record stores across the country, there was bad pop music. But the system's introduction increased the fervor with which everyone tracked the pop charts, and it's been years of straight garbage since. There was bad reporting before CNN, but now it's become the de facto standard and news organizations compare bottom lines with them.
I guess I'm an idealist, because I view this as something of a tragedy for all those art forms and the press. And I don't blame "the internet" as such, but I do believe the fast-forward culture brought with it is at least partly to blame. So, I will and do support artists whose work I respect, both local and worldwide; I buy books I like, from the author directly when possible, and I buy tons and tons of music. There's a few peices of visual art I'm considering buying. But no, I will not pay for "content."
---
Add to your list 'And dig through my system afterwards to find (sometimes multiple instances of) spyware'
I happily give voluntary micropayments ("tip jar") to sites I enjoy and think deserve and need it, to help ensure they don't disappear. Put an Amazon and PayPal buttons on your site, and ask nicely. I'll hapily give you a couple bucks every once and a while.
We also feel more comfortable giving these voluntary payments to our peers. That is, real people like us, as opposed to large companies striving after profit. Just something to keep in mind.
I also am also perfectly willing to (for example) shell out the five bucks for that Dr Dobbs article that I really need.
Not everyone on the net is completely opposed to a reasonable information marketplace... But in most cases, if its not voluntary or really essential, most people will skip it and move on to something else.
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
Tipping might work better if it was initiated by the tipper (ie the web site didn't ask for the money, but just provided an e-mail address, and the visitor decided to send some money after reading the site).
The shareholder is always right.
There is the continual feeling that the next click might yield what we am looking for. But it could be dozens of clicks away. For some reason, probably because of conditioning, we choose to gamble time rather than money.
If you gamble with time, and you click the first five free hits in your favorite search engine, you may have wasted some time, but the less useful sites you clicked to haven't gained much (perhaps an ad view). If you gamble with money by giving 5 cents to a source you've heard of but don't really trust, and you lose, then not only have you wasted 5 cents, but the owner of the unuseful web site just gained 5 of your cents. You feel like you're a victim, you feel like you've been nickeled-and-dimed (even though you were only nickeled), and you feel like you might be supporting a scam purposely set up to take 5 cents from a large number of people.
The shareholder is always right.
Interesting to note that Kuro5hin.org has started a "pay for no ads" version of their site. I doubt it is going to be very succesfull though: most people don't really mind banner ads that much.
People don't like paying (more) for something that was previously available free (or at a lower cost). People naturally feel cheated. If the pricing difference is extreme enough, people will not only not like paying but they will actually stop paying (and will get their hands on the goods any alternative way they can).
Examples?
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
Sorry, I've trademarked the words "copyright", "copyrights", "copyrighted", and "copyrighting". I have to enforce the trademark if I want to keep it, so you either have to cease-and-desist or purchase a license. If you don't stop letting people see this publicly-posted comment, I will have to take you to court. (In other words, the only way to avoid paying me money for something you didn't buy is to pull another Scientology and make slashdot remove your comment.)
ANALBILTTS (Am not a lawyer but I like to think so.)
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
The problem with this stems from the fact that not everyone assigns the same value to content. Let's say Joe finds a piece of info on the Internet and he's willing to pay $10 for it, Jack finds that same piece of info but only thinks it is worth $2, and Jill finds the information not useful at all.
My father happily pays $50,000 for a new car of a specific model. My sister would actually only be willing to pay $10,000 for that car, given her situation with the kids and stuff. Personally, having no driver's license, I'd probably take it if someone gave it to me, but I wouldn't pay for it. I'd buy a can of coke instead.
The same thing exists everywhere. To take an example even closer to the web - magazines, books, comic books, movies, music etc. All those things are nothing but "content" or information if you wish. And (if we disregard the existance of piracy for argument's sake) have a basic set cost that everyone will have to pay - and trust me, I sure didn't like Titanic as well as your average 14-year-old girl. But somehow they still seem to make money out of it. Strange, strange....Strange that car manufacturers survive, don't you think?
--
May we live long and die out
No matter that the price is small like seven cents dot how-much. It's all about the greedy bastards who want to make money out of everything. They already got banner ads everywhere and now I must pay for content. No thank you. It's like making me pay for listening to radio or for watching TV. And then they will make me pay for every spam message received. And of course as some people already said here I have to pay blind for something I can't evaluate before buying.
So funny to watch. Well, I am not surprised anymore when I see fresh water ads on TV, but there must be some limit! Some things JUST DON'T COST MONEY! Air for example. Web contents is the second example.
How much would you pay for a bird chirping outside of your window? Or for morning breeze at the sea shore?
All businesses have to figure out how to price their products to reap maximum profits. This almost always involves setting a price above marginal costs that some people won't pay, thereby losing some sales. But the profits on the other sales at the higher price make up for lost sales.
In the example Cliff gives, a company prices the content at $10. They make ten dollars. If they price the content any lower, they make less profit. I.e., price it at $2 to pick up Jack's business, and you only make $4.
Or does Cliff want a market with perfect price discrimination? This is great for firms, but almost always equally bad for consumers. And the profits usually get arbitraged away, though not without transaction costs that harm overall wealth.
"I don't have much use for a hot-rod Ferrari, because I can't drive a stick and I'm not into the prestige factor of owning one."
The "I can't drive a stick" about sums it up...
ps.. Real Ferrari, Porsche (or just about any hand made sports car)owners/drivers are into driving quality. Something one who can't drive a sick wouldn't be able to understand:-)
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I might pay for slashdot. A few bucks a year, but I would have some requirements first:
accessibility: automatic first-page mirrors of linked sites
integrity: confirmation of story facts
legibility: reasonable spelling and grammar
(I can understand an accidental misspelling of remuneration, Cliff, but CmdrTaco would have to go through remedial English classes)
customization: personalized killfiles on author and grep (kill /goatse/)
[
I was using the web a long time before the commercial interests came along and was sharing ideas and information quite nicely thank you. A good 90+% of the web is such crap that you couldn't pay me to read it and the added cost to the infrastructure is, in essense, paying for the support of all that crap. I say let it die.
/.
If SlashDot went away tomarrow, someone's site would become the next
If not, then it wasn't going to make it anyway.
If ABC news stopped having a web site.. then NBC would declare that a weakness of ABC and use it to gain market share. IF all of the "big" compaies decided to drop web support, I don't think that many folks would care. It would be "oh well
I guess I'l have to watch the nightly news."
While I don't have a tipping jar on my website, I get a fair number of visitors, and their are opportunities for people to rate any of my pages at the bottom of the page.
Something in the vast number of resources "out there" has lead people to take each resource fairly much for granted. If I find a one stop shop for all my humour needs (Suck and uComics ... er, that's two stops) then I'll be willing to split my money between them.
I enjoyed reading Citizen Dog on uComics so much that I went out and bought the books and will buy the third book when I get the money. Total will come to a tad under $NZ60. $60 for one comic strip, no worries.
But with 50 sites pandering to my humour needs: Red Meat, Dilbert, Suck, Adam @ Home, User Friendly, Calvin & Hobbes, Dick Tracy, Boondocks, that Max comics strip thingy, etc, I am not going to split my humour budget 50 ways.
2 ways yes, 50 ways no.
With music? Possibly. If I could get all my music from mp3.com or junior.co.nz, I'd be keen to give it a shot. But the problem is I can't.
I get my music from all over the show - not quite 50 labels, but a fair number of independant as well as more mainstream places.
I think I'd instead tend to pay a reseller, eg, a local music retailer.
...when I come around to a site where i have to pay to use the service/etc of it I suddenly get that "Hey,-I'm-sure-I-get-the-same-stuff-for-free-if-I- search-a-bit" feeling...
I'm afraid that's just the nature of the internet.. the only way to avoid this is to provide UNIQUE services... (no, don't ask me how...)
I would be happy to pay artists for content that I consider art. But the RIAA/MPAA don't want to pay artists anymore than we want to pay their execs. They would prefer to tell us that something is art and have us pay them for it and use that trickle down excuse as to why the artists are starving. If you disagree does that mean you believe NSync's art is better than Mozart? It certainly costs more for an Nsync CD.
For starters that's a good arguement. But I'm a beginning artist. I don't have any great content yet, but eventually if I work at it long enough I will probably make something that someone would like. Now I'm willing to pay for the limitted bandwidth required to send my art around the world. That costs me around $50/mo for broadband cable. If everyone wanted my content I would make it free to distribute so they could get as much as they want over P2P networks and save my bandwidth. These models cost us artists almost nothing, relatively. And it costs the consumers a few cents for the bandwidth they pay their ISPs for. Now taking this into consideration how much do you think consumers should pay to download content? AOL thinks they should pay by the hour. Napster wants a subscription service. But honestly, who do you think gets the money? The content creators / artists, or the big execs pushing for these payment systems?
An open and free payment system would allow the consumer to pay the artist directly how much the consumer feels the art is worth. Do you think execs would ever implement a system to allow you to pay artists directly? Its not beyond their capabilities you know. Think about this before you write stupid articles. I won't pay greedy execs for content they didn't create.
What if you made a payment system that didn't invade anyone's privacy, didn't require payment, but instead merely suggested it, and was completely customizable by the consumer to suggest that they pay as much as they feel they should. That way the consumer is always right and they have full control. Then they won't feel like they are being taken advantage of. Do you EVER think a payment system like that will appear on a commercial site? I don't.
Restate the obvious with the "I know I'm going to lose karma for this but I don't care!" *wink wink, nudge nudge* and watch it roll in.
In the meantime, I'll be trying to figure out how my karma's fluctuated down 15 points without anyone actually, you know. Moderating my posts down.
memepool.com featured a "Quit Slashdot" site that had all those points, only more and better.
Also, so I can get modded up, here's my "insightful" comment: 1+1=2.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Alternate sources: Why pay site X when you can get the same or similar from site Y?
Tradition: The web and 'net has long been (mostly) free. People don't like the idea of this changing, it feels like a door being slammed shut in their faces.
Hassle: Goes with alternate sources and tradition. A payment scheme is another thing to deal with. "Automatic payment" even if it was harmless, 'feels wrong' and like it could be abused. Look at how the 'free registration' sites gets treeted here.. now imagine anyone who dislikes that price (free of direct monetary cost, but allow a cookie or remember yet another password) tolerating a payment based system.
Judging: A site has to charge up front or not get paid. But a viewer wants to know he's getting his money's worth before parting with his money. A free sample is needed, at the least.
It comes down to value and availability: What content is there that would be considered of such value that it merits being paid for, has no free alternatives, and would be worth the hassle? And if this happens, how long before someone decides to make a free version? I'm not saying there won't be paid-for content (there already is, but it ratehr limited in focus, I suspect), but it will have to be 'something special' for it to work well.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
As I read your post about your digital cable or satellite TV packages, I was reminded of all the 'age verification' services out there which will give you access to hundreds of pr0n sites.
And once again, the only industry on the internet that continues to make money is the pr0n industry. Maybe the rest of the internet could learn from their business model??
Possible Answer #2
Of course we will, but only after
Possible Answer #3
Sure! Of course we will! We'll put as much money into this forum as we do into our Open Source projects!
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
We are standing at the base of a Niagara falls of information with our mouths open.
That has got to be one of the best analogies of information overload (Internet and otherwise) that I have heard :-) For attribution's sake, did you come up with it yourself or read it somewhere? Anyway, that's the heart of the problem for any widespread ubiquitous Net pay-per-view system. You're at the bottom of this big wet wall wondering just how much water is about to come down at you from over the top. People will avoid uncertainty like the plague so long as predictable equivalents exist, even if they provably end up paying more for the predictable expense.
It seems to me that MSN and AOL are banking on this psychology as a long term strategy that will eventually win out over the less-tameable (sp?) general Internet. They provide a single predictable source and cost alternative to the multitude of Internet sites with their own pay schedules and diverse measures of value.
--
Twivel
Unlike a magazine, a newspaper is transient- very few sane people save the paper for more than a few days, or cut out many articles.
What I pay barely covers the cost of the pulp and getting the paper to my door- the rest is subsidized by advertisers- and much of the blow-in material is 'targeted ad' content.
Why do I pay for a paper but will not pay for online content?
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Instead, you use a micropayment system where, when they site wants to charge you for content, you get a popup from your micropayment bank asking
.You then authorize that single specific charge through your micropayment bank- not any larger amount. It's all pretty standard in the design documents for the more thorough micropay systems.
One such example is e-gold, where all transactions go through their servers, and must be authorized by the payer.
The e-gold/e-silver system is interesting for micropayment because transactions between users are free to the payer and 1% surcharge to the payee (max 50 cents). They make most of their money on moving funds between national currencies and gold.
They do seem to be missing one crucial feature- anonymous transactions, where you do not reveal your account information to the vendor at all.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
We already have to suffer thru millions of mindless commercials with cable tv, and there's no difference with online ads... it's the same shit. Of course there are those who want HBO [or whatever] gladly pay for the content and lack of ads, etc. But i've yet to see anything online that even remotely offers something truly unique and exclusive that i cannot find anywhere else [like HBO] that merits paying additional fees just to view it.
If you force people to pay (1) to access and then (2) to view web content, you'll see websites drying up so fast dust will be coming out of your speakers.
<---[singularity sig]
1. Very little of the content is worth anything to me.
2. That which is worth anything provides no payment mechanism.
3. I'm a cheap bastard.
I didn't get rich writing a lot of checks.
--Bill Gates on "The Simpsons"
Personally, I have no problem clicking on a banner add or two if it's made unobtrusive (The frickin X10 pop under is pissing me off!!). The common Joe thinks they are already paying for the internet when they pay Road Runner or AOL. The notion that they'd have to pay a website too to get what they used to get free is well I don't need to tell you what they would think. What they would do is either stick to AOL content, or go to another free web source, or ditch the net all together and a vast amount of the content out there will dry up because there will be noone left to read it...that's paying for it or not paying for it. What I do think that websites should do is keep with the ads, and then sell stuff too. I know Taco would not like it, but just think of all us idiots who would by Slashdot this and Slashdot that. Then some schmoe on the street would see you wearing the hat and you'd explain to him the website and then they go there and click on a banner and so on and so on. The reason banners hand ultimately failed is the web sites have forgotten that it's important to have good content to drive the traffic to it. All of this address is important and all of the superficial stuff is immaterial. If it's not worth reading, noone would pay or click on the ad banners. We already know slashdot has content. Also, when ever anything is posted to slashdot, that drives traffic (as those poor web servers wheeze and pant). I wonder if it's possble to slashdot slashdot??? :) Anyway, noone would pay for something that sucks. Micropayments suck. I would rather see something like Kuro5hin. I would surely PAY to keep ads off of Weather.com and quite a few other websites. (but not Slashdot or Kuro5hin).
Gorkman
Yes, but with possible exception of Think Geek, how much MONEY does Slashdot really get from you buying that T-shirt? I bet not that much. They'd get more if Slashdot actually sold the shirt, or if Think Geek (being owned by VA as well) would give Slashdot x amount of dollars per shirt. I am sure something like that may happen, but we sure don't know about it. Other wise I'd have at least one Slashdot shirt and hat.
Gorkman
Here's the simple answer: If you have content that people are willing to pay for, they'll pay for it. Ask any site that charges money and makes money. I guarantee you there are plenty of porn sites out there making money? Why? Because they have content that people are willing to pay for.
If someone wants to charge for their content, that's fine. If they price it in such a way that I'm willing to pay for it and I think it's worth the price, then I'll pay, otherwise I wont.
Why is this even an issue. It's basic economics. Who here doesn't understand the concept? I thought Slashdot readers tended to be on the more intelligent side.
Property taxes [are] used ...
RATM would only have to pay if they printed the lyrics on the sleeve. Or if they sampled the original in their version.
1. Most information on the internet has a _very_ low value to me. I'll go into a library and browse books that I would never ever pay for. Almost all pay sites ask for more than their information is worth. 2. There is a cost to paying for information. The time it would take me to write a check and mail it increases the price in my mind. So does the worry caused by giving yet another stranger my credit card number. 3. Sellers rarely provide what they promise, and there's little recourse if you get screwed. This includes computer programs. I recently bought an educational version of Macromedia Flash since I was a student and I wanted to use it for my business. The liscense included said that the product couldn't be used for commercial purposes, and if I disagreed I should return the product. I tried to return it, but the store refused to do so. I realize that the liscence is probably not enforcable, but I don't want to have to go to court to prove that. Until I can have some sort of legal assurance that I can get what I'm paying for, paying isn't worth the hassle. 4. As has been said previously- why pay when I don't have to? 5. If I'm really interested in a topic I'll buy a book. Books still provide more in-depth informaiton in a medium that does not need to 'boot up' or 'log on' or recharge. Books are readily portable. They usually have a lot more information than electronic media. 6. I'm hoping that if we don't pay all these corporate entities trying to take over the internet that they'll stick to just trying to slip their products into the middle of TV sitcoms. A guy can dream, right?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I don't pay for content because so much of it is already free. Granted, at the current rate of dot-bombing, there will soon be nothing but X-10 ads and pr0n. But even if I wanted to pay (and I don't; not really), there is no simple way to do it. But that could presumably be fixed. I don't think it will work because "content" on the net is, like TV, radio, and newspapers, a one-to-many situation where reaching an agreement on price between the content provider and all the consumers is terribly difficult. Which should make it an ideal environment for the ad-supported business models the other media all use. But that didn't work (yet). Why not?
I think it is because the metrics are too good. There is a body of work that suggests that *all* advertising doesn't work very well. Nobody talks about it because the media need the content providers meed the money and the advertisers feel like they have to do something. But on the net, you can get all kinds of metrics about how your ads are being used, viewed, clicked on, and what affect they have on revenue (probable answer: not much). The advertiser's nose gets rubbed in the fact that the ads don't work. So they pull the ads and Suck dies.
Maybe the answer lies in some kind of "forced" advertising like the commercial break where the content is unavailable and the ad is there. Or qualified subscribers. Or something else. Beats me. But "relying on the kindness of strangers" isn't going to work.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
I think it has more to do with the fact that it's mutable and ephemeral. If you buy a paper book, then you know that it'll pretty much always be there unless you lose it or it decomposes, neither of which can be the fault of the entity that sold it to you. You have no such guarantee with online materials. It might go away with no notice whatsoever. In addition, using a book requires no preparation or additional equipment.
Electricity is much more mutable and ephemeral than any information you can get on the internet, yet people have no problem paying for it. Electricity is just as intangible as data. Same goes for gasoline, food, water, and various other consumables.
For thousands of years, music existed without profit. It wasn't until technology screwed it up by introducing distribution media (radio, records, etc) that people decided they could be rich by playing music. Now technology is allowing us to put it all back.
How has recording technology screwed up music? There will be more recordings made in Japan of Beethoven's Fifth this year than there were worldwide performances of it during Beethoven's lifetime. In the last ten years, there has been, by far, more music produced (and, moreover, more music available) than there ever has been before. Before recordings, only the rich elite could attend music performances. At the advent of recording, only a few performers were able to record, and there was little choice of recordings available music. With the advent of the LP, much more music was recorded, and great performers have been forever immortalized. With the CD the selection has compeletely skyrocketed. All music ever recorded is simultaneously and instanteously available. How is this bad?
I challenge you to name an important music performer before the advent of recording, or an important composer before the advent of writing. Practically every important composer, in fact, came after the advent of the printing press, the first technology which enabled mass reproduction of music.
Let's consider an automobile as "access". Access to marketplaces. And physical goods are content. Should I complain that I've already paid for my car so I shouldn't have to pay for toilet paper at Target?
(Please don't anybody bring up a distinction between physical goods and "free" bits - Intellectual property does have value to those who create it.)
If people are consuming it then I'd say they are finding some value in it.
What I find interesting is that people have been willing to pay for some content online -- the porn folks made a good bit of money, even if it appears that they're feeling the economic pinch now. And that required giving up more privacy and security than I suspect I would be giving to Salon.com today.
But then, the demographic that was paying for that content may have been highly motivated. ;-)
Liza
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
Yes, the easy transparent micropayment system is what is needed.
Why micro?
Because, as an earlier story on /. indicated, we are deluged with information. It's so plentiful that it has become cheap. We can't provide any of it, no matter its worth, with anywhere near the amount of attention that we used to give to carefully prepared, researched and edited print media. Like many, I have acquired a built-in prejudice to paying a lot of money for anything I see on a computer screen.
The other missing ingredient, of course, is some semblance of privacy and anonymity.
With all the marketing efforts to track individual users so as to create the ultimate profile, I'm suspicious of any commercially developed system (MS Passport, anyone?).
Given the potential profits from owning such as system (and charging tolls, just like for the win32 API), and being tempted from marketers willing to pay for detailed profile information, such a system would probably not provide the degree of anonymity that I would like.
If I want to read alt.goat Premium Add-free, then I'd like to read it in the privacy of my own outhouse without the world knowing every click I make and when I make it.
To that end, it would be ideal to be able to go down to the local convenience store in a trench coat and sunglasses and purchase a little card that contains a special URL and activation code that provides an e-cash account good for purchases on the Internet. Then, my purchases are my own business and no one else's.
Just last week an LWN editorial came out in favor of innovation for the Open Source community. There is an obvious opportunity here to develop a system for secure, anonymous micropayments over the web.
We need true ecash.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
LEGO Users Group Network (Lugnet) seems to have solved these three problems. Lugnet is basically just a NNTP server focused on LEGO, but the added HTTP and SMTP interfaces makes it more flexible to use. At the same time you have to follow the rules of the site to maintain your posting privileges, which supports a higher content quality than on the "competing" Usenet group, rec.toys.lego.
Finally you only have to pay if you want to become a "member" of Lugnet with access to various additional features, such as a database for keeping track of your LEGO collection. And you decide for yourself how much you want to pay for your lifetime membership (with a minimum of 10 USD). This means that the micro payment problem is avoided completely by having people paying up front. The stingy users can of course still use the basic services without paying, but as long as the users as a whole find Lugnet more valuable than the cost of running it, this model can continue.
Jacob
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.
Basically, I'm sick of these companies coming along, making horrible websites that require flash or javascript or something for no good reason - makes my viewing experience worse, takes away from the actual content - and they want me to pay for it?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
But the library has a revenue stream from taxes. Even a bookstore allows you to read portions of a book before you buy it, but in a bookstore a large number of people are paying for this service by buying products. On the web, people aren't paying for anything.
-no broken link
The word is remuneration.
JohnnyB - johnbowman.net
I know this is the minority opinion around here, but I would be willing to pop US $10 per year for Slashdot + Newsforge. These two sites provide me enough value (news/entertainment) that they are worthwhile. The way I see it, before I got a yummy 768k DSL line, I used to have about $200/yr in magazine subscriptions. These magazines provided value, and I was happy to pay for the luxury of having my own copy of them.
:-)
That said, there are some aspects of online news that don't quite fit the meatspace mold. Since there are no printing and distribution costs outside of the fixed investment in bandwidth and servers, I would not in any case pay full magazine subscription prices for content. In addition, I would strongly object to OSDN trying to make Freshmeat a pay site, on the basis that it is truly a community site, necessary to the health of the linux community. It should be free for _everyone_ to use, or we run the risk of stunting the growth of linux. There is also the "reference" aspect of paper - I can always look up an old article from an outdated or out of print publication. Would I be able to do that with a paid content site on the net? Unless they made a cdrom archive yearly and distributed it to their readers, probably not. Finally, unless content sites make _all_ their content available via PDA software like AvantGo, they are not always accessable. Kinda tough to read Newsforge on the pot in an airport, you know?
I am seriously considering purchasing The Economist premium content. Their reporting is fairly even handed, and $60 is significantly less as compared the print version, which I subscribed to for years. Considering the breadth and depth of what they cover, they are not bad. I only wish they made an archive CD of their content, but their articles are searchable back to 1997, and they do have an AvantGo edition. If only it were more comprehensive.
Anyway, that is my $.02.
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
I think people are unwilling to pay for content for two reasons:
Idol Star Astronomer
The other, obvious, reason is that people already pay to access the internet; paying for content is simply paying twice. Not to mention the lack of a standardized system of micropayment. Just my 2.
Linus has,in fact,grown,and explosively-JonKatz
Pah. It's not that the Canadian dollar is worth less, it's that the Yankee dollar is worth more.. from which follows that, in giving one's '2', americans place too much worth in their own opinons.
Linus has,in fact,grown,and explosively-JonKatz
I can only speak of my own experience, but as the postmaster at my company (along with the 14 other hats I wear) I get bombarded with junk mail for people that have signed up for this service or that on the net, only to have the auto-mail cannon fire off an ever growing selection of useless crap.
When I want to read about something, I want to read what I need to read and be left alone. I don't want to know about the special offer, or the monthly promotion, or some computer generated profile's expecataions of what I am logically attracted to.
Basically, privacy and intrusion are the two largest factors for me in not signing up for things. Even companies that let you "check the box" to not receive spam or to have you address kept quiet will sell the information under the right circumstances. And woe to those that are not saavy to the check box. They clog up my mail servers!!!
Must we go over this again?
/. still runs stories like these. Whether it's the college student running a server in his dorm room, hogging bandwidth from the college OC-3 line to distribute copywrited porn, or the 13 year-old kid who used Back Orifice to get into a computer in AT&T corporate headquarters to delete his long distance bill every month, we all try our hardest to get as much as possible for as little as possible. I mean, we all know that because we have that little thing called the first amendment, it is our right, under the foundation of this country that we can be the "robin hoods" of this land of the internet, robbing from the rich (aka them) and giving to the poor (aka us). Information is free speech, right? So I guess that means that it should be "free."
Why are people so unwilling to pay for online content?
1) Because they can. That's the primary reason. Why are we going to go to Big_Company.com's website to pay for, say, some software that they have when I could search the warez site and download it for free? It's available. There's nothing in the way to stop you. Everyone knows morals/ethics don't stop you. We won't stop for $500 in downloading Micro$$$'s Office Suite from a warez site, and we won't quit even when dealing with the full version of Doom which you could probably buy on eBay now for less than $5, but you instead download from an abandonware site. We all do it because we can.
2) Because there's no one out there to stop us. Look at it like road rage: whether you're driving in your viechle or at the helm of your computer, you feel independent and in control. It's a power trip. You got something that boosts your power and your ego a hundred-fold. You don't see anyone enforcing anything, so you do something a little bit daring and a little bit illegal. If the cat's away, the mice will play.
3) Because we feel that THEY are cheating US. We all think that, right? You know, how dare THEY to spread commercialism across the web, something created for geeks by geeks for "educational" purposes (feel free do define educational however you wish). I mean, with pop-up ads, cookies, doubleclick, SPAM, banners, web bugs, and all these other anti-privacy invaders stealing our private data and selling it for millions of dollars, it should be our right to fight back at them finally for all these years of stealing our privacy! Besides, considering that we have to shell out a ton of money for broadband service, which is stolen by all the corporate adds and data that hogs our broadband lines, we should have everything handed to us on a silver platter!
I'm sorry, but I'm surprised that
So what if there was one site that allowed you to pay for many different sites, either packaged or a la carte, like many cable systems do.
You can have Slashdot, K5 and Ars for $50/year, or you can just get Slash for $20. (Or maybe it's $5 and $2. The numbers are arbitrary.)
I have a feeling this is where we're headed, and I'd probably welcome it if it meant I didn't have to play whack-a-mole with pop-up ad windows.
But who's going to set up the infrastructure for this? Probably AOL-TW, maybe Yahoo, MS or Disney. The Big Boys. Of course they'll only include big corporate sites, so replace /., K5 and Ars in the example above with ESPN, IMDB and CNN. Of course, they're going to collect every bit of information they can about you. Labor-of-love and basement micro-budget sites struggle with the nickels they collect via PayPal donations and banner revenue.
Anybody wanna beat them to the punch? Let's build our own, the way we want it. Open source, privacy friendly, whatever. Who's with me?
Oh, you're brining the funding, right?
- Edson
I think most people don't like the idea of paying for content on the internet because they already pay thier ISP. I don't think most people relize that the web site asking for money is any different from the company that they already paid. If you had to pay a monthly fee for cable TV, and then pay to watch each show, how would you feel about it? Immagine if every show on TV was PPV.\ =\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
It has value to those who create it, but (generally) not to those who consume it.
Tell that to all those people who shelled out for MS Office (Unreal Tournament, QIII Arena, or whatever). A consumer who wants something badly enough will pay quite a bit of money for it.
Trying to get people to pay for something that they don't find valuable is an excersize (sic) in stupidity.
In truth, trying to get consumers to pay for something they attach little or no value to is an exercise in futility. If you disagree, I suggest you revisit "Demand" in any freshman economics text. Consumers don't pay money for anything unless it's "utility" to them equals or exceeds its cost. In this, consumers are perfectly rational beings. What makes some (MOST?) of them seem to be irrational is how they, as particular individuals, may evaluate the "utility" of a particular good or service.
Regards,
ninewands
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
utter rubbish
Buy Slashdot this and Slashdot that? IIRC, Slashdot has already branded things. Right now, I am wearing a /. T-shirt to work. (I think either from ThinkGeek or Copyleft...)
I also would pay some sites to keep from having to see the ads... that is if I didn't have software that removed many of the ads for me.
The value of information can only be determined after it is used... and there's no easy way to ensure that payment is made for the value gained. The thing is backwards, but there's really nothing that can be done about it.
1) But I can browse through a book before I buy. That's why I usually buy from a brick and mortar Barnes'n'Noble.
2) I can keep a book forever. Even if the info is outdated ("Performance Graphics for Turbo C"), no one is denying access to it. The server never crashes and I don't forget my password when a new web browser comes out.
3) A good book is worth a lot. I pay $50 for a book, sometimes more than $100, but I get that much value from it, and you can't find the same quality of information on the web. If someone tries to sell me a book for $0.07, they are telling me that the book is only worth 0.07. That's not even worth my time.
-- no sig
The main reason that I wouldn't pay for online content is that I tend to view the internet as a public library -- a resource that's freely available. In addition, there seems to be a kind of 'social contract' aspect to the net, with the understanding that by setting up your own website, it will encourage others to do the same. If you make your site free, so will others.(Not that I have a website...)
I think most people also have difficulty realizing that websites are actually servers that require maintenence, electricity, &c. It's just a magical electronic universe with goatse.cx for everyone...
Final thought: The net isn't linear, like a radio or tv signal -- you can't insert commercials into the feed every 15 minutes and still keep the viewer's attention (despite X10's best efforts). The whole commercial paradigm has to be rethought. (well, duh.)
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
1. The banner ads are gone.
2. The web bugs for OSDN are gone.
3. I am guaranteed to not see the tasteless link dujour (goatse and that watermellon thing).
4. The moderators get paid for helping to run this site.
5. The submitters get paid for doing Taco's job for him.
6. Jon Katz finally STFU.
Why should I pay for the privilege of sifting through the crap here? Do it for me and I'll pay you. Of course, this will end up just like cable TV. Originally there were no commercials on cable TV (that's what your paying for, right?) but the greedy execs realized you could charge the sheeple and STILL have ads.
Sure, I'll pay. It's just a few cents. With a big enough reader base, $1 from everybody will be more than enough to handle bandwidth costs, etc. for a year. The problem is with a lot of sites that have a young reader base... they're not ALLOWED to pay. It's not a question of whether or not it will work.
The problem is not why people won't pay for content. Why should they pay for content? They don't pay on radio or TV (PPV, etc. is not the same, you pay extra for 10% or 20% of your overall viewing).
The problem is advertising. It should be able to support websites that generate lots of traffic. But it doesn't. Internet advertising is where TV was in 1950. People reading radio scripts into the camera. As long as people try to re-invent existing ad media on the Internet, it will continue to fail. Banner ads, pop ups, broadband commercials. All crappy retooling of existing media. When the only goal of an ad is to get a click, then you have a really shitty ad.
When people figure out how to do things on the Internet that they can't do on a billboard or TV ad, then Internet advertising will take off. That's when we will start to see some good creative. And guess what? Good advertising needs good creative, not good technology, just like its always been.
The really big ad spenders are brand companies like Coke. When they start to spend 25% or 30% of their ad budget online, then thousands of sites will become self supporting. Then the marketplace will be one of real content and ideas, not hype and gloss.
Why would Coke spend that much online? Because that's where the people are. Why don't they now? Because Internet ads are completely inappropriate for their business model. Click throughs and the like do nothing for them. What are they going to do? Sell you a bottle of Coke online? Get you to sign up for mailing list so they can spam you? When sites can do effective brand advertising, then the Internet will become the most effective ad medium ever invented.
When that happens, paying for content will become irrelevant, except for "premium" content like porn or PPV stuff. Just like TV today.
First off, I applaud slashdot for bringing up what must be a sore subject for them. After all, they have been advocating free/open-source software since inception. I realize you didn't want this to devolve into a intellectual property discussion, but how can you avoid that when you ask the question "why won't users pay?".
Perhaps when there is nothing left on the internet but IRC and a few lame-ass user-brewed sites, slashdotters will finally come to realize that the basic concept of intellectual property and the right to charge for it is fundamental to there being information in the first place.
The article suggests that compensation should be limited to distribution costs, but to believe that is to deny the obvious. The relative value of the information is not the problem at all...in every business there is a balancing act between price and volume and the goal is to optimize the profit. Personally, I would be willing to pay $10 for a Fuddruckers hamburger because they are so good and I could afford it. But I am sure Fudd's realizes that they will make more money selling them for $5 instead. The same is true of information...the content owner (that's right) needs to simply weight the money left on the table versus the volume of business they could do, and they should optimize that curve.
As I see it, there are two possible solutions, one is micropayments, but the problem with that is you often don't know if the information is worth paying for before you see it. The second, and better approach would be to have it setup like cable TV. Websites could join a conglomerate of other websites and charge for a subscription. I suspect things would consolidate fairly quickly and you could get access to thousands of great websites for one monthly subscription fee of say $10. ISP's would then negotiate better-deals and roll the cost into the cost of their service.
It's funny how the entire thing is starting to sound like AOL 5 years ago. What comes around goes around...
The parent post is the first post to mention Anonymity. This is the key. In addition, I have no intention to pay $0.076 an article; they add up! I read gobs of stuff all over the internet; like many /.ers, it's a large chunk of what I do. this would add up; say I read twentyfive articles a day. that's $1.90 a day, say five days a week, times four weeks in a month - that's $38.00 a month; nearly TWICE what most users already pay. Are YOU ready to spend $58+/month for the internet AND be tracked everywhere you go? I'm not! (for less active readers, here's the math at a mere five articles a workday: $7.60/mo) ... the library doesn't charge for each book you read there...
... but not 7.6 cents. The theory of micropayemnts is that they don't add up. If I'm charged by the article, it had better be under a half-penny.
Perhaps if we had free (high-speed) internet access I'd pay a few cents per article (it would cost me about the same)
(just my $0.002)
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I've often thought about this question in one form or another. I believe that this problem is not confined to web-content in any way, but rather to anything we've come to expect to be free. When I first went online, quite a long time ago, paying by the minute for internet access was the standard, along with some monthly flat fees. Generally the trend was toward less minutely fee-based service, and toward flat monthly rates (at least where I am). What I propose is that if the major providers wen back to a minutely fee - there'd be an outcry from the majority of users. We don't like to be charged for things that we've come to expect to be free (yes, I realize that flat-fee isn't actually free, but it can seem that way sometimes.)
This same problem crops up with web content. We've come to expect web content to be provided gratis. Changing that now is to charge for things that used to be freely available. People love a free ride - and they hate it if and when that free ride comes to an end.
This isn't to say that everybody are all greedy pigs who don't appreciate the products they consume (information or otherwise). When we sit back and think carefully and rationalize about what things are worth to us, we usually come up with some positive, non-zero figure. But people don't typically purchase things completely rationally (see lots+lots of research on decison theory, especially Herbert Simon). Just think for a second about all those MP3's you got off Napster that you should and will (soon!) buy the album for - but just haven't gotten around to picking up.
I think a similar thing may be plaguing the Free software movement. I can speak only from my own personal experience, but ever since I started using Linux - the thought of paying for software sort of irritates me. I'm completely aware that this is wholly and totally irrational, and I try to combat the feeling whenever possible, but it's never quite goes away. Of course, cognitively, I'm completely okay with paying for good software. Anyways, you get the idea...
If my enemy's enemy is my friend, what happens if my enemy is his own worst enemy?
As many people have previously stated though a lot of it is absolute crap. Depending on who it is at this point I may not want to send them $ because, well, they may not be there next week -- yeah, fuck me, right? Besides, that's just somebody else that's got some of my personal info that can sell it to the highest bidder when they tank. No thanks.
There certainly have been services and such that I've subscribed to in the past but more and more I'm losing interest. More than once service and standards have gone down the shitter a few months after signing up, so it's really a big question of diminishing returns.
The problem with this stems from the fact that not everyone assigns the same value to content. Let's say Joe finds a piece of info on the Internet and he's willing to pay $10 for it, Jack finds that same piece of info but only thinks it is worth $2, and Jill finds the information not useful at all. Now if the information provider sets the value of that piece of information at $5, he's lost 2 customers, not one.
Yeah. How does this not happen everywyere? I want to sell a CD in a store. I charge 15 dollars. Most of the free world wouldn't give me 3 cents for it. I don't sell many CD's. However, if the CD is good, maybe three million out of the possible 100 million(?) possible CD buyers buy it. I've lost 99 million customers, but I can't sell everything to everyone now can I?
I don't think we have to ask to know the reason though, they have a product that people want and can't get elsewhere for free (free high quality porn is not terribly easy to find). The rest of the web will move to this model and its not horrible. People just need to get it out of thier mind that the web is to be free (as in beer) because there is no reason it should be.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I pay $40+ bucks per month for my cable modem. I realize that my ISP is not a content provider but it feels like I'm already paying alot for the content now...
--Richard
Here is my main problem with paying for content.
When someone does something for free, there is a passion there. They have something to say and they want you to hear it, and understand it. "Hey people should know about this, this is stuff that matters"
Beyond this, Sometimes the things we should know aren't the things that make us exactly comfortable. If a journalist is thinking about what kind of audience, and therefore profit, he will be making off of an article, he may be tempted to paint the article in a certain way, or better yet, white a completely different article, possibly following some trend he's sure is a "big seller' right now.
Right when profit comes in to play, freedom of opinion has the potential to be comprimised. Aside from that, it Just Feels Wrong. We didn't see hippies in the 60s demanding pay for their sit-ins and marches, and i feel that a lot of the journalism i read today to be just as socially important.
If any of my news sources start demanding money, i will simply go elsewhere, to a newer site, a younger one, that still has the idealistic passion of "Hey people should know this!"
That's your right, I suppose. But if you take this attitude, you shouldn't be surprised when your culture comes to be effectively owned by the advertisers and manipulators who do pay money to the people who write essays, record music, film television shows, and host discussion forums.
The way I see it, the money I pay for content makes the content producers a little more responsive and responsible to me, and a little less so to, say, Lexus, or the Office of National Drug Control Policy. I like that. Those who create things with no immediate utilitarian value (artists, writers, and all sorts of "content producers") have always had patrons who paid them to create. Sometimes that has been the church, or a few wealthy individuals. The printing press and movie theater made it possible for the common man to act as a patron. And American television puts patronage in the hands of large corporate and governmental organizations who buy advertising time.
The internet offers the role of patron to the common man in a way that even the printing press could not. We should be eager to take up this role, rather than leaving it to fall into the hands of organizations whose values are ultimately quite different from our own.
The internet is cashless. Therefore, to pay for content, you have to use a credit card or check of some sort. So, to pay for online content, the person providing the content needs your address, home phone, and all other info that comes with your payment method.
- ---------
If I paid for all the content I view on the internet, a) I'd STILL be broke with how much content I view, and b) I'd be in thousands more marketing databases, receiving thousands more SPAM mails from hundreds more companies who ask you to pay for their product and then turn around and supplement their income more by selling your info.
No thanks; I'll just keep my CC info to myself.
----------------------------------------
In particular, it seems whenever I pay for something on line, I have to
Whereas, when I buy a newspaper, magazine, CD, movie, or anything else offline, all I have to do is:
And of course, if the product I buy offline is defective, I can return it and get my money back. How many subscription web sites have a clear refund policy?
Leaving the question of quality aside (since most people's comments, including mine, aren't worth $.02 most of the time), paying for online content is inconvenient, invasive, and doesn't even provide a reasonable gaurantee that I'll get what I'm paying for.
I think that about covers it for me.
I am coming to this thread too late, my comments will never get moderated up, and I doubt anyone will see them. Nonetheless, I will say what I feel.
.edu domain. I remember the good old days when there were no ads, and I want them back.
I will never pay for content. Period. I will never click a banner ad. Period. And I will run ad-blocking software on all machines under my control. Period.
I have been using the internet since the days of bang paths. I have been using the web since the days when Yahoo was in the
I agree wholeheartedly with the recent editorial that argued that the failure of hundreds of dot-com companies is proof that the internet is thriving. The web is rejecting commercialism. The web is rejecting pay-for-content. And if you don't adapt to that reality, you will die with the rest of them.
Why do I feel this way? I don't know, it is hard to put my finger on. I do know that there are places where advertising and commercialism do not belong. Church is one of them. Courtrooms are another. And the internet is a third. I know that the genie is out of the bottle. I know that we will never completly hoist capitalism by the balls. But will I give it the slightest bit of encouragement? Never!
The subject says it all. Accept tobacco ads for /. You'll be rich. Until we all die. Only a minor problem.
db
Why would anyone pay not to see ads, as long as they aren't popup windows. I know I don't "see" banner ads" any more, and I don't think too many other people do either.
Want some indy electronic (and other) music?
This sig intentionally left blank.
As a web developer myself, it is an interesting dilema. I run a subscription site for my employer, which offers a internet version of something to commercial customers which they usually hire an addition worker, to physically drive to places to retrieve (information.) We charge $50 per month, and $2 per search. If you compare that to the cost of hiring an additional employee to retrieve the information, is dirt cheap. But of course people still bitch. They all think the internet is free. All the content just comes out of nowhere. We have over $10k a month in ISDN charges alone to retrieve the information which is searchable on the site. That cost may soon double as our information base grows.
;-).
As a whole, I see content based internet sites going the way kuro just did today, but with a twist. I see sites adding more intrusive ads, and offering subscriptions for ad free based access. For more intrusive ads, think the large square in the middle of the content type some zdnet sites now have. For users who rarely visit a site, it will be a minor nusience. For people who regular a site, like slashdot, there is more bang for the buck to subscribe. I think the costs will be relativly low once the dust settles, like $24 for a year ($2 a month), the same cost as a good magazine. I doubt slashdot makes a two dollars a month showing me banner ads, but I could be wrong. 15000 people paying two dollars a month isn't too bad for a site which still feeds banner to non-subscribers. That's enough to hire five full time employees and site overhead in my neck of the woods.
Make ads obtrusive on a site like slashdot I vistit a few times a day, and I'd gladly pony up $2 a month. Just means I have to work an extra 6 minutes a month
That's where I see the content based web going, but it will take some time for the public (the internet is free!) perception to change.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
If so, will Slashdot pay me 2 cents for every comment I wrote?
Donate free food to the hungry at The Hunger site.
Why *would* I pay for content when I can get comrpable content elsewhere for free. People would rather not pay than pay, right? That provides a strong incentive for content produces to find a business model whereby content consumers don't have to pay. Advertising is the obvious one, but there are others.
As long as someone's making a go of it offering free content, it's going to be pretty hard for other people in that same market to charge for content without some kind of strong differentiation (like HBO versus CBS).
I don't see why that's so hard to understand.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Let's pretend that advertising didn't support TV. What would that mean?
You could pay per individual show. Of course, how would you know if the show was good enough to pay for without seeing it first? Would you get your money back for a show that stunk? Would you enjoy doing a value judgment every time a new show came on -- "hmm, is it worth $5 to me to watch this show"?
You could subscribe to each show for the season. Of course, if you've never seen the show before why would you subscribe? How would you find out about new shows?
You could pay for cable and let cable decide which shows to send you. Of course, the shows are grouped into networks and there are a finite number of shows which makes is somewhat easier for the cable company to choose. Since there would be no advertising your cable bills would probably run $100 per channel though.
My point: I don't think that TV could survive without advertising. Advertising is like a giant tax put on the nation to support TV. Everyone pays the cost of advertising in the form of higher product prices. And we get TV with ads in return.
Likewise I don't think the internet can survive without advertising. There's just no good way to pay for everything.
Ralph
I'd love to have a subscription to an online version of PC gamer and The Linux Journal (the only two I subscribe to right now). It'd be cheaper, faster to publish, better for the trees of the world, and I'd be able to search the archives more easily than thumbing through a four foot stack of old issues.
But I'm sure they're worried about people sharing subscription logins or saving off the articles and sending them to friends. And a lot of people don't have the fulltime access that would be needed to make something like that viable.
Perhaps a magazine on a CD...that's something to think about...
A few of my reasons for (rarely) paying for web sites info :
/. are in the business of selling and using packaged information, one way or another. So figuring out a usable financial instrument which supports "Bits4$" transactions, is something we would all potentially benefit from.
1) Time. It takes too long to fill in credit cards #'s etc, for such a small transaction. Time is a rare and precious resource, I sincerely object to wasting it for a marketdroids benefit.
2) Invalid payment model. Most sites use the subscription model, for items and services I view as an ad-hoc and probably one off usage.
3) Cost. IMHO most sites overcharge for the item/service. Often related to (2) above. Information has extremely subjective valuations, and a highly variable, short, shelf life. Many things are like this, the usual solution adopted is called haggling. I want to be able to make an offer if I don't agree with the asking price.
4) Trust. Web sites persist in demanding too much personal information and I have no reason to believe their canned promises not to abuse it. Given that they are usually controlled by marketing people, I have many empirical reasons to believe they will abuse it.
5) Privacy. Many purchases of information are necessarily private, do you want your competitors, significant other, boss, etc, to know what you are reading today? This privacy is at risk if the bills show up on a credit card bill, or in spam to my work email addresses, or in marketing stats.
6) It's hard to find any real value. Most stuff on the web is not truly unique or valuable, mostly I am paying for marginal convenience. Given a choice between spending ten minutes finding raw stuff for myself, or dropping $10 for some pre-digested bits, i'm nearly always gonna do the research... Thats a $60 an hour rate (ignoring tax). Plus the bonus of whatever I learn along the way, often equally valuable....
7) Keeping track. I don't want to have to check an extra 20 or so fiddling little items on my credit card bills. Thats like having to balance an account for the loose change in your pocket each day.
8) Caveat Emptor. I am wary of buying anything I can't see or try in advance. Especially from companys that subject me to problems 1 thru 5 above.
Overall, I don't think we can assume the problem is with our potential customers..., its gotta be our business model. Why "our model", well..., imho, seems to me that many folks on
I suggest we pool some thinking about whats needed and maybe fire up an effort to fix this before the EAOTD (Evil Acronym Of The Day) or whomever start figuring out how to patent/sue/restrain or charge us repeatedly for every web page we hit.
My stab at some specs for micro transactions :
Fast. Easy, quick payment authorization, up to a user configurable limit.
Supports for making bids, can make offers for services and one-off payments.
Zero residual personal information available to vendor.
Fast. Like reaching in my pocket for a quarter fast...
Up front account payment. Zero additional accounting burden.
Umberimas Fides. Utmost good faith. Supports returns, no questions asked.
Did I mention fast?
Item (6) is clearly a tougher issue. However, I think that if a micro payment Bits4$ system was available, it might become a virtuous circle as sites use the funds for research.
I reckon thats about 0.076 worth...
There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.
If you eliminate all the 'information wants to be free' arguments, then all you're left with is justifications that 'information is worth paying for.'
Don't gripe to me when we end up with a social structure which is tied to an individuals relative ability to pay for information (take a look at the falling through the net studies from the US NTIA)
Choosing to eliminate arguments based on the free-flow of information is a *very* dangerous idea! I would have thought (hoped) that you guys would be a bit more careful...
What we need is not smaller payments (micropayments) but bigger (or "chunkier") content. If I could pay $10-15/month to a central authority and know that I would have free reign to reload /. all day, a metered number of posts at k5, and get my daily online comics as required, I'd jump at the chance to support my favorite sites. But I don't want to follow the recording industry system and subsidize sites that I can't stand with my $10. My contribution has to go to the sites I actually want to support, and the user has to be able to specify that they want to be able to read some sites in an unlimited manner, read others in a limited manner (I only need so many Google searches per week, but I do need them), and specify that others will only be hit once per day, etc.
Sounds like AOL. About $10-15 a month on top of what you'd pay for a pure dialup (in fact, BYOA is $9.95/month). Central authority. And the money is redistributed to the content providers based on the amount of traffic they get.
Of course, AOL takes the biggest chunk, and is starting to tightly control who provides the content (read Time-Warner), but that's how it was in the good ol' (remember Motley Fool) days.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
in the argument "I pay my ISP so I shouldn't have to pay for content" is that the content provider pays their ISP too. If your homepage is entertaining and becomes popular, you'll be looking for a way to pay the bandwidth cost. I as a web site owner can't keep you from coming to my site if I don't want to pay for the bandwith. Wanting all content to be free forever pushes out the small players since any bit of popularity pushes them out of the affordable hobby range. How much would you pay a month just to get an inbox full of e-mails swearing at you since you didn't update for a week (off working for a living or something)?
"Sometimes it's not as simple a matter as assigning a price and paying for it. Just how should one charge for information, especially when the worth of such information is subjective? "
I'm with you on charging for information. Just how do you put a price on information. But I think a meaningful price could be put on the packaging of that information. Such as the cost of distributing that information over the web, mail, newspaper, etc.
For example, You may have the newspaper delivered to you. you pay a fee for the paper and to have it delivered, but you are not neccessarily paying for the information contained within.
However the method be to distribute the information, there is probably a legitimate cost associated with its method of distribution. That is where the costs and fees should come from.
Heck, if you're a cheap bastard you can always go out and find the information yourself. But usually it's easier just to pay someone else who has already pre-packaged what you need.
A fee for slashdot? hmm...
As you can see, all of my grieves would be solved by micropayments. If I could simply access a site, find information, look at it, and after a certain amount of time a dialog box would pop up, saying something like:
and any payments I would do were automatic, anonymous, and as simple as pressing the [buy] button (no forms to fill out, no hassle), then I would be more than happy to pay for content as well as anything else over the Internet.
From their main page (today): "You can now subscribe to Kuro5hin, and browse the site ad-free."
I just went to K5 to see for myself, and sure enough, Junkbuster filtered the banner ad quite effectively, just like it does for nearly every other site on the web.
K5 is cool... maybe someday I'll kick the slashdot habbit and read K5 instead, and maybe even send 'em five dollars.
But it won't be due to banner ads. Junkbuster takes a bit of work, and you have to get a good blocklist built ( Stefan Waldherr's site is a good place to start). Maybe Junkbuster is too difficult for most mainsteam users, but I'd guess the average slashdot or K5 reader could set up Junkbuster about as easily as setting up a Paypal account... and it works for almost all websites for free (zero dollars, and GPL freedom to hack).
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Yes, but electricity is consumed, and is intended to be consumed. When you purchase things, you want them to be usable as many times as is possible, and books are intended to be used indefinitely, not arbitrarily taken away at the whim of someone else, be it your ISP, the provider's ISP, the provider himself, etc.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
And downloading it to your computer and/or printing it out is probably going to cost more than purchasing it at a store. Consider how much it would cost to print out Cryptonomicon (918 pages) vs. buying a copy for $16 retail. These arguments remain fairly valid for media other than books as well. News sites may be an exception, as few people hoard old newspapers and news magazines.
So the intangibility isn't even solely a psychological one. There are very real reasons, as well.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
We pay to get connected (DSL, ISP, etc...). And we also pay for the huge gov't supercomputers, backbones, etc. This is called tax.
Personally I liked the web better before it became super-commercialized. Which is probably a big reason there have been articles on Slashdot about the return of BBSes. People are tired of the X10 ads, spam, etc. That and the fact that every legislator, judge and corporate interest in the world is scrambling to stake out territory, screwing the people who made the web a success in the first place.
There was a good article about non-technical problems of micro-payments (namely that people hate the idea and are willing to pay more for fixed price than for cheaper on long run pay-as-you-use), and it did mention alternatives, of which one is newspaper - like subscriptions.
So, even though TV channels are not really a good analogy for web content, perhaps some version of syndication might work better than full micro subscriptions.
This is even more logical considering the situation of (TV) content providers. Not many people would subscribe to any of 'minority' TV-channels in USA, but since you'll get 50 or 100 or 200 channels bundled, you do get your jesus channel as well as spanish soap opera channel and n+1 tv shop channels (or "car and driver channel" etc. etc.). And that's a great deal for those 'small' channels; they don't get as much as more popular ones, but they do get much more than they would if they tried selling channels directly to customers.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
I would guess, though, that succesful companies would put more effort in making sure no one ever pays for stuff they don't get, because that is sure to make people really mad. Losing few micropayments isn't a big deal as long as percentage is reasonably small. It can be considered reasonable overhead.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
With www it would be possible to offer practically unlimited granularity for ordering things; from single articles (web pages, songs, whatever) to full-featured channel set subscriptsion (a la cable / satellite tv). Pricing scheme would most likely be somehow logarithmic, ie. ten times more content for twice the price (and vice versa); bundling seems to be a good way of marketing stuff. It's not a coincidence that you can't order just 2 channels you like from your cable provider.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The problem with paying for content is not that "different people assign a different amount of value to the same content."
The problem is that we can't pay for content. There's no system available that would allow me to pay five cents everytime I reloaded slashdot, or three cents to make this post, or half a cent for every comment I read. There's no system that exists that makes it possible.
But everyone reading this already knew that. This has been a slashdot story a few times just this month. This brings up the biggest problem with paying for web content -- most of it is pretty shitty. I'd be pretty damned pissed if I had to pay for every story I read, and the website was notorious for rerunning stories with only minor content changes.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
In that at Kuro5hin the readers vote for the stories for the front page, and the section pages. You don't pay, but you can have a say in what the sight is like.
As an undergraduate student at a big tech school, the internet is an invaluable resource. However, after dropping 2,000USD for my computer and 18,000USD/year for tuition and bandwidth, I just don't have the money to start paying for online content. Oh, and I refuse to go into debt with credit cards.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
People have been getting information off the net for free for so long that people don't want it to change. Change always faces confrontations, especially when the change means paying for something that people have been getting for free. Advertising will not pay for everything. Do you have to pay for newspapers? Magazines? Yes, even though they have advertising. Why is a website different? It costs money to run a website. The admin has to eat and pay for bandwidth. I say, for all you people who think all these websites should be free, I'd like to see you run a website and charge nothing. Then compare yourself to a website with a web team that gets paid to work 40 hours a week on just that one site. We'll see who has the better content in the end.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
renumeration? Isn't that what we used to do to our BASIC programs? Is this a subtle reference to Bill Gates's flame that asked, "Why won't you pay for BASIC?".
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
- Distrust over company's security to ensure my personal info remains private.
- Purchase price is inflated.
- Usability issues with web site prevent me from completing the transaction.
- Exact nature or scope of the information to be purchased is vague. Samples please!
- Unreasonable subscription restrictions.
Read my experience with the Consumer Reports web site when I tried to subscribe to their product reviews.In a situation in which several different competitors can provide the same good, it's very difficult to remove rights from the consumer (ie move the consumer to a worse situation). Simply put, any provider that removes rights from the consumer will loose costumers to the other providers that did not change their conditions.
Unfortunatly this only works in a pure competition situation, hence the RIAA and MPAA situations (plus the latest changes from Microsoft to their pricing schemes).
In terms of the Internet, people are used to free content, so it's going to be very difficult for any one site to make them pay for what they can get free somewhere else.
A sugestion:
The way most people connect to the Internet nowadays (except via modem in Europe) is basicaly a flat-fee. I would think (and this is purely my personal opinion) that the payment of a flat-fee to have free access to a pool of content (for example: all the music you want to hear for $10/month) would match the current model of payment for Internet access and thus be much more easy to accept.
I believe subscription models are best for selling content - that is what I want. I hate the thought of paying 1-50 cents for 500+ pieces of content I view each month! When I want content, I don't want to think about paying for it each and every time because it makes me think 'do I really want this content?'. Subscription models work best as I have already paid and can just enjoy the content without worrying thinking about $.
In the cable world, I pay a subscription fee and get to watch all the TV I want. It's a great model as I don't have to worry about getting my credit card each time I watch a show, I have access to an unlimited amount of content (they don't tell me I can only watch 5 shows a day) and if I really want something not available through my subscription (like pay-per-view boxing) I *can* buy it.
The Internet, for last last few years, has been much like cable TV (almost). I pay my ISP (cable provider) and get access to tons of content that is free (to many, it feels as though they've already paid for the content by paying their ISP and should get access to the any & all content).
While an AOL model seems great for me, I don't like the idea having my content provider and ISP in one (that is almost exactly the cable industry). I want the freedom of choosing my ISP and choosing where my content comes from.
As for the company/group offering subscriptions, I personally want content from both traditional content creators (i.e. Disney, AOL Time Warner) and small, independant content creators. If I could have access to both, as well as maybe have access to other useful value-adds (i.e. email, calendar, etc) I'd sign up (I think Yahoo would be perfect for subscription models of content).
This doesn't apply to all content, mind you. There are situations where people just don't feel the content is worth the money ($15 CD's vs. free MP3's, for example). Or, they feel ripped off by the Evil Corporations (RIAA, Microsoft, etc.) With all the mega-mergers happening, many people feel that content is being too centrally controlled. They can't do anything about that, but hey, they can "steal" (which isn't really stealing - more on that later) the content, so that's how they strike back. It's a whole class of people who fancy themselves micro-Robin Hoods. Right or wrong, that seems to be how they feel.
Yet another motivation is the "it's not stealing" argument. Say, for example, that I rip an MP3 copy of a CD that I never would have paid $15 for. Who's losing money? Nobody. I never would have paid for it. So, is it stealing? No! It's unauthorized use, which is a very different thing. I'm not taking money out of anyone's pocket, I'm just not putting any in. Many people would have you believe that what I'm doing is stealing - it's not. It's unauthorized use.
Maybe part of the reason for such attitudes is what I'll call the "working-man's resentment." Most people have to continuously produce useful work to get paid. "Intellectual property" holders get to create something once and get paid for it indefinitely. Again, right or wrong, some people resent that. Of course, some people also resent these huge mega-corps, for whom a million dollars is like $10 to the average American, having the balls to charge us for the self-serving crap they call "content." It's all a matter of perspective.
I'm not proporting to agree or disagree about any of this, I'm just stating it the way I see it. Let's not get too wrapped up in our world-views that we can't see things from someone else's perspective from time to time (and yes, that means from the RIAA/Microsoft/AOL-Time-Warner perspective as well as the "information wants to be free" crowd's perspective). An open mind is a good thing.
Simply send me $15 USD, and I will tell you why people don't like to pay for content.
We already have this for so-called adult sites. You pay $X per month (the one I signed up for was 15USD/year) to one adult verification service and get access to a whole syndicate of sites. The one whose link to the AVS you clicked gets a commission.
--
Quis metamoderunt ipses metamoderatores?
Well, my whole take on the matter is, the less people are willing to shell out, the faster everyone will leave the Internet, and in some ways, that's a good thing.
I'm going to go "old fogey" on you for a moment but even as recent as 1994, the Net was still a pretty cool place, with not a lot of commercial content. Granted, that was because HTTP was still a new protocol, and if you really needed to find anything, you waded through Veronica or Archie searches on Gopher or FTP. At the same time though, if I brought a HD at a flea market without documentation, I could ftp to seagate.com, and figure out if I needed to change the jumpers or not. If I wanted to chat with people, there was IRC, Usenet, and MU(SH|D)s, and email.
Granted, all of those are still there, and with the evolution of Windows, X Window Managers, and Mac OS, doing some of the stuff that could only be done on a 14.4 dial up into the university VAX was PAINFUL.
But with the Web, everything became GUI based. Try reading some sites in Lynx. Good luck. And with GUI, you've finally found a medium that Joe Six Pack can understand. Which, IMO, is what lead to "Punch the Monkey" banner ads, Internet Bingo, and various porn sites (not that I'm knocking porn sites, I have my own collection).
It's an elitist viewpoint, but the Net used to be interesting. Now it's entertaining, and there's nothing wrong with being entertained, but that's what TV and the rest of the "traditional media" is for. Once it stops being entertaining, Joe Six Pack will go back to watching Hee Haw reruns on his 3000 channel cable box.
And that's why I won't pay for Internet content. It'll make the "dot com" people and their potential customers go away, and the Net may go back to being more focused on knowledge rather than entertainment. Or at the very least, people who do the entertainment are doing it for the love of what they're doing, not the profit margin. Let's get the commoners and the businessmen out of here.
As I'm rereading/editing this, I realize that I may seem to be contradicting myself, since I used certain examples of how I used the Net in the past. However, Usenet taught me regex's for filtering purposes, and how the networks were actually connected. MUSHing started off as a playground for me, and then I actually figured out OOP from programming in the environment. There's not a whole lot you can pick up from http://www.sexybabes.com (made up URL) except maybe how to defy gravity with your breasts. :)
Opinion: Scientology is a cult you should avoid. Follow the
12.M DARPA Contract for FreeBSD Security
Posted by AilleCat on Monday July 09, @10:40AM from the return-to-the-hey-day dept.
NAI Labs has been awarded a $1.2 million contract for TrustedBSD security extentions. The name of the project is...
-Fade from black- random geek basement
AC #1: so kuro5hin wants to have a subscription fee to pay for bandwich uh?
AC #2: yup, what the fuck is rusty thinking? paying for stuff that we like? on the internet? mwhahaha... idiots! but i have a plan, a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel. let's put a link to them on slashdot! That will show those suckers just how much bandwich really cost!
-Earthling
-Earthling
"I'm sorry, I had to; the irony was just too thick."
Along the same lines I currently get stiffed paying for loads of useless content I dont want purely due to the fact I cannot just pay for the channels I want on my cable TV. So I end up paying for content I never watch and dont want. It just shows that the content is of such low value to me that they have to force feed it to me. I hate brit-pop so I have to have 3 channels of brit-pop. XorA
Since Cable Companies have gotten into the "internet thing" their model of business might be one to look at.
Sign up for basic cable and get 2-13 (sorry to those of you out of the States) and that's it. Sign up for Basic Cable Plus and get MTV, ESPN, some crappy Movie Channel. And so on and so on up the ladder until you have full blown every channel ever TV.
Why not do something similar with internet access? Sign up for basic NET and get access to e mail and any sites that deem themselves free. This would include private pages, free parts of pay pages and such. Sign up for Basic NET plus and you get more, Wall Street Journal, Discovery, TV Guide, etcetera. Then you could even sign up for Basic NET Porn and get all the porn channels.
The Internet has/is becoming what we all feared it would become. TV. Might as well price it as such.
Oh what about FTP, Telnet, News, etc. Yearly subscriptions.
---
This
Ripped from the front page without permission:
Although only a few days have passed since we broke new ground with our Ars Premier Membership subscription, I thought I'd post an update for y'all. It's going great! We expected it to be slow at first, but in all actuality, the numbers are growing steadily, and beyond our expectations for this early period.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
You have a good point, but consider this: What you describe sounds an awful lot like how the RIAA works, especially with regards to radio. As we all know, the guys that do the actual work see little of the money -- most of it goes to middlemen. It wouldn't necessarily have to happen this way, but it's always a danger when you introduce a middleman. Is this really what you want?
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
So if I go and buy a CD I can resell that CD to anyone I want. If I buy info, can I resell that info? What am I really paying for, the info or the distrubution?
--- http://homepage.mac.com/gregjsmith
i will personally say why i don't want to pay for content online. I'm sure someone's already said everything i'm about to say, but i'm in a hurry and i don't have time to read all the previous posts. Anyways, in order to pay online you must use a credit card (no, don't get into virtual currency or the need for stuff like cryptonomicon, i'm being realistic). You really must use a credit card and those are a pain in the ass to go dig up every time you want to buy something online. As for the rings, people know exactly when the bill for the cell phone is coming so they're gonna have a credit card close at hand in order to make the payment. When they're surfing the net they aren't prepared to start buying stuff. They don't have the credit cards next to them. Anyways, by now they've been spoiled by the peak of e-commerce and think that it should be free and therefore refuse to pay. I don't know. make payment easier and it'll all be good. Like a little money slot from a vending machine put into your computer so you can just pump cash in there...though...how would it be physically transferred? damn.
-"Hey, Baby. It's not a rash, it's textured love."
I just recently held this discussion with a friend on IRC.. basically he made a comment on how he doesn't mind paying for access to some of ign's features, due to the fact that better quality is offered to him. For example, 640x480 game trailers and the ilk.. to me, that makes more sense... Pay for higher quality, not quantity.
I think it's important to distinguish between "content" and "entertainment". Somewhat paradoxically, I am much more willing to pay for "entertainment" (ie. Britney Spears ring-tones) than I am to pay for true "content" (ie. the sequence of the human genome) even though the latter probably has more value.
Tip jar.
---
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
In paper magazines, one pays for the copy of the magazine. It's persistent, you can keep it and read it as often as you like. Some people throw them away but they do so on their own choice of schedule.
In the movies, people pay to go to a movie at a theater as a social event, more than for the individual experience. The individual experience part keeps the social event painless (no struggle to think of what to talk about, etc) rather than being what people pay for in its own sake. Similarly, when people rent movies, they do so to kill time, and watch the movie with someone.
Reading web sites is an individual, nonsocial experience which makes it unlike viewing movies or television. It is also ephemeral, you are paying for the experience alone, no physical item, so it is unlike magazines or newspapers. In addition, no "content" web site that I've ever seen provides the return for money that a pay-per-view TV channel or newspaper does, and less than most magazines as well. The pictures are lower quality, there is less sheer quantity.
For $6.00 a month, HBO gives you movies 24 hours a day plus The Sopranos and quite a few specials. And for about $40 a month you can get *all* the premium cable channels offered. If Web Content providers had that much richness of offering, for that kind of price - six bucks a month for one, forty a month for all the ones I could possibly want/need - I'd pay it. Probably a lot of people would.
People buy hardback books for $20, paperbacks for $6. It's the same exact information. They feel like they're paying for the physical book, NOT the words, and that's shown to be true in some sense by the economics of it. At this rate, they expect to be paying around $1.50 for the electronic version. I'd pay $1.50 for a download of the novel-before-the-latest of one of my favorite authors...
People will pay for content when content becomes worth what's being charged for it. Simple as that. They will expect to be able to re-view it without re-paying or what they pay will reduce compensatorily.
Writing is the only socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. (E. L. Doctorow)
But that is exactly what MS is doing with photo management...the default sites for developing your digital photos that are displayed on MS photo software have paid both for the placement on the software and a per-photo developed charge also.
You still have the buyer's anxiety, and with an even more heightened mode of frustration as the thing clicks off before you got past the table of contents to see if there was anything there.
The internet is at its best as a universal library... please don't smash it for the sake of the Idiot Goes to China model of doing business (i.e. If I can get a quarter from each of just a million Chinese, I'll be a rich man!!!)
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
That is, until they have smashed everything else, and driven webhosting costs into the stratosphere (who knows, maybe even along with a Information Homeland Security Act disallowing server usage by unlicensed individuals, they've bought larger things...)
They have a corporate tit to suckle. What can a small site do?
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Or lack thereof that's easy for everyone to use.
accessibility: automatic first-page mirrors of linked sites
I think they are worried that they will either get in legal trouble or piss off the site owners if they do this. See the FAQ for details.
Josh Sisk
First, I would say this is not unprecedented. People refuse to pay for content good or bad. National Public Radio (NPR), and newspapers are good examples. Newspapers have a model based upon advertising. The cost of the paper itself covers manufacturing costs, it may even be a mere subsidy of those costs and the primary source of revenue is advertising. NPR has pledge drives, corporate sponsers, and a little government money. Regular radio is advertising based as we know. But of the NPR listeners it is said that only about 1 in 10 actually pledge money. I happen to be a paying member. But that is because I really enjoy NPR and I pay for the NY Times because the writing is excellent. But what keeps them in a position of money making and similar systems on the Internet have failed?
I would say there is no one cause, but some of the problems are:
Things like the aforementioned ringtones for phones have a low perceived value, too many people are willing to give them away and you feel entitled if you are paying for a phone and service. The phone company should do a better job of providing low cost, good will by providing ringtones.
The information provided by papers and radio has an extremely short life span. After the fact, most people couldn't care less. So many people have trouble paying for short lived value. "Today's news lines tomorrow's bird cage" But online news content isn't nearly so useful. If I want papers for the dog or bird, I still need to buy a paper.
MP3's are example of poor corporate custodianship. People hate record companies. How many times have you been cheated, by inferior product? And that is only the fact that CDs are not going to last forever. I own 3 copies of Pixies Doolittle to prove it. How many times have you been irritated by the record company putting out two seperate singles for the same song with different B-sides. But even MP3 isn't the answer because it doesn't have audiophile quality sound, zero quality control and no way to retrieve (not formally) lost music.
DVDs are the same way, I will only mention that Full Metal Jacket is still Pan and Scan only on DVD and why do companies insist on putting entire seasons of a television series on 15 DVDs instead of two? Do they think I have a Tardis to store the damn things in?
Anyway,,, I think people will only pay for content of quality, and for the most part that is the exception and not the rule. Companies have not learned that as long as they continue to make the most by doing the least people feel cheated. Most companies still don't know what to do with the Internet because they don't understand the medium. And it doesn't help that companies do a poor job of integrating content and making it portable. A point that is important that I didn't go into.
When you buy a TV, you put up bunny ears, whatever you get is free. YOu paid for the TV and whatever content that comes your way is free. When you bought a computer, and sign up with an ISP, people have the same attitude as they do with TV, whatever they can get off the net should be free, after all they are paying a monthly charge for access right? That's why a majority of the huddled masses feel that napster is squeaky clean, these people would never go to the record store and steal an album, but getting it free off napster? No problem. Same situation.
"Let's say Joe finds a piece of LETTUCE on the GROCERY STORE and he's willing to pay $10 for it, Jack finds that same piece of LETTUCE but only thinks it is worth $2, and Jill finds the LETTUCE not useful at all. Now if the GROCERY STORE sets the value of that piece of LETTUCE at $5, he's lost 2 customers, not one."
Market forces can determine the price. How do you set that? Set price low and slowly edge it up, or set it a little high and try various discounting schemes to see if lower prices increase sales. I'm sure plenty of us have seen manufacturer's coupons for use at the grocery store, not to mention the chain 'club cards' that offer discounts. Determining market price is fairly easy.
As for me, I am not against paying for online content. Right now, like most of us, I take for granted much of what is there. The problem for me is not an unwillingness to pay, but rather an unwillingness to put up with the inconvenience of doing so. If there were a safe and reliable way for sites to access my "digital wallet" or something, I would not be opposed.
That said, I am currently thinking that for a heavy info junkie such as myself, the bill at the end of the month should be in the US$15-30 range.
To recap, the big problems as I see them are:
1) lack of a unified SAFE way to charge users
2) lack of an agreed upon method to determine your usage (if I view the same page three times does it count? if I am hitting a transparent caching proxy, how will they even know??? etc.)
3) determining what the market price would be
That's just my 2 cents, and it didn't cost you a penny...
I just checked out your site. If I hadn't gone there specifically to see your tip jar, I wouldn't have found it at all. It doesn't even exist on your main page(where people are most impressionable). Besides that, it's hardly readable and doesn't look much like a jar at all.
And do what that last poster said and put it in your copyright statement not up at the top of the page. I bet many of those emailers would have tipped if they'd have found the crazy *jar*.
Also, keep in mind, since CPM's are around $1 lately you'd have made about the same amount with banner adds if you served 78,000 impressions in the last 7 months.
It is the nature of idea to be communicated; written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass, it craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.
Paying for it would be like someone coming up to you and saying, "Hey, I'll sing a song you've never heard if you give me a dollar!" No street musician would make money that way. Their way is through simply giving, then getting donations thrown back at them.
The success of content-sharing over content-selling stems from the mutual satisfaction involved: nobody [real] loses money and both parties benefit. That is why spam is so hated but the newgroups are proliferate with requests and requests-fulfilled for "pirate" mp3's and apps.
Plus, pirates are much more romantic than the East India Trading Company.
[pink beam of light]
No, we won't pay for Slashdot.
Most content that you pay for you can get free somewhere else.
It may not necessarily be legal, but why pay for something you can get for free.
This is especially true for information. There are too many places to get info for free to ever pay for it. Why would I buy an encyclopedia when I can search on google for free? Why pay for a pr0n site when you can zip through the newsgroups for free?
But this also rises a question: How can content be proven true? Free information carries the question on its authentication. Is it true fact, or not? Paid content also asks the question, but you usually pay for true content. But I digress...
--
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
People will pay for content. Just not enough people to sustain a site. The problem is that a lot of site operators come to think of their readers, the whole lot of them, as devoted loyalists, enchanted with the content of the site, when actually most of them are just reading it because it's free and they're bored.
Let's put it this way. Go to a grocery store and hand out samples of Tux Puffs, the freely redistributable dessert. If it's a busy store, you're going to be mobbed by people grabbing the sample Tux Puffs as soon as they hit the wax paper. Your Tux Puffs will disappear as fast as you can hand them out.
Now put some boxes of Tux Puffs on the shelves. Yes, some will sell, but they won't be flying off the shelves. If you don't have a national advertising campaign for Tux Puffs (and maybe even if you do), you're not going to make a profit.
So why aren't the people who sampled them willing to pay for cookies? They are, but not yours. Are these people heartless freeloaders who want everything in life to be without cost? Radical socialists? No, they're people who, like most of us, are much pickier when they're shelling out gil than when they're given a chance to get something free.
What people forget is that the Web pages which are dying off like mayflies in a comet strike are in competition with things like cable (which I would assume more American Internet users are paying for already) and magazines. Yes, the Web is better in many ways, but worse in others. I read a PS2 Web page, but I also buy a magazine because it has demos, it's easier to flip through, and you can take it into the bathroom. If I had to pay for each I'd probably choose just one, and I love me some demo discs...
Making things even moreso is the fact that most Web content is still free, meaning that your choice is between something interesting on the Web that you pay for or something interesting on the Web that you don't. Sure, content sites aren't fungible, but when you start forcing the splitting of loyalty you're also going to be splitting the income. There are a few sites I'd be willing to shell out some ducats for if it would keep them going, but they're not the same ones that many other people would shell out for. And then of course there are the people who aren't going to pay for a wacky Flash animation site when they're already getting a monthly cable bill.
In summary, we're still falling into the great fallacy of the information age: that old problems have new causes now. You don't need to make up any explanations about how technology changes spending patterns as long as you know the following things:
1. People like stuff what is free.
2. When stuff what is free becomes not-free, people quickly decide they don't like it as much as all that.
If you don't want my koalas, baby, don't shake my eucalyptus tree.
The problem with charging for web content is that standard economic rules don't apply. The fundamental problem of economics is the allocation of scarce resources (to call this oversimplification would be an understatement). Charging for web content is like trying to charge people for sunlight--they're not going to pay a particular person for content because it's everywhere.
This leads in to my second point. Web content is nonunique. While the delivery may differ from site to site, the nature of the content related to most topics is interchangeable.
Let's face it: most of the stuff on the web, including this post, is crap. If a user can produce their own crap, they're not going to pay for anyone else's (unless we're talking about eBay).
With most web content being bountiful, nonunique, and shitty, there's no way users are going to pay for it.
Take Slashdot for example. There is no shortage of Slashdot. There are hundreds of other Slashdot-like products on the internet. Slashdot isn't exactly high quality. All of the other Slashdots are free. Charge for one, and users go to another. My theory is that people will pay for a site that has unique, high quality information.
"We've been spoiled. For example, Napster made music free"
What do you mean? The general consensus on Slashdot during the napster debate was that napster was boosting album sales and the people were only downloading music that they bought!
Do you mean people were stealing?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The Slashdot mantra has always been "information wants to be free" or "FUCK RIAA".
Now that their shit company is going down the tubes, Slashdots 'moral crusade' takes a second fiddle to cash.
Bunch of hypocrites.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Give each person an unique ID.
/. in the clear.
Use that ID in all Web access, TV access, pring mag subs.
Use that ID in all credit card purchases.
Tax all merchants 0.5% on credit card purchases.
Distribute the tax on an individual's purchases to the media the individual accesses.
Now, the payoff is you then do data mining, and let the merchants know precisely which media their customers visit in what proportions. The resulting efficiency in advertising would more than pay for the 0.5% tax.
You can also create _useful_ police profiles based on correlating clothing styles with consumption of subversive media, correcting the current bias towards hassling only the darker skinned.
Of course, individual identities will be protected by law. You can trust this system. After all, you already post to
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I am already paying for Content. I pay my ISP.
Just ike I pay my cable Co. for the content they provide access to.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
Before modding something up as "Informative" check your facts. Kuro5hin is not charging for content. The FAQ on the subject covers it exactly. Instead, your paying a fee to visit the site without banners, the content, and all of it will always be free.
Why Won't You Pay for Content?
This is specifically talking about paying for online content (not banner removal, or special features, but CONTENT).
Then you say:
Funny you mentioned it as kuro5hin became a pay site as of today. check it at www.kuro5hin.org
To me, and probably most slashdot readers, this indicates you now have to pay for content at kuro5hin, but you don't
I think you're looking at things a little too short-term. People used to balk at the idea of paying for television, but now those of us without cable are considered a bit odd. I will grant that your statement holds as long as the "free" replacements are not inconvenient to find/use. For example, thanks to many obscure venues on the Internet, it's been years since anyone had to pay for music, but it took several things (widespread home Internet connections + broadband + MP3 + Napster + cheap CD-R) to make it even vaguely as convenient as buying a CD for the average Joe.
One thing that is not often mentioned is how the online format differs from print. You can thumb through -- even read cover to cover -- a magazine at Barnes and Nobles, and then decide whether you want to buy it or not. But when you buy online, you are taking much more of a gamble. As far as subscriptions go, I think most web content is too untested and green. I subscribe to the WSJ online, but that's not a fair comparison since online is cheaper than the print version -- and comes with other value added elements. After years of reading the WSJ in print, I know what to expect with my subscription. Online publishers will have to demonstrate a strong level of value, either in the content or additional services, in order to make subscribing worthwhile.
so let's take Vivid Video and wickedpictures.com. These two companies are arguably some of the more successful adult film companies in the world and exclusively contract "stars" like Serenity, Asia Carrera (the geek porn star lady, if you don't know) and Jenna Jameson. Thse websites offer nearly their entire film library online for, i think, $30 a month. now, that seems like quite a bit, but remember, it's their ENTIRE film library of thousands of films. now people don't pay for it because they're desperate for porn. they can get crappy porn for free off of usenet and the like. people pay for this one because they are guaranteed good content featuring the people of their choice doing the things they want.
subscription sites work, clearly. you just have to make sure your stuff is reputable, different, interesting and that people get the most (HEEEHEE HEEE) bang for their buck.
if salon had exclusive footage of the congressman and chandra levy hanging out, hell, i'd get a subscription for a whole year right there. because they are the only ones to provide that service to me. if they have an exclusive story or something interesting and different, i'll go to that service. That's why every news source in the country wants "EXCLUSIVE" footage and will pay for it.
That's why people are buying HBO subscriptions in DROVES. because only THEY can do "sex and the city" and "sopranos". they have exclusive and interesting content and only THEY can show it, so they get killer subscriptions. People have no problem shelling out $15 a month for HBO.
and likewise, only Wicked Pictures can give me Serenity in a double penetration scene streamed at very good quality and high speed, and so i might...um..get a subscription. yup.
in the 1930s when lots of newspapers were circulated in lots of cities, those papers had to provide tons of different content and big headlines and interesting articles to get subscribers. the ones that did it the most got the most subscriptions because of repuation of quality of content. online organizations have to do the same thing.
in other words, start getting exclusive stories and start being unique, interesting and worth paying for.
porn did it right...as always.
-----
because you don't get ALL of the content. maybe all YOU want, but certainly not all *I* want. I like "sex and the city" (WHY? don't ask..). I pay $10 month EXTRA for my cable so i can watch Sex and the City. I get to watch other things, too, but i pay an extra premium to get PREMIUM content on a PREMIUM channel. You get so/so content for your $40/month connection. You get BETTER content for $50.
-----
I think that's an unfair generalization. Before Napster, you only had one option: pay too much. After Napster, you had two: pay too much or pay too little. Given only those alternatives, it's only natural to choose the second.
Suppose I have $500 to spend on music, and you have $500 to spend on music. If we each buy 20 CDs, the music industry has made $1,000. Since we've both spent our budget, the record companies aren't going to get another cent out of us, but if we make copies of our music and give them to one another, they aren't losing any money either. There is only so much money that is available to be spent on content, but at current prices and practices, that amount allows for very limited distribution. For only a small amount more, we could have universal distribution of all content.
The big question is how to find the balance between paying too much (e.g. at HMV) or paying too little (e.g. at Napster). Personally, I think that the eventual development of online micropayments and e-cash could make this practical: each purchaser pays for a copy of the content, as usual, but as the number of purchasers increases, each purchaser gets a rebate, sharing both the production costs and profits among all purchasers. Since it costs the provider very litte to ship additional copies when all that is being shipped is data, once all fixed costs are paid for, nearly 100% of the price paid by purchasers is profit. Some of that could, instead, go back to rebating the price paid by earlier purchasers.
For example: 100 people buy some content for $10, for a net income of $1,000. When the 200th purchaser buys in, everyone gets a $4 rebate. Everyone pays $6, and the vendor takes in $1,200. When the 400th purchaser buys in, everyone gets a rebate totalling $6 (when combined with any earlier rebates). Everyone pays $4, and the vendor takes in $1,600. The vendor's profits still grow as sales increase, but more in proportion to the extra work and value being provided. At the same time, the price continues to fall, making it more accessible. With the right numerical tweaking, the vendor can end up making just as much money, but the price per user will be much lower. This was impractical when physical media had to be shipped and payment was by cash or credit card, but is is becoming practical to do this now that physical media and face-to-face transactions are no longer necessary.
There's no such thing as Scotchtoberfest!
A ringtone is just a specially formatted short message. These short messages would use much less than a second of airtime, IF they were using communication slots at all. The same applies to music: How often have you heard that people don't understand CD prices? A compact disc can be made for under 2$, including booklets. How comes they are sold for so much more?
So, that's not the product, you say. The information is the product. But that's not how people see it. That ringtone is just a bunch of keypresses if you do it yourself, and it needs to be programmed just once, even if you transmit it to thousands of cellphones. Can't be the effort of programming or making it available which justifies the prices. Intellectual property implies stuff like "someone thinks of something in a lucky moment and gets paid for it for the rest of his life while I have to go to work over and over again to keep getting paid", so that's easily put aside. I'd say it's simply the feeling of getting ripped off that keeps people away from paying for content.
I think there's an even longer term problem than the big ones that people have pointed out. Most people have mentioned the obvious ones:
1) I pay my ISP. But I pay DirecTV for the monthly service and then extra for PPV
2) No easy mechanism exists. Surely one could be created
3) I'm cheap. If only pay content existed many would get over this.
The problem that seems likely to persist is the way many people use the Internet. It's a process of looking at a lot of things, and then finding small bits of information that are useful. You'll read an article on a site that you check every day, that suggests a subject you care about, you search the web and Usenet on the subject, you find a user group, you search their archive, you find an article that covers the FAQs of that subject, you bookmark or copy the article, you move on to the next subject....
How would you pay the sites you come across. Maybe you'd be happy to subscribe to the few sites you check every day, but would you pay the hundreds of sites you come across in a week? If you search on Google how do you know who to pay? If you can't read the article you won't pay b/c you don't know if it's any good. If you read the article you already have what you need. Why pay then, other than a sense of fairness.
In a bookstore you can flip through a book, but it's tough to read the entire thing. The full value is off limits until you pay. On the net the information comes in much smaller chunks. You won't be willing to pay until you've already received the full value. At that point few will pay.
Particularly for the uses the net is the most valuable for (e.g. not the stuff covered by mass media) it's tough to find a way around this. The small percentage of big sites will get subscriptions, but the individual site on how to add antennas to various 802.11 base stations won't.
We all seem to agree on about 10 reasons we don't want to pay, but agreeing among ourselves won' really solve anything. The marketeers and 'bean-conters' in the world would look at our complaints and say - "Thats nice, will you be using Master' or VISA?" Personally I am not against paying for content. Not all content though. I think specialized database sites with specific datasets on specific topics could and should expect to collect a subscription fee. Yes I think a blanket fee vs. micro payments if more favorable to the end users. Especially when the subscriptions would more likely be paid by and employer or educational institution than an individual user. The idea that I would pay micro payments to Yahoo! or Google each time I click the SEARCH button is absurd, but is probably the "bright idea" in someones head.
"Waitress I need two more boat-drinks..."
However, this is not the worst part. The worst part is getting banks onto it. They are used to largish transactions, and a much must model is charging quite a bit for every transaction. It's going to be hard to tell them this won't work. I have been sending my bank e-mail about it.
What we need are truly open, global standards. Around here, several banks are working on their own models. It seems that it will result in they telling web developers to put buttons on their pages, something like "if you have an account in Bank A, click here, if you have an account in Bank B, click here" (my own bank has allready implemented such a solution). This insular behaviour won't do us any good.
Unfortunately, I just saw the W3C has closed their micropayments group. This is very unfortunate, I think. They had a draft that didn't look too bad in Final Call, and several implementations. I don't know why they closed it, I thought it was about to advance to Candidate Recommendation. I guess it might be that the guy who lead that working group was tied up in a lot of other things.
If the Free Software community can develop something, and make it a public domain standard, I think that would be good. I would prefer W3C to do it, but it seems they failed.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
main(){char I,l,O[]={'-',1-1,0,(1<<5)-1,0+'-',-10-1,-10,11-0,
we choose to gamble time rather than money.
Of course we gamble time rather than money - I don't know about you, but I'm looking at this page from work. In essence, I'm getting paid to surf the web (don't tell my boss). Hell, beats workin'.
Goats.com (not that naughty site...) has been discussing mircopayments a bit recently. This is a good example of something that I would be willing to pay pennies per day to see, and it's interesting to see how current methods do or do not work.
To write a haiku - all you need is the correct - number of syli...
Off the top of my head...
Our economy is still by and large shaped for buying and selling things, not information. There's a certain amount of space for purchasing information, mostly for entertainment, but also for research and news. But that niche is already pretty-well filled by traditional print and broadcast media.
Internet media has to wedge its way in to this segment of the economy. It can do so in numerous ways -- unfortunately the quickest and easiest "in" -- offering free content -- is only the quickest and easiest way to generate an audience, not the quickest and easiest way to generating revenue.
Of course, advertising would have been just fine as a method for generating revenue had it not been for the idiotic notion that an advertisement should directly generate sales. If it weren't for this idea, web sites that produced content wouldn't have had the carpet yanked from beneath their feet. Maybe the e-commerce sites would still have crashed and burned, but advertising revenue from non-web-only companies should have still been sufficient to fund sites that were geared for providing informational content, not serving as high-tech mail-order catalogs.
I think it is interesting to speculate as to whether the Internet revolution couldn't have been done better (at least economically) by being more elitist and charging for content from the beginning. True, I know this approach was tried, and it was quickly undercut by services that offered free content by charged for connectivity. But much of the price resistance encountered today is due to the fact that from day one things had been free. All I know is I miss the old pre-web days, when extremely narrow bandwidth ruled, there was hardly anyone online, just about everything out there was a labor of love, and the signal-to-noise ratios were by and large excellent. Even though we have streaming audio and video, java, flash, and everything else, I don't really know how "better" the web is today.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
It will simply be too expensive in a micro-payment world to blithely surf all over the place in our quest for information. Review sites will become invaluable tools for identifying and rating sites as to price/content. Of course, the rating sites will themselves be pay-per-view, so we'll need another layer of review sites to review the review sites, and then another ...
It sucks that the $40/month can't go to the content providers. I do wish that the people who allocate significant resources to producing online content that I use can be compensated for their work. But from a customer's point of view I have already payed for ability to view that content.
--
Garett
Too true. I do pay for certain content - old articles at NY Times and LA Times, for example. This is because I know they're good and I need them for some purpose. Normally, though, no dice.
Note also the other threads about the infrastructure of paying for shit. I don't want to give out ANY FUCKING INFORMATION! Bring back the old First Virtual Holdings, which offered anonymous payments but was sadly way ahead of its time (nobody charged for anything back then).
sulli
RTFJ.
Subscribe to something and you can set it and forget it. Use micropayments and you are constantly having to think about whether to pay for something or not. Why would anyone willingly participate in such a scheme?! It just doesn't make sense.
I think the problem is with the term "micropayments." People think this means: I'll pay for every pageview, crap or not. And of course this is distasteful. Perhaps we should come up with a new term: "Simple Payments" (or some such) - a system where it's trivially easy to send someone cash, without wasting time filling in forms, waiting for the server, etc. Then this can be used to pay for non-crap content in a way that doesn't waste time.
Alternatively, a system of all-you-can-eat subscriptions, available to a wide range of content sites (compensated by share of pageviews), might be the answer. I think the pr0n biz has something like this in Adult Check Gold... has anyone on this thread tried it?
sulli
RTFJ.
Let's be logical here, people don't want to pay for information, period, but people who gather information WANT to get paid. So we have a catch 22. In my opinion, a micropayment system would work well, if done right. Let's say you pay .01 to each site you visit per day. For example, you give slash dot one cent for each day you visit it. But you don't pay for reloading or each commenent etc.
I hear people saying 1 of two things,
1)Slashdot can't live off of a penny a day.
I read on that MSNBC article that Slashdot had over 1 million hits a day, now we have some simple math, 1 000 000 x .01 =10 000 x 365 = 3 650 000 a year. And since /. is mostly people post information they find elsewhere...
2) I don't want to pay 100 a month in micropayments.
I don't know about most people, but I don't visit 10 000 a month, I vist about umm.... 10 a day. SO that is .10 a day x 30 day a month = 3.00 a month extra. (and even if the micro payments double, that is only 6 extra dollars, or triple to *ghasp* 9 dollars)
And let's face it, I would be willing to (and have) paid for my Linux Distro of choice (30$ at wal-mart). I like getting it for free, but I don't mind paying for quality. THus I will spend 30-60 for Linux but not 100+ for windows.
Just my .01, .02, or .03, depends on what people would like to pay.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
There's alot of dark fiber, companies go bankrupt,
because there are no users. I heard some 5% of
fiber is being utilized, combine that with new
technologies, that send data over multiple wavelengths, drumming up terabytes of data a
second on single strand of wire, no one will need
'Brick and mortar' distribution systems. Just
like with photography now, there is major shift
coming from Paper to Digital, next 5-10 years,
35mm photography will be obsolete. Digital now
sucks but its sheer accessibity and intstanteneousness, beats 35mm by far.
Same with everything else, we will go to 24bit
sound, and with all that fiber still being laid,
once interconnected and used, real distribution systems will be near obsolete.
And oh, it will be terribly cheap to deliver
and send gobs of data that will represent movies
in HDTV format, 24bit uncomressed music,albums
of pictures @ 6000x3500 resolutions with little
compression. That is all coming fast down the
pipe with light based switches for fiber,
media companies are all very very worried.
And they should be. Why? Because anyone with
2-3k in their pocket in 3-5 years will get a fiber
into their house and start their own distribution
company, or become a warez king, empowered by
latest encryption techology and Peer-to-Peer
bombshell. Now that exists now, but later everyone
will do it and it will be even more convinient
and faster than napster and it will be cheap...
to distribute works that rival analog forms of
distribution, like CD vs Audio DVD -> internet pipe.
They are squealing like bunch of afraid puppies,
alas big ones, that says all what the future
holds - freedom and sharing.
Now most of my friends listen to techno streamed
for free by people who provide fiber or
other networking services, which adds to them a cool
and 'we are the future' factor. If to relax they
tune into phishcast, or M O S T L Y C L A S S I C A L.
They spend few bucks here and there for phish
and trance CDs, and rarely download any pop
culture trash that is being imposed on poor kids
and everyone else these days.
Micropayments are acceptable if company does
ethical business and does business the open
way. When people share information, say I send
a chapter of the book from stephens latest book
for free to my friend with link attached to
watch page where he can get another chapter for
10c, whenever it comes out, I think it will
benefit the company in the end.
Internet relinqueshes control of the content.
The business will become more realtime, more
speedy. Those who establish communities around
their businesses will benefit the advantages
of the new economy, prehaps one with micropayments.
Present practices will be abolished, especially
by media companies. I think future will crunch
up the media companies and ones that own
copyrighted works, who wish to hoard them.
Old information if not freed will become old
uninteresting and will be out of the culture.
New information that is traded freely, broadcasted
over internet medium with gobs of available
badwidth will ultimately transform future,
it open society. Where irresponsible and greedy
will suffer and perhaps adapt, but will shrink
like grape that becomes rasin, in a process.
When I launched my site I wanted to give away my programs for free, yet I needed to recoup costs of my web account. My solution: Voluntary payments through PayPal. The results so far: Very good. I've raised enough in 3 months to run my web server for 8-9 months.
;-)
I think there are 3 key elements to a successful micopayment system. All of them are pretty common sense items, but here they are:
1. It must be voluntary: I'm not paying any amount to a site I just found before I get to review their content. And I'm very leery of "pay-per-month" sites. I just don't visit them enough to justify the cost. However, a voluntary payment system lets me say "Hey, I really liked your article on DeCSS/Online Security/whatever, here's $5."
2. Custom payments amounts: As another poster mentioned, different people value the same content differently. I might think an article is worth $5, but you might think it's worth $10, or $2, or nothing. So let people choose how much something's worse. (From experience: Sometimes they choose an amount much more than even you thought it was worth! Not that I'm complaining.
3. Must be easy to use: If the system is too complex, noone's going to give anything. I find PayPal to be good, but there's always room for improvement. The more complex the system, the more possible donars will back out before the transaction is complete.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Thank you.
For attribution's sake, did you come up with it yourself or read it somewhere?
It is something I came up with. It evolved out of the thinking I did for a short paper about information overload for a University course. There, my analogy also used water: We are floating on a raft in the middle of an ocean of information, dying of thirst.
Of course, I must credit the person who first used the analogy of drinking from a fire hose.
The good and bad thing about the Internet is that anyone can post information freely. Under the old system, to publish, you generally had to convince a publisher that your information was worth the investment. Walking into a library and picking up a book almost guaranteed you that what was inside had passed some standard.
Really, though we have found new ways to filter information on the net. Slashdot moderation is a perfect example of this. But is the quality better? Posts whose writer obviously did not even read or understand the article often get modded to 5.
The news media has similar problems. People can be critical of governments for filtering news, but isn't the U.S. news also filtered based on money-making potential? Worse still, there is the tendency to exaggerate or distort news, for the sake of making the front page. Take the recent Wall Street Journal article about Windows XP not allowing Kodak's photo software to automatically run. Buried deep, near the bottom of the article, the reporter acknowledged that in the latest XP builds, plugging in a camera actually popped up a box giving the user the option of which photo software to use.
Each time news ratings drop, networks respond by trying to make the news sound more urgent, more critical to our well-being. Why don't they try better quality?
Just thought I'd add my two quarts.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
There is the continual feeling that the next click might yield what we am looking for. But it could be dozens of clicks away. For some reason, probably because of conditioning, we choose to gamble time rather than money.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Most of the time, I try to buy products associated with the "online" services. For example I like online comics. Two regulars I visit are Userfriendly and General Protection Fault . For both comics I bought the albums, not because I expected new content but to make sure I still can get my comics online. This can have adverse effects, because I once had the bad luck buying books from a service that became paying afterward. Of course I was pissed, but it's the gamble you take.
If you consider slashdot as "content", well, in some way I payed: I saw the ThinkGeek ads and some products appealed to me, and so I bought those items. Perhaps not the best example, but you get the idea.
Oh, and how explain that people pay for pr0n? That is "content", isn't it? Well, okay, perhaps not "content" in the usual form, but nevertheless.
Now as a final, I think your example of ringing tones for your cellphone is really ridiculous. I don't really care that my cellphone rings some Britney Spears song or the nice classic "Dring Dring" that was anyway built into my phone. Up until 6 months ago, I had a 5 year old cellphone (may it rest in peace) that "only" had 10 ringing tones. I can hardly count ring-tones as "content", I'm really sorry. A phone is for calling and not for listening to rings.
So in summary:
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Anyway, who really cares? Free content will continue to go away, until the only content left on the web is provided by: 1) people who love what they are doing and are willing to provide the content for free, and 2) people who create content that is good enough to get people to pay for it.
Both seem like good end results to me - the internet may end up less commercialized, and we'll return a bit to the days when people created useful content, such as research, because they wanted to, not to make money.
"Yay! Sony music is finally going to offer downloadable MP3. What? $3 a track... let's see, that's $30 for an album worth of tunes, or I can buy a cd for $15... hmm, tough choice."
Blockbuster is planning a similar deal with streaming movies - guess what, they will cost the same as it costs to get a rental from Blockbuster's retail store! WTF?
Online 'media' companies have no rent, no dumb retail employees, and no physical inventory, and yet the pricing is the SAME, or even MORE in the online arena?
No wonder no one will pay for content!
Basically, I like quality. A friend of mine told me about MegaTokyo. I didn't look at their web site, despite glowing reviews. Then another friend recommended it. Then another. I decided, "Hm, I think I'll look at this." Hey! Guess what? It's one of the best web comics I've ever read, right up there with electric sheep and Scott McCloud's stuff.
Speaking of McCloud- I've paid for his content. I bought it off line, but if it were online, I'd pay for it there too. Whoah! Wait! I have paid for it online! There you go.
The Internet is a total success for content. Just a bunch of people are saying, "There went my revenue", and proclaiming it as a disaster.
Whatever. I'm going to go back to the MegaTokyo forums now...
There was a time where information was passed along from generation to generation orally. As systematic forms of writing came about, we began to record things in a form that could be passed on far more accurately than oral traditions allowed for. But even then, writing was actually only for the rich or for the priests. Few 'common' men ever saw a book, let alone possed the skills to read it. The production of manuscripts was a long and tedious process, meaning books were relatively rare.
That all changed when the mechanical printing press came to be. Written word became cheap, and over the next several hundred years, everyone had access to written materials and literacy flourished.
Fast forward to today. We have a several century long ethic that information should be 'free' That beyond the basic outlay for a book, we should be able to pass information around and share it in relative ease. And this is something that I doubt anyone could argue. After all, when it is easy and inexpensive to access information, it is harder to be controlled by someone who would manipulate what you see.
The fact is that the vast majority of people see the internet as a very ephemeral thing. Unlike a book, the words we see here disappear when the power goes off, unless we save a copy or print it. And so there is a great resistance to the concept of paying for something so ephemeral.
However, the fact is that while we all pay for our end of the information tranfer, there is someone at the other end who needs to pay. While information wants to be free, bandwidth costs. The problem is educating people to realize that many of the sites they love and frequent wouldnt exist without an investment by someone in time and money.
Well, off my soap box...
The long and the short of it is that there does need to be a viable payment system for content, so that our favourite sites dont just go away. The problem is that no one has come up with a way to do that yet. Perhaps a subscription model like most major magazines offer, managed in much the same way. Just as long as we dont end up with the virtual equivalent of drop cards.
The rights management demonstration at http://virtualschool.edu/mybank can aderess many if not most of the concerns expressed on this list, once commcerically deployed and stocked with content of higher quality than is generally available for free. I'd welcome any/all comments on the approach described there. To head off a misunderstanding already expressed here, flat rate pricing is trivially available via this system. Pricing is set by the content owner, and flat rate pricing is one of many pricing options available to them.
For industrial age goods there were checks and credit cards. For everything else there is a href="http://virtualschool
A lot of people hold to the flawed premise that information can be owned by someone. Information is the property of all mankind. No one person can be allowed to own information.
Remember, the strict control of information played a large role in the Dark Ages. One of things that fired the renaissance was publishing, making it possible to disseminate ideas far faster than previously possible. The internet has the possibility to do for humanity what books have done - but only if the demon of Intellectual Property is slain! Information must be made free or else mankind will slip back into the dark ages.
Paul Anderson
"I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
Micropayments are not very likely to take off in any significant way. This article explains why.
-- Shamus
O Brave New World, with such People in it!
As a Turkish citizen living in Austria I do pay for the online edition of my favorite Turkish newspaper since I can't buy it in Austria. It is about 50$ a year.
---
--- Vahan Harput vharput@geocities.com ---
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
I think there's an interesting idea here. Maybe the money that's going to isps should be used to subsidize popular content, under the theory that content will drive new business to the isp's. For instance, napster drove broadband demand like no other app ever has. If ISP's find that a particular site or network is driving demand for their service, it makes sense for them to invest in it.
I don't know, it's got problems, but in some cases it might make sense. I know most users here wouldn't get rid of their isp if certain pages went offline, but I'm sure there's some somewhere.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
The problem with this stems from the fact that not everyone assigns the same value to content.
:). As the internet has grown, many more people have become accustom to readily available content, and lots of it. So I ask you, would you be resistant to paying a $5/mo to every single site you visit? I'd be pissed as hell if Slashdot, php.net, debian.org, msdn.microsoft.com all started asking for subscriptions to content.
Also, theres a historical side to this that may offer some insight. Many people who've been using the internet (www, usenet, etc) since before the large commercial boom of '95 + have been accustomed to reading tremendous amounts of content for free. Granted most of that was probably technical or scientific in origin, but that still counts
"2 ways yes, 50 ways no."
That's an interesting point. Do you feel the same way about your music budget? Does that mean it's usless for the zillion bands on the net to ask for money, but if there were two "labels" that you liked, you'd pay for general access to bands on those labels?
Steam Powered Studio
Someone still has to pay for the content you receive to be hosted and connected to the Internet for you to then access.
There are two causes of failure in the current model. 1) Split costs, which people actually like since they dont want their ISPs (AOL, etc) controlling all the content. 2) Advertising isnt working to support content providers. If either of these causes is fixed then the whole arguement goes away, you just have to pick your poison.
I am so sick of whiners complaining about not wanting to pay for content cause it should all be free. ACCESS TO INFORMATION IS NEVER FREE. There is always some cost to gaining access to information, even your local library costs you money in the form of taxes.
Now if you havent already run off to flame me for this, consider the following. The Internet began life as an entity where information was provided without direct costs, this was possible because various parts of the government paid the bill for providing access to the information (through the military and schools). Now it has grown into a hybrid entity where commerical organizations are also footing the bill for information access (usually so they can sell you something or advertise something to you). However, the costs of providing access to the information are still having to be paid by someone. What needs to be found is a painless way to support content providers that wont be intrusive or a bottomless pit for the users.
Thought that just popped into my mind is a content budget for each user, similar to the flat fee for ISP access. Only the budget gets assigned to various content sites at the end of each month based on how frequently the user used the site, and how they rated it. And maybe you can flat out reject payments to sites as well, but then they dont have to let you back in. Hey, I dont want to get charged for every page I look at (I can just imagine how fast that would add up), nor do I want to pay some idiot for a site that sucks (I'm sure people think the same about my sites). Maybe some system along these lines would address most people's problems. Users have a limited cost exposure and control to keep from paying lamer sites while content providers can still get the support they need.
Hey, it's just a thought.
But in the case of libraries, they can't and don't support themselves. Governments and taxpayer money do. Imagine what would happen to /. if there were no employed people working there? I suppose you could make taxpayer money go to /. which may be more productive than many things that we do with it, but that obviously isn't happening.
Ridiculopathy Premium Launched (6.19.01)
Ridiculopathy Premium Goes Bankrupt (6.20.01)
If I download an mp3, why should I pay the record company? They didn't rip the mp3. They didn't post the mp3 anywhere. They didn't provide the bandwidth for me to download it. I'm not paying unless they provide with a complete usable package. I'll pay for a CD, because it gives me data on a media that I can use straight out of the package. I'm not paying may ISP for mp3's. They provide me with bandwidth, nothing else and that's what they get paid for. If a recording artists wants more money, go on tour lazy bitches.
Information wants to be free!!!
Remember an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
The truth shall set you free!
lol... k5 on a subscription...
It seems like every time I've ever followed a link to that site, the majority of comments blamed capitalism for the the world's ills. Until the state subsidizes access to leftist paranoia, I don't think k5 will be able to float on a subscription based system. They'll be alienating the selfish ideals of all those cooped up commie kids that read it. =D
The argument that information is somehow different than everything else because of the differences in peoples value of it is actually quite faulty. What about every other thing we buy? Some might be willing to pay thousands of dollars for a premium computer, where others simply do not value having a computer that can play the latest games at 200fps.
To suggest that we shouldn't pay anyone just because we have different values for something is ludicrous.
Just My Opinion... But I'm right...
The problem with that is /. and K5 ads are the only ones I intentionally don't block, because the OSDN ads are well targeted for geeks like me. I like seeing them. And now with Mozilla .92's working image blocking, I'll never have to punch the monkey or click on the 33 ever again, because the sites those ad images come from are now blocked permanently.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I believe this is what you're referring to?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
This would make Slashdot very rich and the whole content of the web would be funded like the BBC is funded, but globably. How much spam do you see on the Beeb websites?
Peter
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
Paying for everything doesn't work. When you go to the bulk food section of your supermarket- you don't stick your head in the dispeners and just start chowing down on gummy worms (the best of the gummy critters). Because even though each one is only 1/100 of a cent - you need to eat millions!
.05 a day - but its every site. I go to more than 5 a day. Add to that sites like salon - $30.00 for a year of salon - not bad if I thought I was going to get a year of salon, but since I will probably get 3 months - why bother?
Every site is only charging
Look at all the free for life now charging, or the ad networks like UGO continually changing the terms - agreements mean nothing - I trust no one and no site to deliver me anything in the future - to pay for future content is a fools bet, to pay for current content is an overwhelming mess, to pay for MP3's when they record companies spam me?? Well that is just unthinkable.
Ad banners dead? When slashdot runs a all your base are belong to us? Yikes, think geek - think don't get it old farts sitting on top of milk crates surrounded by 300 baud coupling modems talking about when they punched cards.
Half the Internet deserves to die - and half the Internet user - its just a bitch deciding what half.
Chet
If X isn't getting any sales then try X/2. Probably they are afraid this will wipe out their paper media sales. The business schools apparently teach paranoia of lowering prices without considering the public benefits. The public benefit is the government's responsiblity and with corporate control of government, it's inhibited, thus the power of the internet remains largely unrealized. Eventually the private will yeild to the public and we'll have micropayments. As for subscriptions - large subscriptions invites power abuse, therefore unsustainable, but micro-subscriptions are sustainable.
Well, money represents the time we had to spend to earn it, so it's about the same either way.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
I think this is caused at least partly by the fact, that the Internet has always been (more or less) "free". Now when somebody tries to get some profit on his/her efforts, for no matter how low price, everybody gets the mental image of a "pay site", which resides right next to the mental image of "bad". IMHO the only way to get people familiar with pay-for-whatever over the net, is to make the transfer REALLY simple, fast and easy.
This is the place where you write something that will make you seem like a complete idiot.
Payment methods are definitely another major obstacle. Electronic payment is convenient at times, but as I went over my bank statement the other day, I realized what a tangled mess it actually makes. Of course its my own fault, but there's just too much recurring electronic activity on my card at this point. I tend to like paying with physical money and receiving physical goods in exchange.
Payment has to be reliable and easy. If the payment system is intrusive, I won't put up with it. Part of the problem with charging for web content is your constantly reminded that youre paying for it. Login boxes impede normal web surfing habits.
Although this is somewhat intangible and I havent seen mention of it, the web is flakey by nature. HTTP is stateless and connectionless. HTML, javascript and other client-side languages are interpreted differently by each browser. You really don't know what to expect from one site to the next. One site may have a great payment and access system, easy to use and well designed, but the next site might not. Most sites have terrible layouts and aren't designed optimally. Since you don't know what you'll get up front, most people aren't willing to give it a try.
As a sort of example, surely Slashdot could benefit from interface improvements itself. No offense, but this site's design is outdated and cumbersome (reminds me of the oversized, boxy look of X with its obscure icons). To be honest, its probably my least favorite of the sites I visit. I'm not so certain I would trust this site to implement a seamless payment/access system in a way I would be willing to put up with. That being said, its still my favorite site and I still visit every day. Hmm...
And then, there are so many sites! Even if you only want to subscripe to half a dozen, imagine what a pain it would be. More logins and passwords to remember! And you probably would not get printed statements, so you'd have to track spending on your own somehow.
Then you have to wonder, how will pay-sites solicit new traffic. Pay for advertising? Offer crippled free content? Rely on word of mouth? None of these seem practical for most sites. The web is open by nature, and when you post a guard at gates of your site, youre differentiating yourself from the rest of the web. I dont know of anyone who's found a really solid way to charge for content and still grow their userbase.
And of course, simply making your site a "pay site" doesnt mean youre out of the woods financially. Can you really make enough money off the people willing to pay? Maybe not. On top of what you WERE doing, you also have some new areas you'll need to spend significant amounts of money. You have to police accounts, you have to find ways to get more paying users, you have to worry about security, you have to keep content at a level of quality people will continue paying for, your service must be reliable and fast (now that people are paying for it), etc...
I'm very curious to see if people will establish a reliable standard business plan that monetizes the web, but obviously right now such a thing doesnt exist. Eventually some entity will probably emerge as a standard way people use to pay for content (similar to paypal's dominance in its own field). Hopefully when that happens, payment really is made painless. At any rate, I think I'll wait another few years before going to work for a company with a .com at the end.
Mathematician/Economist Andrew Odlyzko has studied this sort of issue extensively from economical and historical viewpoints.
You might want to look at:
"The bumpy road of electronic commerce" paper deals extensively with why micropayments won't happen.
The smog exemption used to be set at 1965, but it was bumped up to a rolling thirty year "cooling off" period. After thirty years, you can do as you please.
I'm saving my '79 Celica till 009 and then I'm gonna bend the header pipes with just a torch and some sand and toss on a junkyard fuel injection off a newer model and possibly mix and match heads and blocks just for fun. I'll probably want to put in a roll-cage too. It's the exoskeleton answer to the air bag.
As far as the topic is concerned, I'm in the middle of it. I developed (note, past tense) a set of free on-line windows based multimedia study guides right there in the 1998-1999 time period. I was trying to angle this into a credit card payment system based on limited uses with a net authentication system that I had soooo smoothly worked out with custom encryption and a totally unique server authentication system. We were going for the gold.
Or so I thought. 2000 came and we released our new ultra advanced system. Downloads were in the thousands quickly. The demand was out there, but what about payment?
Well, there were some payments at six bucks for ten uses which compared very favorably with buying a book which was supposedly obsolete at this point anyway.
But these payments were few and far between. We decided to drop to three bucks and make it twenty uses for three bucks. Our sales doubled! Hah, get it? We were treading water and the water was thin.
Well, we've seen a steady increase, but now that it's just three bucks, we need huge sales increases, and there's no way it's going to happen. Essentially, my bullet proof plan had a leak that had nothing to do with the security of the app itself.
But put away those hankys. We're okay. The ironic thing is that we have turned around and put out a book and CD with a twenty dollar cover and it's selling like hotcakes. It's bizarre. What the consumer doesn't want to download for three bucks with a 20 use limit, they'll pay twenty bucks for and probably only use once or twice. Reality is stranger than fiction once again.
It's not quite as strange as I make in this little vignette though. We already had big book sales for years and years before they ever made PCs. In fact, my office is quite literally a book shop. So, if the e-commerce deal had worked it would have been more shocking than the way it actually did turn out. I am sorely disappointed though. The consumer could win from this as I've seen from the other side, but certainly a payment system is one of the problems.
Another huge problem is security for a global payment system. As an custom encryption routine scriptin' fool, I know there's wayz folks think it can be done. But . . .
For example, why not just like phone cards? What about money laundering or other illicity financial transactions? That's a big issue when you talk about global commerce. If you make every convenience store on every block of every street all over the world into a bank your potential for abuse is quite high. I think herein lies one of the major obstacles that won't go away till the UN conquers DC and that may be awhile.
Think about this for a second, for every pay service on the internet there is someone some where who wants to ensure you have the right to get that service for free. If the Assocaited Press charged money and all the news organizations charged money, someone some where would just set up a web site that reworded the news off the AP wires so that it was "original" and give it away. This is the same for all sorts of servers and clients (Icecast, Apache, SQL, Perl, Free Unixes).
If ICQ began charing money, some kid would write a ICQ like IM client that would run off his Dorm room computer and give it away. He would in time make money off it by advertising through the client and ICQ would be forced to give their software away again, but by then its too late....
THe quality software/web services/content of Open Source, Freeware, shareware, and other like minded people has ruined the idea of paying for "content".
If Slashdot charged, someone would set up a Slash server and give away the same "content"....
Burn Hollywood Burn
Can you imagine having to subscribe and pay individually for each service you use on the Internet? I can't, because then I would have dozens of bits of money flying off in donzens of directions; I would not feel in control. That would mean dozens of user agreements that affect my *wallet* to keep track of.
While I would gladly pay $100 to a single service to fufill all my needs, and maybe $50 to 2 services and even $25 to 4 services, I will not consider paying $1 to 100 different services. Unfortunately, no such single service exists on the Internet.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Quite frankly, I like the idea. Not just because I'm cheap, but because I want to know without a doubt that Steven Spielberg was trying to challenge himself with Jurassic Park 2, not that he just wanted another pile of money. Breaking down those walls will bring real art back to the world.
In an ideal world, that's great, I agree. There's some people I know that are in death metal bands, and one of them said, specifically "We wouldn't be playing death metal if we were in it for the money."
However, money is a necessity. Recording an album means renting a studio (if you want any decent quality) or owning your own. Making a movie like Jurrasic Park is no small ordeal. It requires a good deal of money and I doubt Steven Spielberg, or anybody else, for that matter would be willing to put forth that much money without having anything coming back.
You can bring up the argument of free software programmers, but most free software projects are done in their free time as a hobby, not as a full-time job (except in the cases of research institutions, but even there, the institution funds the project)
For ANY meaningful project to successfully be completed, it requires money, and people don't just give out money; that's why it has to be commercial.
Of course, make it too commercial, and you begin losing the artistic aspect of it (ie: mainstream radio).
It's a double-sided coin, no commercialization will make an inability to fund projects, and hence less projects.
Too much commercialization will lead to a lessened desire for new (read: unpopular) ideas.
1) We've been spoiled. For example, Napster made music free (to the masses); now people go around saying that all music should be free. Music should not be free, musicians spend long hours trying to perfect their sound, and it's a job for them. Yet, people can't accept that because they've become accustomed to getting free music. (Same goes with software, except it's a little different when the author intentionally releases it freely)
2) It's hard to pay for information, solely because it's intangible. Few people will readily pay for an online book. I know I won't. I don't have a problem with buying a book; I buy many books, but i want it in physical form (same goes with cds).
I'd have to say that's the biggest reason, that we've become used to things being free, it additionally serves as "fighting the corporate power" even though the majority of people "fighting the power" are doing it to save money.
Most geeks know what the internet was like before it hit the mainstrea; EVERYTHING was free (warez, porn, etc) similar to how Usenet is. Most geeks don't want to pay for information because we're used to not paying (in addition to wanting it free). The rest of society is jumping on the bandwagon, well, because they want a free ride.
the problem is not if users will pay 7 cents per access of a particular site. it's the transaction costs that are the problem. so, a website charges 7 cents. however, the transaction costs are 25 cents (or more)..
this is where the real problem lies.
1. I've been burned too many times in cases where I've had to pay a full subscription just to see what content is available and find out that the content is garbage.....And I've never gotten my money back.
2. I don't want to pay for content that delivers advertisements on my subscription price. Hardly any content you pay for is ever commercial free.
3. I want the contents on my terms....It does me no good if I can only see the content, but cant save it for reference later. At least when you buy a book, the book doesn't (yet) self-destruct and I have the content whenever I need it.
It's a really simple answer.
.10 because they liked something they can't. Most micropayment services like AMAZON have a minimum. Besides that, they have to get out their wallet, find their credit card, and type it in. If they don't already have a membership with that company, they may even have to signup! The person can avoid this of course by using an ewallet, but some people see that as a security risk.
Why would most people want to pay for something that they can get free?
The thing about the ringtones is stupid by the way. I thought I remember something like you can use a few bars (the little sections of sheet music, the things that make up the lines) (like 7 bars if I remember) of a song without pay royalties. Most ringtones CAN't be more than that!.
I think micropayments are an interesting idea. But to be a viable option, it needs to be easier. If someone wants to pay me
It's not like tipping an artist, or a cab driver, or throwing some change into the muscicians case on the street, or in the coffe houses mug. There's no real way to toss 'a few quarters' online.
When you get to whole dollar values People see money in a different light.
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
Wasn't the Internet designed to provide an easy way to communicate and share information?
For the most part, all Slashdot offers is a bunch of links to stories written by other people. Is this a service? Me thinks not; And don't even think about charging for it. Why? I call it a 'hobby site' and we're all a bunch of geeks sharing the same interests.
Go ahead and take this personally Mr. "I'm a professional and I don't appreciate...blah." BS. We're all professionals, but this is our passion, and our hobby.
Let's see CNN, MSN, BBC, etc. start charging for their content, hell, they even own most of it. Count how many seconds it takes for their site to dissapear faster than Napster. They're web sites are simply a supplement, or 'additional feature' to their revenue generating machines.
So how do you start charging for a site? Well, money is often exchanged for goods and services. So smart guys, offer a #$*@'in service. Make sure it doesn't suck, most small business ventures fail you know...
Best example in recent history goes to, believe it or not, Old Man Murray. Rather than begging for PayPal, they went out and made something, silly as it may be. Nevertheless, I'll bet they've raked in more $$ than all of the "Please make a donation to keep us alive" sites combined. Kudos hombres, good work.
That's my two cents worth. Hope this post has maintained continuity through various phone calls.
This is my sig; There are many like it, but this one is mine
I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
An approach more likely to succeed would be a rating system.
People want to make a difference.
Much money could be made by setting up a contest where you could vote for your favorite mp3 for a dollar.
How many times have you bought a disk that you only listened to once? Obviously, you didn't buy it to listen to. You wanted to support the artist.
I signed up for a YahooWallet.
Took 10 seconds.
Worked immediately.
Bought all kinds of stuff I have no use for. We are consumers at heart. We just don't want to be ripped off by paying for something we could get free. Something like PBS and NPR without the socialist overtones.
Because I can't absorb all the free information as it is. As said in a recent SlashDot artical, there is only so much attention the public can provide, and the free information uses it all up.
And how, exactly, does that differ from selling anything ? Almost everything has or can have different values to different people, yet that does NOT present an insurmountable problem to selling. No, dear Slashdot editor, the problem lies in that 1) there are plenty of free alternatives available on the web - start (explicitly) charging for Slashdot and see how fast your readership goes elsewhere, and 2) people expect to get things for free on the web.
You should be wondering why bandwidth costs so much that it sets the price for content so high in the first place.
------------- I didn't know she was your sister I swear!
I'd say the secret is to make the amount worth the trouble, and the return worth the money.
I think we could "get to" payment for content - but we need to go through a phase of tracking costs but not charging, to work out issues. Long term, I could see something like the following working: - All sites must provide free entry pages, and free access to charges for non-free pages. - User permission is required (by default) on transition from free to charge areas. I can also check off "don't bother asking me until the price changes", and even "I'll pay up to X per day for any page or site". - Web sites only know that "User X" from "Anonymizer Service Y" visited their site and paid so much for the visit. - If I wish, I can license my Anonymizer Service (AS) to provide anonymous targetted advertising or even some email spam - for a micro-payment, of course. - My "AS" also watches out for crooked sites trying to scam or over-charge me. - Sites must provide free access to registered robot-browsers - for research and web-search sites.
The issue of declining sales with increasing prices is a well known one, thats inherant to any business. The more expensive the less people choose it. I think the largest problem there is that most businesses have people who go through and figure out how to price things so that sales x price == max profit. I'm no genuis, but with .com stocks failures largely being pointed at no business plan, I'm fairly certiain there wasn't enough/any of those kind of employees in companies.
Finally is the issue of utility. I think Yamauchi put it best when he said "People do not need games to live. I think that few people in this industry understand this. We cannot sit down and do nothing. We have to strive daily to make our products appealing and captivating." Of course I am aware that the Net isn't console video games. But his words ring true. Too many people thought that being on the internet was all they needed in the "appealing and captivating" sector, so they hired the cheapest writers / artists / etc they could, or bought sites up that allready had a viewership and strip mined them. Problem with that is strip mining tends to rape the landscape, and nobody wants that. At least, not to pay for that.
And thats why pay sites don't do too well. Having said that, I think people's concepts of the willingness to pay for online content is grossly mis-interpreted. Maybe your viewership drops by a factor of a thousand when you change from free to ten cents a month. Maybe more. You look at that and say that its broke. What you're not seeing is that if you were charging 1 cent a day, youd probably see a drop of the same factor. There are definate barriers to entry that are unseen by just that kind of data.
If I were to do a pay site (that didnt have pr0n(which is obviously excluded in my rant)) I would focus on two things: quality of content and social status. Think of it like Tommy Hilfiger or Wall Street Journal. In either case, half the popularity is that they're so damn expensive. Its a status symbol to own these things, and sadly, the vast majority of American culture repects money above all else. So I charge 50 a month, with a lower rate for a trial period to build momentum, and maybe offer some hardcopy things like shirts or maybe even real hardcopy.
Enough evil capitalist for now. >:)
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I believe that the success of the Internet can be attributed to its easy access to free content. If you start charging people (even just a little), you have opened the door to its demise.
What costs $.0076 today may cost $76 tomorrow...
if 'fruits de mer' = seafood
if 'fruits de mer' = seafood
does 'fruits de merde' = mushrooms?
Say, if my local newspaper offered a full online version for the same subscription fee as the daily paper, I'd pay it as long as they stopped doing what they do now to their online version: Strip all pictures and only show a selection of stories.
.edu, full access to you. Our gift. Oh, you're a road runner or AOL customer trying to access an AOL Time Warner site, full access for you too! Anyone else, here is our subscription rate.
But you have to address the archived issues. Those should always be free and searchable, and damnit, don't go changing the URL's every 3-6 months.
Now if you want bonus points, also provide a version that I can load onto my Palm, e-book reader, or other hand held device.
The bottom line is, if I'm going to pay for it, it has to be worth it. Think, value added services.
Now, if a site like CNN made you say, give them your cable company account number to access their full content, that wouldn't be a bad idea either. They could raise their rates to the cable company. (I'm on Time Warner, so this wouldn't be reflected in my bills all that much...)
Do some IP checking, oh, you're an
Yes, it's not the most solid or feasable business model, advanced users can forward and reroute traffic, and I'm not claming it's a good idea, but it's something.
Anyway, I'm done talking outta my ass for now.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN!! I sensible person on slashdot!! omg!! *faint*
"...Somebody's got to pay for that, or it just won't happen. What do you find so wrong about sharing part of that cost--and what would you suggest as an alternative?"
Who will share in my cost in purchasing content?
I want to see it in my pocket not everyone elses...
While not necessarily "a bad thing" this mentality can be unfair to content producers out there that are trying to recover what amounts to a fraction of their costs/time.
Scott McClouds article on this is still the most insightfull I have read in a while (perhaps because he operates with the same media as I do). Usually it takes me around 3 hours for each toon I create. Over a 5 day week this amounts to around 2 work days of tooning. Or if we put a value my time of, say, $30/hr that is $450/week in "spent time". Now I do my thing for the love of it.. I have a "regular" day job and am not dependant on cartoon payments but some people may be. As was pointed out what we need is a truely international and "reputable" (since we're dealing with money) Micropayment infrastructure.
Just my 2c worth...
--
Jon - TheSpork
But it's not a standard ! There's no official paper backing it. By standard I mean that several companies/organizations use the same system. I'm a client of company A, you of company B and we both are able to pay the online-comic C.
The main problem IMHO is the missing (micro) payment standard. I wouldn't be willing to give out my credit card numbers just for a dollar or even a few cents. Besides, I don't have a credit card and I don't like to have one (they just make trouble because you USE them ;-)
If there would be a payment system where I could transfer money onto an online deposit and then transfer money from the deposit to someone on the net, things would be completely different !
The often-discussed micro-payment for online comics for instance, I'd sure pay 10cents or whatever for an episode of a good online comic.
I pay Real networks and Major League Baseball 10 bucks to listen to games streamed to me over the Internet. Why? Because they are the sole provider of the service, AND they sell their content for a price which is easier to pay than to contrive a way to hack their system or circumvent their monopoly. Do I like the service? > No way, the audio sounds like its being fed through a water bong, but I'm a fan and the Mariners are kicking ass, so I pay.
So how does someone get me to pay for a web-based magazine or newspaper like content? First, give me lifetime access to what I've bought. ->If you are in fact selling content, then I get to keep the content. If you are selling access to content, then charge a flat fee for a long period of time ($5 for 12 months or longer) and don't be surprised if I look elsewhere for the content if you don't have a monopoly on it. Second, I don't want to sign in for every page or site, nor do I want an unsecured cookie sending my subscription information out to the world. -> Figure out how to know who I am without jeopardizing my privacy or inconveniencing me. A real world metaphor might be the pass technology used on toll roads -> bill me for where I go, keep the rates low and stable, and let me keep driving 70mph. Third, make it worth my while. If the draw of a site is the people (Slashdot & Kuro5hin), then you'd better be damn sure that the people who write for you are treated differently than those who just browse and never comment or submit. Content for hire inevitably becomes a regurgitation of the desires and opinions of the one handing out the paychecks, and when that happens, your significant Internet information boutique just became an aisle in Wal-Mart. And why should I pay to shop at Wal-Mart?
Do a websearch. Even with a good tool like Google, most of the time (in my experience) one wades through a lot of "crap" (either real crap, or good stuff which isn't doesn't address the question you're really trying to answer). Eventually, you find what you're looking for.
Now suppose that pay-for-content was the usual model on the internet. If you had to pay a couple of cents for every useless web page you looked at during your web search, while you were trying to find that gem of the page that made the whole thing worth it, you'd be paying for a lot of stuff that you didn't want to be paying for.
What would happen? People would stop doing web searches. People who go with "known and trusted" sources for content-- i.e. the AOL/Time/Warner web pages, or other Megacorp-blessed web pages. If you have to pay for all your content, you will be a whole lot less willing to wade through pages looking for the unknown gem than you will be if you're paying a flat fee for all content (which is effectively the case now, where you just pay for access). This will squelch the greatest thing about the internet, which is that anybody who wants to can put something up there for other people to see. If nothing ever gets seen but the Megacorp-blessed pages, then the Internet is just a slightly faster way to get the same thing you get from Network TV. That would be sad.
Now, perhaps this isn't the real question. Perhaps we're only talking about paying for content for a few things-- coyprighted music, specific news feeds, etc. Well, fine. That might work. But a general "pay for content" model will only have limited success as long as free content is out there. Why should I pay for a subscription to "How To Get Your Hardware To Work Dot Com" when there are lots of people out there putting up web pages with hints and suggestions for getting your hardware to work? On the other hand, I did say "limited success". While I think that any system that tried to make all content on the internet something you pay for would fail, there are some things worth paying for. Indeed, I subscribe to a couple of webzines myself. It's not much-- to the tune of $15 a year or so-- but it is paying for content. But it's very very far from a model where all or even a significant amount of the online content must be explicitly paid for.
I *do* have something against micropayments. Micropayments mean always having to watch what you're doing. Each web page you download you ask yourself, is this worth $0.02 to me? I've been on a micropayment system, back in the 80's and early 90's on QuantumLink and GEnie. I hated it. By and large, I only used the "flat rate" sections of the services, and simply avoided the "pay for time" sections of the services. There was stuff I was interested in there, but I didn't want to have the watch the clock the whole time I was using it. It ruined it for me -- having to watch the clock made it simply not worth it. Micropayments are the same way. Let me pay a flat fee and browse all I want without worry, rather than having to keep making the decision over and over again whether to buy or not to buy.
-Rob
In my opinion a lot of it has to do with the way the internet and digital media started out. Everything was free, the internet was hailed as a medium to connect the world, a world of information was available at our fingertips. Digital Media started as free, and now no one wants to pay for it, they are used to it being free.
Information though is a very important thing, and how does it get distributed in a capitalistic society if the distributor has no incentive (i.e. $$$)?
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
I always pay cash, where possible.
Plus I'm from England - I'm used to watching telly for free, with no ads.
And since when was the Internet designed for pay-per-view? Just because it's been hijacked by the dot-coms media-wise, doesn't mean commercial sites are the most interesting...
1up.org
"What!" The editors say, "only $10/year for Slashdot! But we provide new content every day! Think of our operating expenses. Think of the CHILDREN!"
Well print magazines have made money on that amount for quite a while; that and advertizing. Remember I said I'd let you keep your stupid banner ads.
Besides, Slashdot doesn't provide any real content. They rehash news other organizations produce. They don't even do most of the leg work. The readership provides most of the heavy lifting by submitting articles for a few useless K points.
Now the editorial staff does a pretty good job (most of the time) of seperating the wheat from the chaff so they should get a shilling or two. However the majority of content is provided by the Slashdot responders who write trite or flip messages in response to the articles (like this one)
So I guess Slashdot only deserves to make enough cash to keep the servers warm and serving and keep the editors fed (with Ramin noodles.) And I'd put that price at around $10-20/year.
Consider these three meatspace examples of things you would spend money on:
After the fact of the purchase, think about how each would make you feel. A day at the amusement park is fun, but after it's all over, all you have is a memory. A case of good beer may last you at least a few days to a few weeks, but after it's gone, it's consumed. While the experience lasts longer, it too becomes a memory. You may use the mouse for years. At the end, it may break or get replaced, but it will have been a part of your life for some time.
Which of these expenditures seems most "practical" to you? I would say that we tend to spend money on things that are tangible, practical and long-lasting. We tend to consider money spent on "intangible" and emotional things--a good dinner with friends, a day at the park--to be money that we "blow" rather than invest.
Bottom line: if we attach the greatest monetary value and have the least problem buying things that are tangible, how do you convince people to spend money on bits and bytes, things that cannot be seen or touched, things that have no permanence at all? You don't pay for the words of the writer, you pay for a solid book that goes on your bookshelf. You don't pay for the music of the musician, you pay for the CD and artwork that goes in your CD rack.
People are not yet used to separating the tangible, physical thing from the information or experience it provides. Until that happens, an economy of information will never happen.
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
2. I can get trade journals and other hardcopy content for free, so why should the web be any different? With so much free content online, why go looking to pay?
3. Most of the content authors are not getting paid, and we all know it.
4. I don't pay for Banner ads. On free sites, I tolerate them as part of the cost of doing business. As soon as I spend dollar number one, those ads have to go away.
5. Product quality - Just because I visit Slashdot, there is no guarantee that I will find something useful every time. As a freebie, I lose nothing by visiting.
6. The "e-business relationship". If I provide enough information to pay, it just leads to spam, telemarketing, and fraud.
7. Hidden, nuisance fees. The prosecution presents:
Because of the systematic billing fraud that is so common these days, my reaction is to avoid subscribing or agreeing to pay for anything unless I really, really want the product or service.
Sorry, you can't use your one-click idea. That's already patented.
---
Developers: We can use your help.
There's a potentially simple solution to your very good point: page expiration. In a book store, you can browse around and you may spend a minute or two on a book here or there. There's no time limit (and now they invite you to sit down and read for free! Seems an insane business practice, but we pay for many books anyway).
;) ). So what if pay-per-view pages "expired" after a minute, time depending on length? You go to it, it's crap, you go elsewhere. You stay long enough, the site flashes to another page that says you gotta cough up the dough. You pay, the page comes back with no expiration. You don't pay, the page keeps expiring for you immediately after you load it. Seems possible with today's technology.
What if you were browsing around the web, click on pages of crap, but are off within a minute each? You're not going to spend 10 minutes reading a page you think is crap (unless you're an idiot, but I don't know you that well yet...
I hereby own all patent rights to this idea (patent pending), assuming of course it works and is profitable.
---
Developers: We can use your help.
Just like I pay my cable bill for 57 channels of crap, I already pay the ISP for 57,000,000 channels of crap.
You can't make it without a new revenue stream? Good...Go under. Maybe the Internet doesn't need you. Maybe I won't have to sift through all of the crap to find what I want.
Need a new revenue stream? Charge more for advertising. Don't charge me. I'll be paying it eventually anyway if your advertiser offers anything I might want. If nobody wants their crap we won't have sort through that either.
I'm all for letting attrition revert the Internet back into something cool. It's time to rm -rf the rotting carcases of "www.tubesox.com" and other failed get-in-on-the-ground-floor-make-a-billion-dollars bullshit sites that never had chance to be anything of value.
I'm not payin' more for crap.
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
People won't pay for content because we're already trading eyetime for it. Advertising has always run the (non-book) publishing world. Do you think fifty cents a day covers the cost of a home-delivered New York Times? Three bucks for your newsstand copy of Playboy? Not even close.
All those ads for cars, cigarettes, beer and allergy medications... those are the things paying for your paper subscriptions.
Now bravo to the "online community" for filtering spam and coming up with banner-blocking proxys, but these is the same small percentage of people who tell telemarketers they wish to be added to the "no call" list and file to stop junk mail.
Just like in the print world, most consumers just live with the inconvenience of banners and spam, ignoring and discarding most of what they see. That's why nobody wants to pay for online content.
As for electronic books, I won't pay for them because I want my novels in print. Once the interface gets good, I might... then again, if MasterCard puts its logo at the beginning of each chapter, I'd be just as happy to let them pay.
This opnion has been paid for by an unintentional donation by my company, which shall remain nameless so that I may keep my job. Don't pay for it.
Jill came down with $2.50! oh!
Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right-- But They Make Me Feel A Whole Lot Better
I felt like a sucker when I was filling in the billing information, but I reasoned that I read Salon.com almost every day and usually find at least a few interesting and relevant stories. I asked myself, "Would I be sorry if this site went away?" and when I figured yes, I decided to pay for it. It's definitely on a case-by-case basis, tho. Harry Knowles will have to personally deliver a preview copy of "Planet of the Apes" to my house before I'll pay for AICN. There's nothing else at this point I'd be willing to pay for.
After buying the computer, the OS (yeah, I know), misc software packages, plus ISP fees I've racked up quite a bill. Now I have to *keep paying* while I use it? Personally, I don't care about fairness to their business model because I'm getting tapped. Plus, I have about 20 bills to keep track of every month. Another $20 "subscription" here, $20 there, adds up really quickly, and compounds my problem.
Here it goes: Slashdot is now testing the waters (i.e. the readers) for a subscription-based or otherwise paying model ;-)
After the demise of VA Linux, this was expected...
Nobox: Only simple products.
With all the dot-bombs blowing up, it's exposing the flaws in the current system. The real solution is simple: The internet should be financed by the government, with the webmasters of truly useful sites getting direct financing. All bandwidth should be free. How many people are not ever going to get a high-bandwidth connection?
There is a reason that telephone service used to be run by the government. It's because private companies are not going to run lines to 100% of the people, they are going to run them only to the rich people. Meanwhile, the poor go without this vital resource.
We need to get corporations (like Microsoft) out of the Internet, and return the power to the people.
--
--
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
These companies that want us to pay them for content are the same ones that store every little bit of info about US, and then make money selling that info to other companies.
But that's not good enough ehh?
No Comment.
I don't want anyone to know that I went to said web site.
But over all, if I could say click a button or enter my 'content ID' then I'd be happy to 'donate' my fractions of a cent that would promote a site.
But not sites with any ads, fuck them.
Get your Unix fortune now!
>Napster is nothing more than >a pay-music service which >tricks its users into supplying >the bandwidth and content.
/. would be tricking users into supplying the content (articles) and the community (comment posts). Since it never mirrors people it links to, it would also putting the bandwidth off as well.
;-)
I find it ironic with all the comparisons of Napster going to the charge-for-content system. It would be funny if Slashdot would do the same.
In this case,
Nah, no similarities.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
Now IGN has restricted some of their content to where you have to register with them to read it. No big deal. They have also restricted some content further to where you have to pay for it.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Not that I don't think IGN is any good - I go there all the time. And not that I don't think it "should be free" - I'm not that foolish. It's just that I already can read most anything I want on other free sites or in the numerous magazines I subscribe to. See, I already pay for plenty of content, and I've already got a wife saying I pay for too much. Now you want me to pay for something that you started out giving away for free? Thanks, but no thanks.
The ultimate kicker is that IGN now has "IGN Unplugged" - a downloadable, printable PDF magazine which you can purchase (or get when you subscribe to IGN). Okay, so now for like $30 a year I get nothing other than the content you used to give for free and now I get the privlige of printing out my own damn magazine with the paper and ink I pay for (and pretty much gauranteeing (sp?) that it will look like ass when I print it unless I go to Kinko's and print it on their color lasers - shyeah right) or viewing it online, which is more pointless than reading a web page? If this is what the content sites are reduced to - the drug dealer twist on content and merely aspiting to the print publications they are supposed to be superior to (and passing along the cost of reproduction to the consumer, increasing their own profit margin), then I'll be pickled tink to still be reading PC Gamer and Next Generation ten years from now when IGN is dead and gone.
Slashdot, however - that still might be worth paying for.
Schnapple
Schnapple
Free is the best price. Why would I pay for content when so many people give it away for free? You can't charge for something that someone else gives away for free. In the internet "gold rush" for eyeballs, online content providers established the low price floor at $0.00 it is very hard to later adjust the price up. Content is easy to give up, you guys aren't selling heroin or cigarettes.
Meanwhile, I can get a very nice stereo 20" TV at $200, a Playstation 2 for $350, A Satellite TV unit and a year of premium access, plenty of sports, specialty channels and movies easily for $800. I still have enough left over to buy a dozen or so DVDs and games. I don't care how many neat flash animations and classic arcade hacks I can get with my enhanced content internet access - it doesn't stack up to the value of established technologies.
When I sit down in front of the TV I want to flip channels and find something to watch, or play a video game. I don't want to decide whether to pay a nickel to view a five page comic online. Online content is completely disorganized and the vast majority of it simply isn't worth a premium. Like most people I surf the net at work because I'm not ready to invest a significant chunk of money in the set-up to do it at home. But at work I couldn't take advantage of premium content because I have to be restrictive about time and content.
So stop blaming the surfers, and stop blaming payment systems. People pay premiums on enhanced content all the time - from small premiums for lousy porn access to large premiums for access to high-powered searchable databases like Lexis/Nexis. I have yet to come across a single thing on the internet I'd pay a premium for before I'd do without. If a whole bucnh of content providers got together and formed a network and offered an annual subscription deal along with a nicely turned out interface so I could easily find lots of content, well, it might be a different story. Welcome to the world of commerce, artists: It's not my job to come to you with credit card in hand. It's your job to come to me with a deal I can't refuse.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Unless your content is so Unique that no one else can provide it, people will just go elsewhere. News is HIGHLY redundant, I see the same stories from 6 or seven different sources. As for opinions, their a dime a dozen, people WANT to get their opinions out. If /. started charging I would just rely more heavily on other sources which are often redundant.
Even paper media charges merely the distribution charges, $0.35/ day for newspaper, is the cost of printing it and getting it to you. They make their money in ad revenue.
Sources that can charge a premium for information, do. For example, the Wall Street Journal, The Kiplinger Letter, Netcraft (charges for ,more detailed reports), IDC, and many others.
The trick is, providing that sort of information takes much time and research and expertise. Regular Journalism is generally just rehashing bits you've heard from elsewhere, and I can find that info myself.
Any other non-free payment system is BROKEN by definition, and will thus never gain wide spread acceptance. What about credit cards, don't they have fees. Even though it is more like a loan people think of it as cash and it is almost more popular.
Begging for modpoints since '03
One question this brought up in my mind is how many geeks use PayPal? I only use it because I buy stuff from auction sites. I wonder how many people would donate if only they used PayPal. Also, a little extra description for what the tips go to would probably make people more likely to tip, IMHO.
If it's supposed to move and doesn't, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape.
Case in point: My roommate and I both read WorldNetDaily.com almost religiously. It's a free daily news site, that also publishes a small offline magazine. My roommate thought it was worth his money to get a subscription, I did not (and not simply because we live together, these decisions were made before we were actually roommates). The problem with online sites charging for content is not on whether they can get people to pay, because many probably will. The problem is how many people can they retain when they go from free, to fee? If they lose too much of their readership, they still won't make up for lost banner ad revenue or corporate sponsorship revenue. This is the hard truth that the dot-coms are learning suddenly. If I need info badly enough to pay for it, I will. Otherwise, I, Joe Consumer, am going to find the cheapest alternative, and on the net, that's pretty easy to find. So I say, feel free to charge people for access to the content you provide. Just don't expect everyone to stick around when you do.
I, for one, wouldn't be opposed to paying for content. I just don't see it feasable to pay every site I go to a few cents. I don't know how realistic it would be, but maybe the major ad networks could become subsciption networks. IE, pay DoubleClick 10-20$ month and get unlimited access to all their affiliate sites. The revenue would then be distributed to the sites based on traffic. The pr0n industry has been doing something similar to this for a while, and has apparently had some success.
"The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
never said they were pay-only site. But they do charge for removing banners and are thinking about giving extra priviledges to those who pay (like the ability to edit comments already posted etc.). You my friend should check your facts before flaming!
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
as kuro5hin became a pay site as of today. check it at www.kuro5hin.org
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Sounds good to me.
Could you develop the escrow/RPC bit a little more?
rknop said way back while I was in the restaurant:
And almost everything in the Library of Congress and the Bibliothèque Nationale is is total crap - which bit isn't depends on what question you have in mind right now.
Haven't you noticed: very few of the trusted sources show up on Google. Some CNN, no BBC, among first-rank national newspapers only the Hindustan Times that I can think of... and that, translated to India's politics, is a bit Washington-Times-ish.
Why not? because they're planning for subscription access. (If you want to develop the argument about why this blocks spiders, obviously you can do it yourself. And figure why tightly-targeted advertizing using all those damn questions about your inside leg measurement is pretty much the same thing.)
Why subscriptions? Because, I strongly suspect, they're worried that if they go for micropayments the argument for sharing revenue with actual authors - writers and photographers and artists and musicians - will get a lot stronger. And they hate that, because they're wedded to a Steel Age model of what they own. See the Tasini -v- Times case and (same URL) the Times' dog-in-the-manger response.
But if they did opt for micropayment, all that selected and reviewed content would be available to all researchers without the hassle of remembering whether it's cypherpunx2 or cypherpunks666 that still works as a login on the Times.
With micropayment, information would be a lot more free, in the "speech" sense. Everything would be indexed. Everything would provide source info and a couple of paragraphs (thumbnail photo, musical intro) for free. You like the sample, you click, you pay your $0.02, the aggregator gets $0.01, I get my $0.01.
Yes, I declare an interest. I make my living writing stuff. I give a lot away. But not the best stuff, not the thoroughly-researched stuff. Obviously, not the stuff that I invested days rather than minutes in.
If you want free stuff, there'll always be plenty of free stuff. You'll just have to invest the time to weed it out from among the crap for yourself. Another way of saying what I do for a living is: I develop an understanding of the story and cut the crap for you. You want to do it yourself, fine: but how much an hour do you charge yourself for sieving shit?
By the way, porn is also the successful at banner ads.
__________________
Just a guy with an opinion
I would be much more willing to pay for content that empowers me to create my own content rather than consuming the output of other's creativity in a first-order manner. Most content that I have seen is this kind of "first-order" stuff - i.e. it is designed to be consumed exactly as it is with no required participation on the part of the user (like a music recording).
W.R.T. the ringtone example, instead of charging me $0.076 for a ring tone, charge me $5 for an app that allows me to design my own ringtones. Bringing the consumer closer to the creative process would increase the average consumer's understanding and appreciation of that process and thus make them more willing to pay for content in general (both first and second order).
-Rene
See you on the playa.
I don't think anyone will pay for what they can get free, but how long will you be able to get it for free. It isn't the question of if, but when. Have all of you missed the last few months, most everyone who was offering a free service is in one of three situations: gone, charging, or on shaky grounds. There are those who are still doing okay, but they are usually owned by a larger company with an actual revenue model (not to say that some of those free sites don't still have rumors floating about them ,ahem).
So if you accept that, then question is how, which vastly affects the how much. If you can set up a system that allows for prices that accurately reflect the worth of the system then it is okay.
People are willing to pay, but it has to be worth it. Perhaps this won't happen just yet, while everyone is still basking in the fading glory that is the free internet. But it will happen.
I personally work for a company called Clickshare (clickshare.com), we provide a solution that allows content providers to charge a very low minimum, while providing minimal intrusion to the web browsing experience and the web serving maintenace (and production).
Don't try to ignore change, you have to except and embrace it, or else it might end up hurting you (aka napster/music industry).
just my thoughts (no cash value)
http://monkeyserver.com --- weeeeee
i think the notion of free content is bogus. if you want useful information you should expect to pay for it (or pay some entity to help you find it). who among you would not pay a small fee to use a search engine that found exactly what you were looking for the first time without advertising, bad links, or junk? slashdot's free...and look how useful it is.
Amazing that no one has mentioned Qpass, a cute little company that is actually getting this done. (I don't work for Qpass, I don't hold equity in them, etc. I just like what they are doing) http://qpass.com "Qpass provides the premier commerce service infrastructure for companies engaged in offering secure and reliable fee-based transactions. The Qpass service is a robust platform for increasing revenue, reducing costs, and increasing overall customer value."
I don't think anyone has any doubts that we can afford to pay for content of various kinds, well at least the dwindling minority here that aren't 15 year old kids anyway. The problem has never been whether we're able to pay for stuff it's whether we want to pay for it.
Modern day Western socioeconomic culture has been deeply influenced by the "ideals" of capitalism, in which we expect things to come as cheaply as possible, and in which consumption is the lubricant that greases our lives. We exist solely to consume, and anything else is pretty much a wasteful side effect. And unfortunately, because of this drive to consume, we end up feeling that we're owed something, and that by getting stuff cheaper or for free we're ahead of the game.
Most of us here wouldn't notice a cent or two coming out of our bank accounts for being able to access decent, high-quality content online, but if we can get away without paying, then we'll whine until the cows come home! Couple this with an almost-Luddite fear of giving out account details online thanks to sloppy computer security and media fear-mongering, and you can see how micropayments are not ready for the primetime yet.
I think it's just a sign of the times. Just as people here would rather use Napster to get songs than find a way to ensure the artist gets paid fairly, people will always go for the free option, even when it leads to the end of the product they were after. Such is today's culture - firmly short-sighted and selfish.
We already DO pay by allowing advertisers to waste our time. This is the broadcast TV model; millions of people every day are willing to trade 22 minutes of their life (time spent watching ads) for 38 minutes of entertainment on the idiot box. On the internet, the same revenue model predominates. Granted, it's much easier to ignore internet ads than a tv spot, and this model may not hold over long term, but next time one of those annoying X-10 ads pops up in your face, remember that you're NOT getting the content behind it for free.
...if it's actually worth it.
/. where to charge 20$ for a lifetime membership and remove unregistered AC's it would clear up the discussions a lot. I know this is heresy for most of you but what the hell, I think most spammers and trollers would shy away from paying 20$ to show they're idiots(and no, I don't mind paying 20$ to show that i'm an idiot, before a clever AC makes a joke about it).
I think ign.com has a very interesting idea in their insider scheme. Their free sites are still great, with lots of content. Currently I mainly hit ps2.ign.com, and they have frequent special features that are only available to registered users, but most of the stuff will be available to the rest of the people after a few days. This is great, much better than pcxl, their free site sucked big time(except for their free half-naked chicks archive, but that's another story).
Ign's subscription is like 20$ per year, which for me means drink 4 beer less next time I go to that special place where they charge beer 5 $ a pop. And no, I am not yet a subscriber but I might subscribe soon. And for the record, if
How about a sidebar...
Did you find this information useful?
Donate $1
Donate $2
Donate $5
Donate $10
(Don't click on the links, they're just illustrative)
Obviously someone (one of the "electronic wallet" web sites) would have to work with the content providers. Ideally, the wallet services would work with one another, so that if you have an account with any one of several wallet services you won't have to choose which one and/or setup an account with 40 different services. If you don't think that competitive wallet services would agree to this, look at Mastercard or Visa. How many banks issue Mastercards? How many of them are competitors?
The downsides - not everyone would donate. Actually, it would probably be a small fraction of the users who would donate. But any additional income helps, right? Also, would it be appropriate for a forum such as slashdot to do this? At the macro level - "Do you find slashdot useful?" is probably ok, but not at the article level. While the people running slashdot obviously invest a lot of time and money, and pick which articles to post, they don't develop the majority of the actual content.
This is similar, IMHO, to those of you who say, in reference to mp3s - "I wouldn't mind giving money to the artist, but I don't want to buy a CD for 20 bucks when I only want one song."
Would the content providers make more money than they currently do? I don't know. [RE: Music] Would the artists? Probably.
The net has turned every Joe, Dick, and Hairy into leeches. We've become spoiled by the dot com mania where everything was free for the taking, as much as you can eat.
Well, within a year's time things have turned 180 degrees. Nobody wanted to click on ads. They filtered out all cookies and used programs to ignore ads. Finally, left with no other choice, many sites are now beginning to charge money for content (or will be soon in the future).
So what's the excuse now? That these sites are too greedy? Grow up people. Why don't YOU put up your own money, time, and knowledge to maintain a server, router, bandwidth, and then write all the well-researched articles yourself and publish them on the net for everyone to look at for FREE?
* Note: The above wasn't an attack on everybody nor was it specified at one person. Rather, it's a harsh slap in the face for the "mentality" that's taken hold here in the hypnotic trance of cyberspace.
---------
Did you just fart? Or do you always smell like that?
eTrade SUCKS
I think some of it may have to do with the nature of the information and the site... alot of sites like k5 or /. might have a harder time getting support because there are other similar sites which would charge less or be free. (I saw this morning that k5 has got up an ad-free "subscription" right now, and I paid $30 for six months of ad-free use of the message board on my site.)
I personally have had a fairly positive experience with getting donations/selling things for my site, but then again if anyone wants to see my drawings, I'm the only place they can get them. I'm also very up-front about what the money goes towards -- paying off my debts so that I can work less hours and create more content (photos, writing, art, whatever...). I think it helps when the site's visitors have a more personal interest in the success or failure of the site. It's easier to send $5.00 to someone when you know a bit more about them, and actually want to help them, than a faceless organization just asking to be sent money.
I'm thinking about subscribing to k5, but it's only because I use their "diary" feature to mirror my Journal on. I personally don't feel the quality of articles there is worth paying for (even their bandwidth), but the personal use I get out of it could be worth that $5.00/month.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
I'm not sure how to distribute the money, but just a first thought.- ------
---------------------------------------
The best lack all conviction
While the worst are full of passionate intensity
{YEATS}
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
Just be sure you don't slip in the aisle. If you try to sue them, they'll say you're an alchoholic and use your records to "prove" it... as one grocery store has already done.
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
The frustrating thing is that I get several emails every day telling me how useful my site is to people, but tips don't accompany the emails. About 90% of the time a request for help accompanies the compliment. I'm glad that I help these people, and I really do develop the site as an act of love, not profit-seeking, but I have to admit it's getting old being told that my site is more helpful than the stack of books they bought ... but of course they probably spent well over $100 for a stack of books but don't send me $5 for the help I provided.
I started the tip jar as a "what-the-hell" thing. Now I'm considering taking it down because I'm worried that it's building more resentment in me than when I just didn't have it at all.
<IRONY> On the other hand, O'Reilly paid me $16,000 to write a book for them (including the final payment approving the final draft), then decided to cancel the book. So I'm not getting paid for content I do publish and I did get paid for content that wasn't published. </IRONY>
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
I wouldn't mind micropayments as long as it was secure, trustworthy, and easy. In other words, I wouldn't want Microsoft involved, not because I think their software is particularly bad but because they would abuse and twist the original agreement. There needs to be some sort of independent organiztion that is supported by sites that accept the micropayments. Somebody like Verisign might work, although they're not the greatest...
Everything should cost and noone should have to pay
Let me explain:
Content providers can meter access and charge as much as they want.
At the end of the month you get a bill detailing what you owe to everybody. You decide who to pay, and who to ignore. Maybe you can partially pay some. You might decide not to pay anyone at all.
The providers, of course, may retaliate. If you haven't paid enough, they might serve ads, lock you out of certain pages or throttle your bandwidth.
Such a system would be installed and supervised by government (like government supervises money). Capitalism will do the rest.
Some thought will be necessary to preserve a degree of privacy.
Paying for online content is another story however. Any time you set a price on something, you are saying "No!" to certain groups of people. The higher the cost, the more people you restrict. It prevents the underprivaledged in society to have the same rights and access to information as the more fortunate. In a sense, this gives the wealthy an even greater upper hand. It unbalances the scales.
So long as everyone has access to information, the playing field is level. Whether or not anyone - rich or poor, educated or not - wants to use that information to their own benefit or of others' is a different story. What's important is the equal opportunity.
While setting prices on cellphone ringer songs may seem trivial (even in the tiny expense mentioned here), it opens the door - sets a precedence - to more and more charging for various forms of information. Would you want /. to become a paid service? How about Kuro5hin, dictionary.com? Why don't we just start paying for open source software while we're at it? The possibilities are endless and they are all detremental. So, let's say no to content pricing. Let information be free as it wants to be.
Why bother.
But once we have the content they can't suck it out of our heads or off our computers if we decide not to pay the asked-for price. In essence it isn't that "information wants to be free" it's just that taking informaiton out of a venue is like trying to "take pee out of a swimming pool". Information has no desire to be free, it wants to loiter around your patio, drink all your beer, and impregnate your wife and children with its get. Until carfully engineered selective forgetfullness can be bottled and imposed on a browser (the person not the platform) there is no way to post-sell information in short, non-concrete format. Zines and Books work because they are too large and physical to be self perpetual. Guess why you can sit and read in a book store but not a commic-book store...
Nobody buys sutff sight unseen without a damn good recomendation from some source preceived as authoratative. We don't see movies with no star-power, directed by no-names, that have no positive word of mouth and reviewed by nobody. Actually, that's not quite true. We buy cable TV subscriptions to things like IFC (Independant Film Channel) which deliver dreck in-bulk and go mining for content with the remote. We most assuredly DO NOT mine for content by pay-per-view.
Fundamentally the web is a broadcast-esque service. We invest in our ISP connection (basic cable hookup) and perhaps a few premium channels (online games and large web sites which are like sub-installed cable providers).
The web people who go broke are essentially asking us to buy their single pay-per-view channel using the ad-line "we wont tell you what's playing or when, and you watch what we choose to show, but trust us, that one program will satisfy you all." That will never work cause we arn't one-size-fits-all mentalities.
The model does work for pr0n sites because no matter how bad the selection, we are warrented to get our share of "poosey" and/or "weeener" (as your perfer 8-) and those things are largely interchangeable within category. We take it on faith that there is an never-ending supply of genitalia out there that is well attached to young stupid pretty people. It's a safe bet.
Nobody smart will ever go for "For just five dollars you can see my take on someone elses idea of a profound musical experience." unless the persons of "my" and "someone else" are known beforehand.
--
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Barter! why didn't i think of that! on the internet, there are no dollars are cents, just infromation and cpu cycles. we could set up an extange system- i'll let you have this content for X cycles now, or you can use a special player that gives you the content while using extra cycles for its own purposes... what an idea!
"It'll be like stealing candy from a baby... why, that look like a lark!" - Mr. Burns.
The internet is not free and neither is the information being shared. Even the simplest server farm and technical talent to run it costs tens of thousands of dollars. Scale that up to a library or museum website and that can go up to a half million dollars to archive everything. Now think of all the websites shutdown in the last year, for lack of money, and think of all the information forever lost because of that. Don't idealize this digital era. After all, who can guarantee that 500 years from now that anyone will run the servers? At least with books we have a record of the ideas being presented.
What content does Kuro5hin offer that is worth anywhere near five dollars a month? While I enjoy the site, it is essentially a BBS where people post links and half-baked manifestos. (Most of which, if you notice, never get past the introductory paragraphs before they are turned over to the masses for discussion.) Much like a verbal conversation, the value of Kuro5hin and similar sites is not in specific retorts or commentaries but in the aggregate of opinions. Furthermore, this aggregate has no value without the processing the reader must perform herself to integrate them with her existing schemas. In short, it is unlikely that enough people will pay for conversation alone when there are so many other free forums for it.
Opinions were like kittens / I was giving them away
Now suppose this "information" is a series of nude photographs of Jill, Jack is her boyfriend, and Joe is the nerdy kid who lives next door. What does this tell us about Jill? About Jack? What about Joe? The content provider?
What conclusions can you draw?
--
It's crap.   99.9999999999% of all 'content' on the Internet is worth exactly what we are currently paying for it.   Slashdot, Fuckedcompany and others are often entertaining, but would you subscribe to a newspaper that contains nothing but 'Letters to the Editor' and publishes everything it receives, regardless of content or relevance?   I don't think so.
I am already 'paying for content' -- 2 daily newspapers, 4 monthly magazines and cable TV.   Why would I go on the Internet and pay for 'content' that's inferior to what I'm already paying for?
With 'content' there's a lot of flexibility in personal preferences and choices -- it's not as simple and cut and dried as "I like that so I'll pay for it".   X might not be exactly the same (or as good) as Y, but it's close enough -- especially since I've already paid for X.   I might find your online comic strip funny, but I'm unlikely to pay you because I'm already paying for a daily newspaper that gives me 20 comics every day.
Example: underwatermoonlight.com is the new home of the band The Soft Boys. They give away about an hours worth of MP3s from the 2001 reunion tour (that was worth a ten hour car trip for me to see, so I'll admit I'm a bit committed to this band)absolutely free. If you like those you can cough up $15 via Paypal, register a username and PW and, download five more hours.
I got to sample. The price was better than buying physical music could ever be. Payment was quick and easy. What more could I ask. Oh yeah, that others eventually pick up on this kind of model.
Hey!!! the parentheses are good for something
This is an excellent rebuttal to my post. Conditioning to free content vs. increased corporate control of media. C'mon, when the rebuttee is the one who asks for a mod up, you know it's good. ;-)
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
For instance, my introduction to anime was through going to anime meetings at the local university where they would show fansubs and copyrighted anime in an auditorium for free. That was my only anime exposure for a long time until I decided to branch out into other shows. When I saw that the DVD's where $20+, I was livid. How dare they charge for something that I watch for free! So, I did (and stil do) something that would have been unthinkable for me if I had began with anime I paid for myself - I trade in it. The ethics of it are debateable, but it's the psychology of the matter; to pay for something that used to be free is hard, even impossible to take, even if DVD quality is better than some of the DivX I get off the net.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Standard economics: where any commodity is in essentially infinite supply, the price drops to zero. Paying for web content is like paying for sunshine in Texas.
Well then, is content a commodity? Is it, as they say, fungible? Well, no. BUT -- so far there haven't been many (if any) for-pay sites that have been able to differentiate their content from the mass well enough to make theirs worth money. Differentiation based on subject doesn't exist: there are free sites with content on any conceivable subject. So how about differentiation based on quality? Whenever I do a search for a particular type of content there are always some free sites put up by enthusiasts up there at the top of the quality list.
Under those circumstances why on earth would anyone go to for-pay sites? There may be a sucker born every minute but that's apparently not often enough to make selling web content into a working business plan.
Tomorrow's stock market results. Locations of buried treasure. How to build an FTL drive. How antigravity works. Names and phone numbers of willing women (with pictures.)
Any programmer should be cautious about making "micro payments". 5 cents times an infinite loop = lots of money.
Me: "Uhhhhhh. Hi customer service... I don't remember how many times I accessed Persian Kitty last month, but I don't think it was over a thousand."
PK: Our records say you did, pervert. Pay the bill in full, or a collection agency will be chasing you...
As linked to previously by Slashdot, see this article which explains why Micropayments will never work (by Clay Shirky).
Andrew Odlzyko, a researcher at Bell Labs and sa frequent contributor to First Monday, has a great paper on pricing and telecommunications, in which he concludes that as technologies mature, pricing shifts from pay-per-piece (or byte, or word, or minute) toward flat-rate or de facto flat rate, such as "block pricing" which we see in cell phone plans. One example of macro-micro payments outside the world of telecom, the "power unit" pricing scheme that Oracle tried with Oracle 8, has since shifted to flat server-based pricing that its competitors, Microsoft and IBM, have already been employing. The interesting item here is that the barrier to entry for the more refined pricing plans is not the lack of an instrument for measuring usage or the lack of a financial instrument for remitting payment - they both exist for telecom and enterprise software. Rather, lack of customer acceptance of a complicated pricing plan drives this simplification. I wonder: what makes content different that per-word / per kilobyte / per article micropayment makes more sense than in these other industries? Content may want to be free, but we all know it can't be - at least not all of it. But under block-rate pricing, it may be zero marginal cost. Ray Deck
I think there are several reasons why it's tough to get people to pay:
1. Content providers have conditioned people to the idea that content is free, just as big retail chains have conditioned people to wait for sales. Even if the service is worth what you pay, the idea of paying for something that used to be free upset people, and makes them move on to other places. How do you react when you have to put a quarter in a machine to get air to fill your tires? Do you buy gas next time at the place with free air?
2. The barrier to entry is still relatively low for web based content providers. Someone will look at a pay site and think - I can do that for free and make money on ads - and lure your customers away. Even if they fail, someone else can always step in, which makes it tought to keep charging.
3. As others have mentioned, there is no good per-view payment system in place. Micropayment is a great idea, but unless a site generates enough volume to cover the collection/payment costs it isn't worth the effort. Of course, micro-paymenst would also let companies price better - if article A is getting a lot of hits, I should raise the price until too many customers balk, then drop it slightly. A new way to maximize revenue.
4. A lot of popular web sites rely on users to post in forums to draw visitors. Much valuable content is generated that way - but would you be willing to help if the site provider suddenly is making money off your posts? I'd bet alot of forums would die, killing the sites that host them as traffic drops off.
Some sites due charge - an generally are sites that migrated from older information providing services and use the web as another way to distribute content. The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones come to mind - but those are companies who have strong brand names that companies know and hence are willing to pay for content. And tehy spend a lot of money developing that content, and spread it over numerous venues. An intersting aside is CNN an dother staht give infor for free - my guess is they 1) get enough ad revenue to help defray costs; 2) feel it drives revenue to their prime business (TV/print/etc.) 3) the cost of putting info on the web is a small part of the total cost of producing it, so since it drives 1 & 2 it makes sense to not charge.
Since most web sites have nowhere near the brand recognition as those, it's not surprising they can't charge.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
How do I justify this to myself? I balance it with the savings of not getting a dead tree newspaper subscription and the savings of not paying cable since I threw away my television set around two years ago (one of the best things I ever did).
Would I pay that much for Slashdot? Nope. If Slashdot starts charging I'll be going somewhere else. Here, the value is coming from people posting comments of their own accord. They are not relying on their posting to put food in their mouths, and in fact, are happy to have their ideas in as many heads as possible.
Can the answer change over time? Yes. I used to pay for a mailbox at NetAddress so that I would not have to deal with advertising and with taglines at the end of my emails. Now, they are going to be charging starting at the end of July, and I will not be using them. Their service at one point distiquished itself from the other services. Now, it is of little or no comparitive value, therefore I will not pay.
What would I recommend to a website provider? Make your entire site free, put in a link to allow people to pay if they choose, and remind them that paying keeps the site free. Issue a reminder somewhere in the once-a-month time frame. If you want to use banner ads, go ahead, but assume that some (or maybe most, depending on your audience) will be filtering them. If that sounds risky, then you, as a website provider, must not believe in your content enough to risk showing it to me, hoping that I will pay for it out of goodwill.
Non-flat micropayment implies a lot of micro-decisions by the user. Even if it was a penny, you would have to decide every time you see the content, and it is before you see it. People don't want to do this hundred times a day, naturally.
However, I would like to recommend something for that case. The submitted story approval should IMHO then not be done by the editors. No personal offense to the editors here, but I think their opinion on what's 'interesting' is not neccesarily a good representation of what readers find interesting (well, not like they've been doing *that* bad so far :)
Instead, the editors should be responsible for grouping multiple submitted stories together as a 'subject'. Readers can then moderate these subjects, and subjects that turn out to be very popular could then be put on the homepage. The more popular, the more 'payment' would be required to read this thread. Ofcourse, this way sometimes 'not so interesting but nearly free' subjects could be posted by the editors in order to give them the ability to still have some control over the identity of the site; Not *Everything* has to be 'profitable' per se, right?
Now, people post and moderate as usual. Reading very funny/very insightfull/very interesting posts costs more, depending on the moderation totals. Reading unmoderated posts costs nothing. This would also encourage reading the later posts which may be very interesting but not yet moderated.
This way the micropayments would also slightly steer the behaviour of /. readers into digging somewhat more into late posts, european, asian, australian posts for example (because they're posted later than most US articles, they often don't get moderated) and in this way make the site more international. The more I think about this, the more I think I should have Slashdot micropay me for this idea :P
I think a true test of this model will happen at kuro5hin where Rusty (the kuro5hin (k5) dude) is attempting a model where a user pays $5 a month and, in return, the user will not have to see ads. k5's test is one to be truly watched --- k5 has a significant number of users, k5 is similar, in some ways, to slashdot and a subscription model was only be utilized/tried at small/insignificant sites.
The adoption of this model at k5 has sparked a debate on the site with its initial announcement posted by Rusty.
Will this model succeed or fail? I don't think anyone can answer this question. This model has not be truly tested. But, watching k5, we will see.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
well, all the talk about charging for information will eventually lead to the end of the internet as we know it. just about all of us got addicted to the net because we can pay $20 a month to get on, and zap! theres everything. learn all you want, chat all you want, go where you want, share what you want, etc. remember how great it was way back in the day when the online population was mostly geeks and the net wasn't a huge corporatized money pit? geeks would spend time and money creating something just so everyone could have another cool feature to mess with on the net. just people sending them e-mail saying "wow! that's awesome! how did you do that? thanks!" was payment enough for them. before you know it, it will be something like 15 cents for a web search, 50 cents a download, a few bucks an hour for chatting, a dollar for an answer to a question, 3 bucks an hour to run an FTP server, 5 bucks for an upgrade to the latest version of something...ugh. did anyone else but me shudder when they saw "Dr. Know" in AI? and, just think of all the arguments our stupid governments are going to get into over all this mess. we can't let this happen. we've got to do something. i don't know what, but we have to do it. fast. please, people. just keep it free. i know it costs money to put information and stuff out there, but find another way to cover it; for the good of mankind. heheh. after all, it's only money :)
exactly. ill make this one short. the net wasn't designed for making money, it was designed for serving out information. i pay my $20 a month to get on, and i want my fucking information. ive seen posts saying that paying your ISP to even get on the internet somehow isn't paying for getting all the content. bullshit. i dont care if the microcharges don't add up to very much, i'm paying monthly to be able to get on to it, and im not going to pay another damn cent just to be able to use it. if you want to make money for serving out information, start up an ISP.
-----------------
"Bloody marvelous."
I've never run into sites that ask payments for information, other than Northernlight search engine and a few newspaper sites with archives.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
With the frequency of failed page loads and disconnections, I could imagine it being a rather common situation where you would make a micropayment and never get the content. Or, depending on the order of things, you could receive the content and the micropayment would fail.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
How about some kind of Micropayment Subscription Service (MSS) which would allow publishers to post a graphical link (similar to PayPal or Amazon's Honor System) which if clicked would take the reader to the MSS where they could add the publisher's site to the reader's subscription list. The reader then determines how much they would like to contribute (or perhaps the publisher has some means of providing an MSRP based on the content the reader is interested in). The reader is then charged a single monthly transaction to their credit card for their contributions to all the publishers in their subscription list.
Cable content supported by advertisers = internet content supported by advertisers
Compelling "premium" channels (like HBO) supported by my wallet = ?
I'll start paying for content on the internet when it becomes justifiably compelling, such as getting a bunch of movies every month (yeah, I know, the movie industry created this dilemma. But it's still cheaper than going to the theater).
Is this article a way to test the waters for a pay-as-you-go /.? A way to see how much subscribers are willing to pay? Kuro5hin is doing it already, offering an ad-free pay service for $9.95 a month.
Sounds suspicious to me.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
Why information IS free:
The payment technology is not mature enough. So paying is not easy.
Why pay more for something you can get for less (or free)? Like any other service or product, lower price is part of the quality.
Why information SHOULD be free? (both as in 'freedom' and 'free beer')
I just can't see how a refund system is possible - you already got the information, what if you don't like it, it's wrong, or simply low quality in general? We shouldn't pay for something you can't get a refund if it's defective.
Unwealthy people won't get the same information that richer people will have access to.
People will prefer to read info from sites they already paid for, therefore they might get locked in big-evil-corps sites and won't read other information.
Micropayments will not remain micro. if you can find somebody who will pay a higher price for it, they'll pay for it, and you'll probably wouldn't be able to afford it.
If we set a standard and pay for some information suppliers, authors will feel they ought to get paid for information they supply. Without that pay they might not supply it at all.
Why information WILL REMAIN free?
Nobody likes to be blood-leeched. Remember the times you paid the internet per hour? Isn't it much better today when you don't check your clock every hour, and can download 24/7?
We got used to free information. Go try to change people.
People don't like to share personal information, especially credit card numbers.
People don't like to be tracked by big-corps all the time. Visa already knows about everything I buy, when and where. Do I want them to know about everything I see and know?
People don't usually do what they don't like to do, especially if there's an alternative (and there is).
What WILL I pay for on the internet?
Quality products.
Quality services.
Certainly not information.
I've been on-line for more than 7 years. Never paid for information. Won't start now.
-OmerI see a lot of different versions of two complaints. First, you have some people complaining that they want the information on the Internet for free, or the related complaint that somehow they already paid for the content on the internet when the paid their ISP or computer manufacturer*. Second, you have some people complaining that there is little or no good content on the Internet to pay for. There is a very strong connection between these! It is the problem of "How do producers in a non-market based economy know what to produce?" If people don't get paid for what they produce, or if they are paid the same amount regardless of how much their product is needed or wanted, then the producers are only going to produce what they (or the people bossing them around, in communism)want. Only by chance will that be what people need. If, as is so often the case now, content providers get no money in return for their efforts then they are going to post what THEY want to, not necessarily what WE want them to. That is why the Internet is full of people's opinions and pictures of their pets. If there were a better way for the content provider's to be financially rewarded based on the success of their content, then there would be a lot better content on the Internet. Personally that can't come too soon as far as I am concerned. I don't know if it will be a micropayment system where people pay with money, or a better advertising system where people pay with their attention, or both, or something different. Whatever form it takes, as soon as there is a more effective way for wealth to flow from the people using content on the Internet to people who create it, then the quality and variety of content on the Internet will increase quickly as they (and a sudden influx of new, greedy content providers) try to figure out what content they could create that the rest of us would be willing to spend our wealth on. Of course, some of this commerce is already going on. One of my younger brother's pays a subscription to access Steve Jackson Game's Pyramid e-zine that is published on the Internet (to paying customers only) every Friday, and he is quite happy with the arrangement. Many other companies and organizations, from pornographers to Jane's Defense Weekly have their own pay-to-access sites; but I think there is a lot of room for improvment. For those people who don't want to pay for content and also don't want advertisements, I have no sympathy for them. If the writers, editors, photographers, managers, and capitalists who are responsible for generating quality content are providing a useful service to you, then they deserve to be compensated. I know some generous or concerned (or insecure?) people provide good content for free; just as even under socialism or communism a few people will try to figure out how to make good, useful products to satisfy their work ethic (or other reasons). But if we can figure out how to make providing good content** profitable, a lot more people will get in that business and those already in it will have better feedback and more resources to continue their work. If anyone reading this still believes content should be free or wonders why the content on the Internet doesn't seem to live up to its promise, then perhaps they should read something by F.A. Hayek or Milton Friedmen; they can explain "the invisible hand" much better than I. Of course I'm sure people will want assurances that the content is good before they finish the transaction, but that is a problem all merchants have to solve; and I'm sure anyone who wants to make a profit by providing useful content will figure something out... or at least one of their competitors will. To use the SJGames example from earlier, Pyramid relies on a combination of free sample issues and the reputation of the provider to convince people to subscribe. And of course they have to keep providing good content of people wouldn't resubscribe. * I'm not sure how people think that money is supposed to get from their ISP or computer retailer into the hands of the content providers; but I promise I have heard that opinion spouted by several people. ** I know there will be some discussion of what "good content" is, but for these purposes I assume that if you aren't willing to part with some hard earned greenbacks (or whatever funny color the currency is where you are) for the information, text, summary, pictures, data, music, results, etc. then it can't be that good.
Do we pay Slashdot (or any other repackager / portal)to link to a WSJ article that requires a payments that links to some original research that requires a payment?
When I buy a magazine, it's a fixed cost, and I know I have full access to the content of the magazine. The exception may be something like a book review, that then prompts me to go out & buy the book.
Will we feel as comfortable browsing the net for information if there is a toll every click along the path? Digital divide ahead, please watch your step...
What were you expecting?
Question: Why do people even try to charge for information in the first place?
Simple Answer: In order to pay for scarce resources (like food) in the physical world.
Question: What happens when humankind is eventually able to manipulate atoms like bits, reducing the "cost of living" to the cost of computing?
Answer: The equation is now balanced; the physical realm can also be open sourced (as in free beer and free speech (but not free enough to enable a `grey goo' scenario))
This is of course, IMHO, as I really haven't encountered a good treatise on the economics of abundance, and I still worry about an old-economy carryover that keeps a traditional, power-hungy, man-ape pecking order intact--so that a few might rule.
Power to the Peaceful
Last week, I log on, and they have posted a notice, that I must pay $50 a year else, they will shut my account. #$@#%# bastards!
Although that is my primary email account and I've given it to all my friends, I'm not going to pay them this time. Its the prinicipal of it. They know, that after having used their email service for several years, I must've given my email out to a LOT of people (its the email on my resuma as well), so now they have me cornered into paying them.
I'm sorry, but LOTS of companies use this trick. I dont like tricks. I agree, that giving a free sample to look at is great, but it is very different from giving you this illusion that its always going to be free, and then suddenly when they know you cant leave, they start charging you for it.
For example, imagine the outcry if MS started charging for hotmail...
- Tempestdata
It would be the worst thing that could ever happen in the web!
Imagine, place content behing an iron wall whre only paying customers could see it. the whole idea of the internet (at least the post-military idealistic idea) was to empower the people to find information easely and freely.
Not everybody would be able to pay for the information, not everybody has a credit card, not everybody wants to pay both a content bill and an internet access bill.
Then there is the proble of content corruption, only content that sells will get out. That is very bad kids.
...because here you have to pay at least $1 to get ringtones and the ever-popular operator logos (I don't know if you have the same thing in the U.S.) - and that's not all. Teenagers often change these several times a week just to follow the newest trends. An entire business model has grown up because of this demand. And, ironically, it seems to work better than any of the plans from now-dead dotcoms ever did.
Really. I'm not poor, I just don't have any money to spare with other expenses. Paying to, say, access this site is the last thing on my mind as I'd much rather have a pair of cell phones for my wife and I. Not to mention those who can barely afford (or can't afford) a computer, and rely on internet access at the library.
;)
I wouldn't pay to access this site. It's fun, but it ain't worth $$$. I might pay for weird porn, though.
Steve
--- What?
The nature of the Internet will not allow wide spread "pay for view" content unless there is a widespread amalgamation of news or information sources. Content value is not only determined by the substance of the message, but also those who control access to its uniqueness.
"Pay for View" does work in some industries (i.e. Showbiz.com), which is specialized for the movie industry where the content has a high value, and this will probably work in any special sector. I just can't see it working for the rest of the world unless AOL buys the Internet.
--
"Tada yori takai mono wa nai."
Jason
Right now, the most common way to pay for something online is via credit card numbers. And regardless of what people say, there is a risk involved in giving out credit card numbers. Many e-stores go out of business, or are not so honourable. Would I take that (admittedly small) risk just so I can pay seven cents for a new ring tone, or even a few dollars for a poster? Probably not. Assigning value to something isn't a problem. It's paying for it that's the issue. And things along the lines of e-cash were supposed to solve this problem, but never materialized. The closest thing today is paypal, which sucks something like 20% of the profit out of each transaction. Ouch. Not much value there.
I don't know about you, but automatic micro-payment would really, really tick me off in a whole number of reasons.
Consider: if I was reading articles on the Internet, and I clicked on a link to an idiotic article by someone like MSNBC's Brock Meeks, I would be MAJORLY upset that I paid anything for such lousy content. At least when I go to the bookstore, I can take a look at the articles before I take a magazine to the cash register. I know it has some quality.
I really have no problem with micro payments if it's for content of some quality, but even on the best Sites there is no guarantee that what I see will be any good. Forcing pre-payment will just drive people away, especially if they get burned a couple of times.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
isn't the answer obvious? why don't we take the cable model. you subscribe to a cable provider, they provide you with on-flow content. why can't we just do this for the net? your ISP charges you $30 a month or whatever, for that you get unlimited hours on general sites, and then they subscribe on your behalf to a whole bunch of sites. all taken care of! all in the one bill! all that has to be done is to consolidate everyone's sites into using the one payment system, and then each ISP could then have a facility to auto update the lists every day. everyone is included, everyone gets a guaranteed payment, everyone is happy. there are money back guarantees etc. people can choose to subscribe to say 200 or 300 sites available through their ISP, and that takes care of that. the rest of the web would remain as normal. now, how about doing this for academic info to free it from databases that cost $10000+/year.
Rather than paying a micro-fee for content, why don't webmasters establish a "Premium Membership" fee for users that are willing to pay in order to have advertisements removed. They could also come up with some more add-ons that would make it worthwhile. Most surfers have grown used to ignoring banner advertisements so I really couldn't care less if they exist on the web site. If someone offered me a Premium Membership to a web site that included lots of useful information, services, excellent technical support, and some other little features: I would be more than interested in creating an account with them. I'm obviously not going to pay $10/month to simply remove banner ads even though I don't acknowledge their existance in the first place. They would basically have to remove my searches for that entire topic although. For instance: I have a membership with a computer hardware company and need a review of a new processor release. If I can't go there and find it, then it's not worth paying for.
I'm sure some online companies are already doing this but they're probably limping along with ideas. Offer some free services such as user@domain.com webmail, an affiliate program, etc. Anyone else have any ideas for features that could accompany a "Premium Membership" and apply globally?
That sounds like an awesome idea. Coming from a web-based services company, I'd definitely be interested in developing that with you. E-mail me or add 19108489 to your ICQ list and we'll evolve it a bit. If anyone else has ideas for joint-venture web-based services, feel free to contact me.
It's ironic that Slashdot is thinking of micropayments or subscriptions when users contribute most of the actual content in the form of comments. (Consider also that top comments are spelled correctly and use proper grammar.)
On the other hand, Slashdot does contribute the Slash engine, however, they're asking us to pay for the news, not the code.
--
Aaron J. Shaver
http://aaronshaver.com/
If you are in California, you are paying high electricity rates, telephone, cable, and whatever flavor of Internet connectivity fees each month. the last thing we want to do is pay for content, but monthly fees are only part of the problem.
i would like to use the newspaper as an example. If you subscribe to lets say the LA Times, you pay that monthly fee to the content printed on the paper. (please do not delve into the debate of new media versus old media) you browse cnn.com every morning but you would never pay for it. Why? It is because you are not used to paying for anything on the Internet. From the beginning it has been free. Everything but porn. Sure, there are thousands of free adult sites on the web, but the pay for porn business model is working. people want it so bad that they are willing to pay for higher quality photographs and streaming sex videos. Content that cannot be found anywhere else (unless you are an avid DVD porn collector, but this is another topic all to its own)
So... the unwillingness to pay for content stems back to beginning of the Internet when people were exposed to free content on websites. websites that believed could generate a strong customer base that would allow for revenue from advertisers. we now know how well this business model has worked.
the trade off: free Internet large growth no paying customers as opposed to paid Internet slow growth but a strong paying customer base
That's what advertizements are for. Content (be it the Internet, Television, or Print Magazines) have a customer, and its generally not the reader. Its the advertizers. The reader is what they market to the advertizer.
That's why most television programming you don't have to pay for. That's why Newspapers (and their websites) come cheap or completely free. And that's the way its been for who knows how long (I'd say at least twenty years, most likely since the dawn of Radio).
There are exceptions. The exceptions are stuff like HBO, Cinemax, and other pay channels. In return, you get premium content, as well as complete removal of commericals. That _is_ something that people are willing to pay for.
A good example of this can be found at Sluggy Freelance, where you can get an ad free version of the site, if you pay.
---
Why pay for something when it can be had for free?
The Tragedy of the Commons is a foolish fairy tale. There's plenty of grass running off in every direction. It's never going to get all trampled down.
If you'll excuse me, I have to go make sure my DSL connection stays saturated.
We never had to pay for it. The content hasn't gotten much better, and now we have to pay? The real issue with this is a behavioral one. It is like spoiling a child. It is much harder to discipline them after they have had freedom, than to give them freedom after they have had none.
"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale . .
personally, i would pay for ad-free access to very few sites (like slashdot, or my bank's online access), because the majority of sites that i visit have minimal advertising already and it doesn't bug me. the sites that have ads that bug me, i don't go to. most of the crap content out there isn't worth jumping through all the hoops in the first place, so why would it be worth paying for the hoops to be eliminated?
"Why is all this crap here?" -- 4-year-old Brandon
jobs, and there are too many sites and software to download that do not cost a dime, because the maintainers are not doing it for the money, like say, www.indymedia.org if i'm going to pay for anything online, it will not be for "content", it will be for something like a copy of cd or book i refuse to pay anymore than i already to for the internet already, this is not about being a "freeloader", this is about reality if you want to make money off the internet, then host sites, or sale a PHYSICAL product, or your not going to have a chance of seeing a penny from me
Without an international omnipresent micropayment infrastructure in place, there isn't really much one can do right now. Credit and debit cards have enormous overheads considering you only want to pay a fraction of [insert yer local currency here] at each transaction.
We must also avoid the problems that will arise if I've got 12 bucks to spend through micropayment A's system, but the site that I'd like to pay a few cents to only accepts micropayments from systems B, C and F. Just have a lok at the North American cell phone system mess (GSM, CDMA, TDMA, iDEN) to see what I mean.
I think asking people whether they will pay for content misses the point. If you asked people 30 years ago if they would pay a subscription fee for television, they probably would have laughed in your face.
Change doesn't happen on the common man's whim. Rather, it happens when there is an idea that has potential value. People are uncomfortable with change unless they are sufficiently excited about the possibilities.
The bursting of the technology bubble is often cited as an example of how advertising alone can not support a web business. Yet I see it more as an example of how ideas that don't have any real value to anyone can't survive.
I agree that a viable micro-payment system is needed (I'm sure anything transparent enough to fill the need is at least 10 years out)... But the other side of the issue is where is the value? The Internet has incredible value for finding up-to-date information and rapid communication. Yet when people think of the Internet they don't think of well-refined, robust services (ie. the kind we expect to get when we pay). If you're going to pay, there's better places to get information.
In the geek culture (especially the OSS movement), sharing of information is highly valued. The irony is that much of the best information (ie. most charge-worthy) getting published is coming from geeks whos only desire for 'payment' is that others share information as well.
Given this climate, content payment can only succeed once someone offers content of sufficiently high quality so as to surpass what is being offered for free or in a better value in print form.
But also, well, micropayments are quite a bit of a gamble. You drop your quarter or buck or whatever into the micropayment system to view an article on, say, IGN Insider. The article then turns out to be total crap. What happens then? Can you just hit the "coin return" slot like a soda machine? Nope, you saw it, you pay for it.
IGN Insider did something very bad to me earlier this month-- and a bunch of you, too, I'm sure. I was very interested in the "Now Loading" article at IGN Cube-- it was, after all, plastered all over the front page of 'Cube--, and was shocked to see the "This is part of IGN Insider" content warning. So I waited, thinking it would eventually be part of the main site. And waited. Eventually, yesterday, I managed to read it-- and found it was totally not worth either the wait or the payment I'd have to make to have read it two weeks ago.
If this is what payment gives me-- bad content at an inflated price-- then I say, let it be free. Content providers have to prove the worth of their content before anyone can consciously and conscientiously pay for it.
Or they can be unscrupulous bastards who make people pay for 404 pages.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Don't Pay. Don't click on advertisements. Don't do anything except consume. I'm sure that will work.
I am sick of sites that I enjoy going out of business. I will admit I do not think I have ever clicked on a banner...I don't think click throughs work....Name recognition...now that is something else...like those stupid Oracle ads on news.com...sure they are annoying and distracting...but I sure as heck think of their name when I think about databasing.
I WANT A FREE INTERNET!! well yeah...I like free things as much as the next person...but I am not stupid either. If I keep taking and never give anyting back eventually things will dry up. But the thing is when you give back it has to be of value to the Internet for the internet to benefit. And guess what people...not everyone on the internet has the net savvy, time or want to donate back in the same way that a lot of us do...They live outside of this realm but like to visit from time to time. How do they give back when they take...well they use this little thing they call money. They perform some service in the real world and then they go to the virtual to consume...There are a lot of these people out there...yes it's true...I have seen them...and guess what...there are a whole lot more of them than there are of us...and they are sucking us dry...and not putting anything back in.
We are spending tons of time and money not to just benefit the internet developers...but eveyone who accesses the internet. Well I only have so much time in a day...and I have to make choices...I can either donate my time and energy for free and starve...or I can request a small amount of restitution for my efforts and eat. Will everyone find need for my services...nope...but will some find it of value...hopefully...and if it isn't then eventually I will go away.
Information does 'not' want to be free as in beer...sure information should be accessible by everyone...but who makes that available? Who pays to get that to the masses? It sure as hell ain't going to grow legs and walk to you. If you want the information...go out and gather it...or pay someone to do it for you so you will have the time to do things that you enjoy.
Brian
>I just can't see how a refund system is possible - you already got the information, what if you don't like it, it's wrong, or simply low quality in general? We shouldn't pay for something you can't get a refund if it's defective.
Well there is some trust involved there. You watch a movie...you don't like it...tough noogies...now if you leave in the first few minutes...you get your money back in whole or in part. If you sign up for whatever.com and you try it for a day and it sucks then you say...give me my money back. In some cases you will get hassled..in some cases you won't...if they are a legitimate business you get your money back in either case whether content provider or movie theatre.
>Unwealthy people won't get the same information that richer people will have access to.
There are many disadvantages to being poor. It's not fair that the rich get to be the first tourist either...but hey.
Now should there be internet in the classroom like cable in the classroom...more than likely our taxes should pay for that. If it's educational...but not all content is educational.
>People will prefer to read info from sites they already paid for, therefore they might get locked in big-evil-corps sites and won't read other information
Like MSNBC...yeah well the only way a smaller company can compete is if it has access to money. Which is real hard to come by if you are smaller...you have to have your supporters support you. Otherwise the big guys make a free site with their propaganda and run all over the little guy. Doesn't matter how great your content is...it costs money to get people to your site. Word of mouth only goes so far when your competition has the money to brainwash.
>Micropayments will not remain micro. if you can find somebody who will pay a higher price for it, they'll pay for it, and you'll probably wouldn't be able to afford it.
Micropayments will never work in the mainstream.
>If we set a standard and pay for some information suppliers, authors will feel they ought to get paid for information they supply. Without that pay they might not supply it at all
Of course they should get paid...they are doing the work that you are enjoying...We have no rights to information unless we have invested our time, energy or money (which is a representation of someones work...hopefully thier own.)
No one owes us anything unless we have 'paid' for that right. When I say paid I mean through our efforts whether they are money, time or anything that we have given up for the exchange.
Do we have the right to know what our politicians are doing...yes...if you pay taxes you are paying for them to do that job. Well why pay CNN to tell us what our politicians are doing...well if you don't want to pay CNN then go put you on some sunglasses and following as many as you can. Of course you will lose your job in the meantime...and probably get thrown in jail....but hey...if you really want to know. But that wasn't very free was it. Now is it fair that someone has to police these guys for us to know what is going on...no sir...it isn't. But life ain't fair...and information ain't free.
Brian
>There are many disadvantages to being poor. It's not fair that the rich get to be the first tourist either...but hey. That should have been...space tourist... ;)
It's called AOL. AOL is the future of pay sites. I don't like AOL...but I know it is true. Soon you will pay a provider for general access and/or premium services. General Access to the semi-free sites (those who generate revenue through ads...ie...slashdot) and free sites (personal sites, retail-catalog sites...ie...Sears.., libraries and other state agencies, advocacy sites...and so on.) Then the premium sites (News Sites, Music Sites, Movie Sites...basically what you see in your current cable programming.) It will all be bundled into one nice payment package that you pay to your service provider. 'Yes I would like the sports package please...does that include the live Real Audio Feed of MLB? Cool...can I watch that at work? What..why not...oh...it has to be on my computer at home that I subscribed through...ok...oh well...yeah I guess go ahead and still sign me up....do I have to pay anything to Real? No...it's all bundled into the sports package...ok cool. Thanks.' brian
What is lacking is a reliable transaction platform which permits billing for the use of these items on a disaggregated basis across multiple websites.
Napster could work with a mechanism exists for a consumer to click on an MP3 music file at any participating website, and pay for that one song, collecting a set of songs onto a hard-drive and then burning a CD -- the contents of which may consist of songs with royalties owed to 13 or 15 different composers or record labels. Or a consolidating website -- an "infomediary" may wish to bundle a digital product which consists of content resources culled from a dozen other websites.
All that is required is a mechanism for that infomediary website to reliably apportion out the bundled cost of such a product to the underlying producers.
Clickshare's transaction platform for privacy-protected digital-content purchasing envisions this solution. A consumer can have one account at a most-trusted infomediary and purchase content from multiple related websites, paying just one aggregated bill and without having to register over, and over again.
"Micropayments" are a misnomer. Some consumers may want to pay per song. Others may want a subscription or to purchase a collection. The point is to enable all such behaviors, while acknowledging that in the background, there must be a logging mechanism which will sort out the discrete royalty payments to all the constuent content providers.
Humm.. Was just thinking. This is not my strong suit, but it happens. A lot of pushers will give away free dope to get new users.. When the users return, they are charged for the same dope. All this time we have been getting a lot of free content. Someone thinks that it is addictive enough that people will now start buying it. I think that is going to be a hard sell. Not because it is not worth something -- like many have written already, it is a subjective value, rather because the value (in our minds) has been free (minus shipping and handling). To raise the cost of this from free to whatever, it will need to add value and alter the perception of the user. A "new and improved" content -- or something. This is tough, because so much money and effort has already been put into the current presentation. I guess content providers will just need to shell out more money to us programmers to make it "bigger and better", or "new and improved" so that a value other than free can be gained in the psychology of the Internet. Be gentle.
--
AmbientBlue
AmbientBlue
"All around me still remains, the ambient blue I thought I'd passed."
Now don't get me wrong, I think there are places on the web where a charge is totaly reasonable, in those places where you would normally pay a fee for service rendered: Amazon, Ebay, Credit Reports, etc. But asking $0.075 to browse someone's lack of information is silly.
This posting has been provided as a service, please send 1 cent to the following address...
To conquer death, you only have to die
I see two basic arguments here:
/. a community or a site?" and "Which would you like it to be?" These are the sorts of questions that we should be considering when we talk about pay-for-access sites and the resources they provide. (fyi, the above two questions are rhetorical, I know /. is both for now, but requiring payment for articles would change that answer. Really think about it.)
/. article). Secondly micropayments must overcome the "but I'm already paying for my ISP" mindset. These obstacles are not likely to be oversome in the immediate future. By the time they are, your services will likely be obsolete by virtue of a better, more decentralized methodology.
---Ideological Argument---
This idea that some nodes should be pay-for-access flies in the face of not only the intent of the creators of the Internet but also of the architecture and infrastructure of the Internet.
The Internet was and is meant to be a decentralized structure of server/clients all chattering together.
We should be trying our best to create a federation of worthy sources using decentralized processes with trust/reliability algorithms, not a single uber-source that we pay for. A single uber-source can fail. A single uber-source can lie. A single uber-source cannot be checked with trust/reliability algorithms.
Ask yourself, "Is
---Business Argument---
Selling bits in an age when bits are trivially copied and disseminated is not a sound business model.
A subscription model won't work for any but the most well established sources. Why in the world would I pay for the shoddy news I find online? Especially when I can get news offline for free from the TV/radio airwaves and my network of friends.
A micropayment model has two obstacles. Firstly, the Internet, at its core, cannot support the simple transparent transactions needed to pull it off properly (people will not click through a login screen, credit card entry screen, license agreement screen, and a confirmation screen just to see one
Tom
-Tom
Because we don't have to. -- Supply & Demand rule all.
Reading through the links from this post I was suddenly struck by an assumption that I have been making (and that I think a lot of people here have been making, as well.) Micropayments are wonderful and awful. They would allow us to pay for content on the web in a way that we could handle, but they would also provide us with a new added stressor: The question "To click, or not to click?" But the links in the above article raise the question: Why not micropay subscriptions? Let me theorize. 1. Escrow services with digital money like PayPal provide some easy interchange with some sort of RPC or other. Note that this theorizes competition, which would be a good thing. Allowing MS to dominate this field would be a bad thing. 2. Artists, Musicians, Cartoonists, short-film-makers, journalists, etc.. have sites. They don't have to be affiliated with anybody, they don't have to be sponsored. They charge tags on html pages that contain content that can be downloaded with information about what they are. Easy digital signature creation so that artists can sign their work. 4. Search engines, Napster, Gnutella etc.. Except that the file-sharing apps themselves provide access to sample/freely available material from these people's websites. Those sites to which you have subscribed also allow you to download their free stuff. (The reason for this is that it is currently MORE CONVENIENT for me to get music for free from Gnutella or something like that than it is for me to go to the store. Also, the effect of being exposed to a wide variety of everything is another useful aspect of the napster-esque system.) I think that these principles would create a system with an incentive to not bother to share info, and also provide a way for us to stick it to "The Man" (tm). Artists could not play that game anymore. It relies on three things: #1 - Easy-to-use escrow services with standards #2 - Easy-to-use search applications, with standards #3 - Effective ways for people to trust the artist. Please, rip this apart. I'd like to know what people think.
It would be nice to have a little tip cup next to each article so that I can pitch in a couple of quarters when I read something I like. Someone should set up a service called like "eTip Cup" where you can punch in your VISA card and have them store say $20 in your account. From there, you can hand out tips on all the various web sites that have an "eTip Cup". In fact you could have 3 little Tip Cup icons for 3 tip levels that you configure in your account. You could have a tip cup per article or just a tip cup for the whole website. I think this is better than a subscription service because at times I'll go a week or so without getting by head out of my work and who wants to pay for something that they have no time to read. Also, this way you're directly contributing to magazine/person that created the content, and only when the content is good. (FYI: www.etipcup.com is not taken, email me if you've got venture capital and want my help ;-D)
What, you're not on Linux and a rehashed 486? How on Earth did you get on /. ?
Once you've done that, set up freenet and phreak your phone, and you are in totally expense free paradise.
Of course when your local Baby Bell goes belly up from lack of funds, and the last content provider has starved to death in his garret, at least we'll know it was for a good cause ... free information.