Would You Pay A Penny Per Page?

nebby writes "How Stuff Works is running an article regarding the "penny per page" model for web site compensation. It sounds like a very viable solution, being simple to understand, transparent to use, and fair to the webmasters and users involved. The only downside to it is that it would require a massive effort on the part of web sites, standards bodies, and/or ISPs to switch over. I know that methods of online payment have been brought up before, but in searching on Google I found no information about any groups or companies looking seriously into moving to this model. I was wondering if any such groups or initiatives have been put together, and if not, why not? :) It doesn't take much to imagine the possibilities of what the web could become if this were put in place ..." Penny-per-page actually sounds like one of the better micropayment ideas I've heard, but is just as vaporous as any of the others so far.

Comments

Re:But would we...

[pagsz]

If you go to some kind of "pay-per-page" system, what's to stop web sites from pulling all kinds of dirty tricks to drive up the page views. Already sites use pop-up windows and other such things. They also have a tendancy to break down their articles into multiple pages, so you have to click through multiple times to drive up their banner-count.

From the article (Q & A section):

" What would prevent a site from having a page that pops up 100 new pages when you land on it to ream the unsuspecting visitor out of a dollar?
The billing mechanism should track for and eliminate charges for that, as well as for pages that auto-refresh themselves, error and non-existant pages, pages arrived at by pressing the back button, duplicate pages and so on."

I would assume that the "penny-per-page" charge would only be incurred when a page is specifically requested by the viewer. Also, in reference to splitting content across pages, if sites chop things up too much, nobody will go to them, and they lose their cash flow. It's not a perfect system (what is), but it does present an intruiging idea. It could work.

Remember, I am an idiot, so I really don't have any idea what I'm talking about,

Re:But would we...

[fireweaver]

After having read all the commentary, I get the impression that many people did not bother to read the article. Some of the objections to penny per page websites were addressed in the article -- NEAR IT'S END -- where it appears our dear readers feared to tread.

The whole penny per page notion is based on the FIRST visit to a page.

Objections raised include, but not limited to:
[1] Autoreload pages: No extra charge.
[2] Popups: No charge.
[3] Charge accounting would most likely be done by uour ISP who -already- has your credit into.
[4] Hitting "back" button -- no charge.

So kiddies, go back and read the WHOLE article.

Check out www.clickshare.com

[Shishak]

There is a company that does per-click billing. It can be either per page or per article. They have been refining the technology for several years. It works, is anonymous, you give them your credit card and the content provider bills through them. You don't need to give the content provider any credit information. In fact you don't need to give them any personal information just your clickshare ID.

Check it out www.clickshare.com

Actual cost of serving a page:

[seanadams.com]

Moderate size web page, included embedded objects: 100Kbytes, or 800Kbit

1Mbit bandwidth & shelf space: about $400/mo
Typical average daily throughput for a web site that serves 1Mbit at midday: 0.75 * 1Mbit == 750Kbps

So total pages served in a month:

750*60*60*24*30 / 800 = 2,430,000

At 1 cent per page, you'd gross $24,300 for the month.

Total cost of bandwidth per page:

400 / 2,430,000 = $0.000165


And you thought the dot-coms were out of hand before...