Webcomics As Business Model

oddjobs writes "It's not the most groundbreaking article, but the Chicago Tribune does a pretty good job of looking at the state of webcomics-as-business-model. They mention the usual suspects (Marvel, McCloud) but most hopeful is Unbound Comics, which is selling comics collected in Adobe's e-book format. Fans of the 80s book Dalgoda take note."

Comments

They're missing it

[KjetilK]

The general idea is to charge readers a few cents for every page they view, or as McCloud put it, to charge "for initial travel through the gate," with the ultimate goal being a subscription.

Comics is exactly the kind of thing I would use micropayments for. I would never consider a subscription. If they try to fool me into making a subscription, they will loose me. It's as simple as that.

"Web users are not wanting to pay for what they're already getting for free," warned Strazewski.

I wouldn't be so sure about that either. I would gladly pay for good, accessible products, that doesn't infringe on my privacy, take away my fair use rights, doesn't try to abuse my trust in any way, and make available a convientent method for making payments.

Right now, that doesn't exist, and it seems the industry isn't going to make it happen. All the industry care about it making offers that sucks, infringe on my privacy, take away my fair use rights, and abuse my trust in every way. In addition, they all stand behind their little sand castles shouting at each other trying to make different ways of making payments that are not going to work. Instead, they should come together and agree on common, open standards.

Penny Arcade's take

[L-Train8]

Penny Arcade had a comic on Scott McCloud's take on micropayment systems. Basically they said micropayments are a nice idea, but they don't work now, and that's when artists need them. Bandwidth isn't free, and most sites don't sell enough merchandise to make a profit. So now, it is confined mainly to people who have a passion about it or people for whom it is just a hobby.