Slashdot Mirror
Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously (theguardian.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader mspohr writes:
The Guardian has an opinion piece by Richard Stallman which argues that we should be able to pay for news anonymously. From the article: "Online newspapers and magazines have come to depend, for their income, on a system of advertising and surveillance, which is both annoying and unjust... What they ought to do instead is give us a truly anonymous way to pay."
He also (probably not coincidentally) has developed a method to do just that. "For the GNU operating system, which was created by the free software movement and is typically used with the kernel Linux, we are developing a suitable payment system called GNU Taler that will allow publishers to accept anonymous payments from readers for individual articles."
Publishers "can profit from defending privacy rather than from exposing their readers," argues Stallman, ending his article with a simple plea. "Publishers, please let me pay you -- anonymously!"
He also (probably not coincidentally) has developed a method to do just that. "For the GNU operating system, which was created by the free software movement and is typically used with the kernel Linux, we are developing a suitable payment system called GNU Taler that will allow publishers to accept anonymous payments from readers for individual articles."
Publishers "can profit from defending privacy rather than from exposing their readers," argues Stallman, ending his article with a simple plea. "Publishers, please let me pay you -- anonymously!"
Sigh, I don't know why we have to keep going over this. Repeat after me: "Bitcoin is not anonymous."
You mean like Flattr? It wouldn't work for modern journalism because modern journalism relies mostly on outrage. They try to outrage readers in order to get reader to look at articles and to post in the comments. Readers then come back repeatedly to view the updated comments, and each time get served advertisements. Integrity has disappeared from modern journalism. Journalists care nothing about the truth and are either focused entirely on increasing revenue and pushing their agenda.
You could argue that switching to tip based funding would improve journalism, but I suspect that the only people who would tip are people who agree with the agenda that is being pushed. This would lead to journalists becoming even more focused on supporting the causes of outspoken minorities in order to get more funding from those groups.
I don't think there's any hope for modern journalism. Slashdot works because most of the content comes from users posting rather than from journalists. Reddit used to work for the same reason, until they started censoring anything that didn't agree with their agenda.
Because he doesn't want to gut their income, unless you mean the income they get from spying and tracking. He wants to pay them money so that they can afford to produce quality content. Only condition is: every purchase and personal interest which they reflect isn't logged somewhere.
The only feasible way to achieve this which I can think of is some type of cryptocurrency.
If the chair maker makes a chair that takes him 48 hours to make. He is going to sell it at a price worthy of the time he put into it. That is partially why you can spend $15.00 on a cheap injection molded plastic one or $1500 on a nice hand carved one. Now for the $1500 chair he may not expect it to sell over night but he will sell it at some point and recoup his time that he put into it.
The problem with digital media is that supply is nearly infinite so whatever the demand is the product it worthless. However there is real demand for the product and creator for the products will need to be rewarded for their work otherwise they will move to do different things. So right now we are finding different ways to make money for digital content. The micropayment method a dacade ago never got anywhere. Advertising is getting too saturated and not so effective. Paywalls stink because they expect you to stick to one form of media.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"He is going to sell it at a price worthy of the time he put into it." Wrong. He is going to sell it at a price that someone is willing to pay for it. Otherwise it will remain unsold.
Gift cards don't need to be registered. Buy with cash and there is zero record of who purchased it or used it.
Then why can't they find the people who install ransomware?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?