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?
Look, I know Stallman is a public figure who's history means some folks are already rolling their eyes before he gets a word out. But none of the comments here actually address the merit of this thing yet, or the fact that this problem exists to start with.
Regarding the post summary, let's evaluate the current situation. We have a world where media is beholden to advertisers and the public is the product. Injected with "flavor additive content" as tastes dictate, monitored, recorded and demographically categorized for convenient sale to 3rd party interests. I may sound overly dramatic but I don't think I'm exaggerating. The true customers for all ad based media are advertisers. Data aggregators then sell it all onward to corporate and nation state interests. I doubt any right thinking person would say this is a good state of affairs unless they've got vested interests in this particular food chain.
So a solution is necessary. Reading the FAQ blurbs about GNU Taller from the link given though, and as a self proclaimed monetary history and economics buff, I'm not convinced this is the best way forward.
I kind of like how they describe the difference between "sharing" which is anonymous and free as in speech and "transactions" where the income side is somehow not anonymous for businesses. This could be conducive for abolishing income taxation (an immoral action easily evaded by rich people) and moving to a pure consumption tax. Such as:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax
Which I would support wholeheartedly. I don't see anything though which would stop GNU Taller from only perpetuating the income tax, which I am morally opposed to.
Lastly I see no mention of micro-payments. We need an anonymous way to issue fractional payments to content creators which doesn't require private details to set up, and which doesn't have service fees that would make arrangements like "a few cents per article" impractical. Bitcoin's upcoming micro-payment channel and side chain ideas are promising, but GNU Taller doesn't seem to touch on this. On this front GNU Taller looks like just more of the same whereby anonymity isn't a real thing: make an account at their site, accept cookies, sign in and be tracked as you use up your deposit.
To get back to the summary of this post, consider this question: Would you give a street musician money if they wanted your name, address and credit card details? No, but you'd toss a little cash in his hat gladly. Some of the improvements planned for bitcoin do have this future in mind, so I'll keep my bets on that square for the moment.