
Show HN: Quid – try micropayments instead of ads or subscriptions - zeroxfe
https://quid.works
======
manigandham
Good luck. We've spent 6 figures investigating all this over 2 years. The
problem isn't payment, it's human behavior and the lack of value associated
with content.

~~~
izzydata
That seems to imply that the products people are selling aren't products
people are willing to buy. Spending millions trying to figure out how to get
people to buy things they don't want can only go so far.

~~~
mysterydip
I think it has to do with the human perception between "free" and "any
amount", no matter how small.

~~~
jdc
This very much depends on the humans in question.

------
rebuilder
I'm not sure upfront per-article micropayment is really that great. Comparing
to traditional newspapers, the difference is that with the newspaper, you pay
for a collection of articles, perhaps because you trust the paper to be
interesting because of its reputation, perhaps because a headline caught your
attention. Having paid, you also get added value from any number of articles
you wouldn't have paid for on their own, and might not have even read if they
were presented to you by themselves, for free. And yet you'd often find some
of these articles the most interesting.

This doesn't happen if you're paying per article, based on a preview.

~~~
zeroxfe
I think one of the main challenges here is subscription-overload. Once you
have a subscription to, say, the NY times, and the Washington Post, you're
unlikely to get a third subscription to read an article on the Economist.

Charging, say, 10¢ for the article can help them generate revenue from those
that don't want to shell out for another subscription.

~~~
stcredzero
_I think one of the main challenges here is subscription-overload._

Bingo! I had been using Patreon as a "poor man's micropayments." I was
implementing the "spend what you would on a cable subscription" idea and
spreading mostly $1 payments across nearly 40 YouTubers. I would love a system
that just makes micropayments as I browse/watch.

~~~
eitland
Exactly!

Just don't fall into the trap of many others that wants to take an amount from
my account every month. I'm quite fed up with that.

Instead allow me to pay per view. I'll happy pay a sum in up front to reduce
friction.

~~~
typeformer
I think Flattr now has a system that is close to what you describe for
YouTube. Micropayments are hard and Patreon is the 1st company to produce
serious results experiments like Steem are interesting but siloed in the
cryptosphere.

------
nimish
Has anyone who promotes micropayments studied behavioral economics? If so I'd
think they'd play a different tune. Pain of paying is a real effect.

It's basic stuff around loss aversion that's real and documented in real
humans as opposed to homo economicus

~~~
dajohnson89
Yeah but the whole idea is that if Quid is seamlessly integrated (e.g., paypal
integration is often quite nice and 'painless') -- then more people would pay.

FWIW i have no problem installing a micropayment plugin in Chrome that is
connected to my credit card, and paying $.05 or something if I find an article
I enjoy. I say this -- but I'm terrified of what future that will bring to the
internet. Where now everything is behind a micro-paywall.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
It's still not even worth it to ask for it as a writer. I've written a few
long-form articles (hour plus reads) that have 25k+ reads on Medium. If I was
able to get that readership as an author, I'd be a best-seller -- potentially
making $100k or more from my writing.

Mind you, this is insanely successful for a writer.

Even still, if on Medium, 3% of people who read my articles are willing to pay
$0.25 for them -- I'd make about about $600.

TBH, I'd rather not bug my readers for that little bit of money.

~~~
heavenlyblue
How does Medium track reads?

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
AFAIK, time on page and how far down the article you scroll.

------
joekrill
There's a lot of naysayers here: it's been tried, it can't be done, etc. But I
have a hard time believing all that. They said the same thing about the music
industry. The cable TV industry is going through a huge change now. I think
someone can figure this out, and I wish anyone taking this on the best of
luck! I think it's something we really need to counter the constant barrage of
ads, privacy invasions, etc. that we have to deal with today.

Personally, I'd be happy to have some sort of pay-per-article "account" I
could use as-needed. But it's really hard to decide whether something is worth
reading up-front. And after-the-fact I'm guessing most folks will just not
bother. So I'm not sure how you address that. But again, best of luck to
anyone taking this on. I'm rooting for you.

~~~
piccolbo
It's good to look at previous experiences that failed, but conditions are
ever-changing. Ad clickthrough is down, ad-blockers are up, more media outlets
closing. Eventually, it will be advertorial content or subscription. Or some
other awful end-state like that. Maybe on the way there there is a point where
an alternative model that failed in the past, or a new one, is possible. I
like the pay upfront, free returns model, block only abusers. It works for
stuff where returns have so much friction, it should work for content.

------
zeroxfe
Hi folks -- co-founder Mo here. Happy to answer any questions about this.

We've spent the last year building this platform, and done a ton of surveys
and studies to support the thesis behind the product -- users are fatigued by
subscriptions, and ads are annoying.

The platform is also technically very interesting, and I'm happy to talk about
that too.

~~~
velcrovan
There’s no explanation on your site anywhere (at least without signing up) but
as a content creator what would my readers expect to experience with your
service? Am I basically counting on people to go to your site, set up a new
account, and load up their “wallets” with USD that can be semi-automatically
siphoned off when they visit a Quid-enabled site?

~~~
zeroxfe
Good question. There are no wallets, and users don't have to go to QUID to
signup beforehand.

One integrated, the payment flow is smooth -- they click pay on your site, it
pops up a credit-card entry form, with an e-mail textbox for signup. Once
verified, the goods are paid for and you get a signed receipt to deliver your
content. (User's cards are charged after they hit a payment threshold.)

More about it on our knowledge base:
[https://how.quid.works](https://how.quid.works)

(Also good point, we'll make that clearer on our site.)

~~~
epa
Does Quid take risk on shoppers who never hit a payment threshold?

~~~
zeroxfe
Partly -- we payout only captured fees, but carry chargeback and fraud risk.
We're trying to find a balance between practicality and utility, and all this
will evolve as we learn more.

~~~
epa
Seems ripe for fraud, seller delivers and never gets paid due to threshold
(one time shoppers). Good luck.

------
zokier
Isn't this Flattr all over again?

------
pjc50
Handily I just recently wrote up my standard list of problems/concerns with
micropayments and microfraud:
[https://github.com/pjc50/pjc50.github.io/blob/master/micropa...](https://github.com/pjc50/pjc50.github.io/blob/master/micropayments-
microfraud.md)

------
emanuelcoen
Blockchain is a game changer in that regard. Micropayments we just not
economically feasible to this point because of the high fixed costs to settle
and process payments. I.e if I want to sell an article for 50cts with PayPal,
PayPal would take 30 cts. Blockchain enables much cheaper processing. We at
Satoshipay ([https://satoshipay.io/](https://satoshipay.io/)) have built such
a solution for Publishers and just announced our first big partnership with
Europe's leading digital publisher, Axel Springer
([https://medium.com/@SatoshiPay/satoshipay-and-axel-
springer-...](https://medium.com/@SatoshiPay/satoshipay-and-axel-springer-
cooperate-on-blockchain-technology-usage-7bde7f2d34c8))

~~~
xori
You know, PayPal has a micropayment offering. 50¢ would only cost you 8¢

[http://pressbin.com/tools/paypal_micropayments/](http://pressbin.com/tools/paypal_micropayments/)

~~~
ilinzweilin
which is a 16% fee :DDD

------
wryun
Some friends of mine built a micropayments platform.

[https://tapview.com/](https://tapview.com/)

Conclusion: micropayments are hard.

------
TACIXAT
Awesome, I'm glad someone is solving this problem. Micropayments are an ideal
route to solving surveillance capitalism and breaking the ad-supported
internet.

This looks like it aggregates credit card payments. [1] Charging you on a
biweekly basis or when your balance hits 10$. Since it is built off of credit
card infrastructure that means it is saving money on the fixed per-transaction
fee. Unfortunately, this model can never get below a credit card fee (2.9%).

If you instead made a wallet based app (funded via ACH) you could start
pushing 1% transaction fees.

1\. [https://how.quid.works/buying-with-quid/how-do-i-get-
billed](https://how.quid.works/buying-with-quid/how-do-i-get-billed)

------
wmnwmn
I signed up but I see they're using credit card payment...can this work?

------
elektor
Very cool. Are there any sites already using this platform?

------
fiatjaf
I can only hope for a decentralized alternative using the Lightning Network
instead of this model where everybody has to sign up for Quid.

