
Why micropayments will never be a thing in journalism - woldemariam
https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-by-article.php
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easytiger
There's only one way this all goes.

People will donate/subscribe to journalism which claims it faces an
existential threat. They will only subscribe to journalism they think is most
antagonistic to the political entity they despise (as those are now the TOE
for having political views now). They aren't subscribing for news, they are
paying to shore up a vaguely legitimised view of their prejudices.

This will mean journalism will have to become more biased, more unsound, more
toxic and more representative of the various political echo chambers on social
media as they court donations.

I see no other way this evolves.

~~~
ryandvm
Absolutely. When it comes down to it, most people don't want to be informed,
they want their ego to be comforted.

Advertising-driven news may be the root of the current partisanship pandemic,
but replacing it with pay-per-view news is only going to make things worse.
Instead of mostly watching *News but getting bits and piece from other
sources, you'd have vast swaths of the population that subsist entirely on
"news" from OANN or Daily Kos. Yikes.

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greyswan
I've started subscribing to journalists I like on Substack. I feel pretty good
about giving a serious journalist $5 a month. No advertisers to please. Long
form, highly researched articles. I don't know if it scales, but it's pretty
great for me at the moment.

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kevin_thibedeau
If an ad subsidized dead tree periodical can sell for < $5 why am I expected
to pay $10-$20 for the same content online with lower distribution costs?

~~~
nine_k
Market segmentation. You _can_ pay more, and will, for the convenience.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Hooray for capitalism

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pxue
I think article should free and the comment section should cost 5c to post.

Make bank.

~~~
easytiger
Not the worst idea. The average person thinking their voice is relevant in
every discussion is a major part of the problem.

I get taxed when I want to eat. What's wrong with taxing this stuff in that
context?

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rcpt
Nick Szabo has an interesting take on it. Essentially when the mental cost of
deciding if the article is worth paying for exceeds the actual price you'd pay
you lose from the start.

[https://nakamotoinstitute.org/literature/micropayments-
and-m...](https://nakamotoinstitute.org/literature/micropayments-and-mental-
transaction-costs/)

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mrkramer
I'll just say short sighted article, the main problems are news paper
organizations who want to maximize profits no matter what and non operational
payment processors who can't process real micropayments. One of the reasons
why Bitcoin was made is "casual transactions" like news article access.
Micropayments will come sooner or later.

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totetsu
I am an advocate of a journalism tax rebate. That way there can be government
funding for Journalism that is not controled by a government.

~~~
hedora
You can donate to non-profit journalists:

[https://100r.org/donors/](https://100r.org/donors/)

[https://donate.propublica.org/](https://donate.propublica.org/)

Bigger list:

[https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?keyword_list=&bay...](https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?keyword_list=&bay=search.results&EIN=&cgid=2&cuid=5&location=2&state=&city=&overallrtg=&size=&scopeid=)

It’s tax deductible, not a rebate, but it is something.

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sushshshsh
What an actual joke of an article. An overly academic way to say that "we
don't want users to pick and choose what they pay for, we want them to spend
extra money on unlocking all content, regardless of its subjective quality".

How about this... make the content free and put a tip jar. If you don't like
that approach, don't be mad when people don't pay to unlock.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_How about this... make the content free and put a tip jar._

That's basically my model (plus Patreon). I think if I had enough traffic, it
could actually support me. I don't know how to get there from here and it's
crazy making to keep struggling so much every month, but I'm slowly seeing
more traffic and more money.

~~~
sushshshsh
Congratulations to you!! I hope that your efforts continue to bring you
everything you hope for.

For me, I think it is hard for me to monetize the content that I really enjoy
producing. There's tangentially related things that would probably make a bit
more money (native youtube ads, teaching, t shirts), but since I am fortunate
enough to have a good day job, I am able to make the content available
entirely for free, uninfluenced by profit motives.

Life is just a big navigation of trade-offs, it seems.

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mukuz
Why does no one talk about brave’s approach to micro payments. It makes micro
payments effortless. One doesn’t even need to use their ad based model.
Instead, just buy some of the BAT tokens and use them.

Is there some inherent flaw in there approach that it’s not more widely
discussed.

~~~
ryandvm
I think a Brave-style approach is better than an advertising-supported model
just because Internet advertising is a scam for everyone involved.
Unfortunately Brave doesn't solve the underlying problem of "views = $$$",
which means journalism would have to continue to rely on being clickbait to
survive.

~~~
mukuz
It does make an effort to solve the problem. It currently uses a time based
approach in which tokens are credited to a publisher based on time spent by
the user reading the article.

Also there is a threshold of some seconds before any tokens are accounted for
an article. So basically click baits won’t account for any tokens because the
user might quickly close the article.

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senectus1
Information is value. google/facebook/etc managed to very slowly migrate that
value to their books, without having to pay for it.

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keithnz
journalism just doesn't know how to adapt. One thing they don't get is
"social" when it comes to news, individualization, and from games, they just
don't get micropayments are often not for your core thing, so don't try to
charge for articles. I think there's so many opportunities for them to
reinvent their world and make money.

