> What happens if you spend the month investigating and don't find anything?
Same as what already happens; you don't write the story.
> Micro-payment per-article will only encourage "safe" journalism - articles that you know will resonate with your readers, rather than controversial pieces or in-depth, resource intensive research.
Maybe for some people, but for me it would have the opposite effect. If forced to pay for boring/unoriginal content, I would probably just not read it at all. I already do this for content that is behind subscription paywalls or that has hideous ads everywhere. If anything, being forced to pay for content I read would make me even more reluctant to read useless filler.
I am sure I am not alone. Hacker News in particular is seemingly filled with people who would rather throw down ยข10 or something many times a day than pay for 10 separate monthly subscriptions that don't reflect the actual proportion of reading you do on each journalism platform.
Given how much potential revenue is already lost by forcing people to pay for the full subscription, I don't believe that micropayments are an obviously inferior solution. They might prove to be flawed in some way, but I don't think that the points you make are good arguments against them.
Same as what already happens; you don't write the story.
> Micro-payment per-article will only encourage "safe" journalism - articles that you know will resonate with your readers, rather than controversial pieces or in-depth, resource intensive research.
Maybe for some people, but for me it would have the opposite effect. If forced to pay for boring/unoriginal content, I would probably just not read it at all. I already do this for content that is behind subscription paywalls or that has hideous ads everywhere. If anything, being forced to pay for content I read would make me even more reluctant to read useless filler.
I am sure I am not alone. Hacker News in particular is seemingly filled with people who would rather throw down ยข10 or something many times a day than pay for 10 separate monthly subscriptions that don't reflect the actual proportion of reading you do on each journalism platform.
Given how much potential revenue is already lost by forcing people to pay for the full subscription, I don't believe that micropayments are an obviously inferior solution. They might prove to be flawed in some way, but I don't think that the points you make are good arguments against them.