Micropayments: Effective Replacement For Ads Or ? 206
A reader writes: "The traditional support model for content on the net is failing site by site, and with the growth of anti-advertising utilities and the collapse of financial support for risky ventures, this will accelerate in the coming months. Will this vacuum be filled in by people doing content as a hobby, or will a new support structure such as micropayments take over. This article takes a pro-Micropayment stance, and mentions a contrasting article at OpenP2P that presents an opposing opinion. Would you pay for content if the infrastructure was secure, inexpensive, and allowed the content to prosper?"
Voluntary website support (Score:1)
In my view, contributing to keep sites you like operating makes as much sense as giving money to street performers you enjoy. Hopefully a lot of other people out there agree, and will act accordingly.
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There's a fundamental problem with micropayments.. (Score:1)
This will never happen. You may get two of you three requirements but it will never be both in a company's best interests and feasable to implement all three...
Secure and inexpensive? well then it'll probably go bust for lack of funds and the content will suffer... Besides, I doubt any company out there will be able to resist the appeal of dipping in to the logs and selling some data.
Secure, and encourages content growth? They're going to have to charge alot for that... pennies a page at least. That's alot. I'm serious.
Inexpensive and encourages good content? The people running sites have to pay for bandwith. It's pricy... For a smaller site (bandwith is cheaper in bulk) It can cost a few cents per impression (ok, maybe $0.01, but that's still alot if you get slashdotted or such...) If the system is inexpensive, that money needs to come from somewhere. Where? Well they're going to sell your data. How's that for secure?
Maybe beople would buy it if it existed, but it can't so why are we even bothering to discuss it?
Spelling mistake (Score:1)
no, No, NO!! (Score:2)
First off, companies learned rather quickly that you simply cannot charge for content to consumers unless that content is porn.
Ad revenue will continue being the driving force in producing income for a content-based consumer dot-com company.
What we're seeing right now with the dot-coms dropping like flies is a good thing. There are (were) thousands of companies that really had nothing even remotely realistic in terms of a business model and plan. Silly venture capitalists were infusing ungodly amounts of money in these flimsy companies, everyone hoping to 'get rich quick' (or get richer in terms of the silly VC's), and now when reality is starting to catch up with everybody, everyone is running around saying the sky is falling.
Maybe ad revenue will not continue being a viable revenue stream for dot-coms. My personal opinion is that it will, but let's say it isn't.
Okay, so we've seen from past observations that not a single company has been successful in charging for content (except for porn) to consumers. There were notable attempts, such as by Britannica and such, but all have abandoned this and went to the ad model. They did this because competition demanded it. If Yahoo began charging micropayments for using their service, then why would anyone in their right mind use them with there's dozens of other web directories that would offer as much value but be for free?
The only way micropayments would conceivably function would be for something like Napster, online gaming, or other sorts of things we're you're delivering something of unique value -- not just content.
Re:We're too big for "the old days" -- face it (Score:1)
How many times have people with smaller sites come within like $2-3 to the payment threshold only to be told they've decided to stop paying and sorry if you didn't earn enough, we'll just keep your money?
If micropayment companies take a cut of the payment, then it'd take even longer to earn your threshold (depending on what type of users your site has).
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we need more payment options on the web! (Score:1)
Flexible online payment methods make it easier for small players to operate on the marketplace - whether your talking about content providers asking for tips, or super specialized vendors providing better service than their mammoth competitors.
Involuntary micropayments are NOT the way to go, we need something like PayPal [paypal.com], but with universal access and ease-of-use that is comparable/superior to live cash money.
Transaction costs keep mankind down!
Please, let us not f*** up the internet... (Score:2)
Subscription requries partitioned content (Score:2)
If these sorts of people can just bung a "virtual tip jar" onto their site with little or no other modification then it makes it a lot more attractive -- at least until they're a little larger. And they do work -- Penny Arcade has recently signed onto [penny-arcade.com] Amazon's new "honor system" and they're already 30% of the way to their US$10,000/month target -- although it's slowing rapidly and still needs a lot of support.
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Why not pay per view ? (Score:1)
Non-monetary transaction cost (Score:1)
What about the mental transaction cost to the customer? Each click becomes a "do I buy or don't I buy" decision, with accompanying anxiety and time spent to make it.
Unless and until this issue is successfully addressed by micropayments, it does not look like micropayments will be accepted in reality, no matter how much hype people put behind it. (Remember Divx - the discs, not the MPEG format. Remember "push". Would it be too early to say "remember WAP"?) The alternatives - subscription, aggregation, and so forth - all deal with this problem by bundling everything into one transaction. (Granted, this transaction is potentially slightly wasteful of money, if the customer does not use the whole package. But money is not the only thing of value to the customer.)
List of technical problems (Score:2)
payed the other day (Score:1)
Micropayments and the "annoyance factor" (Score:2)
I don't like banner ads, but I think part of their limited success is that they're so annoying. Micropayments aren't even as visible as banners, and they request significantly more from the user. Right now, micropayments are an entirely voluntary way of getting money from the user. It's a great idea, but I think it's going to be fundamentally ineffective that way. What about something else:
What if the user has to watch some graphic before the site gets loaded... sort of a "hey, did you guys know we work entirely by your support"? I'd liken it to a PBS pledge drive (only it runs about 10 seconds). And to make the graphic go away fast, rather than waiting for the animation to load, the users clicks it and it brings up a page that suggests a payment and gives an easy way to make it (probably credit card). Perhaps it uses cookies also, so the graphic doesn't come up for two weeks after someone pays. Users will be able to click through and not pay, but at least in this case consciousness is raised about the issue in a direct way. It also means that the people who come to the site most are the most likely to pay, because this graphic is really an inconvenience for them, not the casual viewers.
Just my $0.02 slashdot micropayment.
Reciprocal Caching (Score:2)
How? (Score:1)
Re:Slippery Slope (Score:1)
Re:Open Source Tip Jar System !! (Score:2)
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OliverWillis.Com [oliverwillis.com]
Re:Micropayments Can Help Cool Content (Score:1)
Re:Subscription: Maybe, but not exclusively (Score:2)
As always, the porn industry leads the way. You subscribe to a "content network" who hires on various content producers. You may then visit the web member web-sites freely and in an unlimited fashion. Because the site can be reasonabily assured a steady income, they're less dependant on the adds, and can thus be more choosy as to what they display. Currently adds are convoluted, so viewers make a point to ignore them all. By having fewer, higher priced, higher quality adds, everybody wins (just like the super-bowl)
Pure subscription web sites like premium cable channels (such as HBO or say the members only section of Toms Hardware which might tout zero commercials), are less likely because you introduce a very high entry barrier for viewers to be willing to surmount. You'd have to be famous on the web from the outset.
Problems I see with subscriber networks are the same sort of beuracracy we currently find on TV: Manditory sensorship, keeping up with what's popular or risking being cut from a profitable network, and others. Sure there'd be lots of options of networks (it's not like they layed the fiber as say com-cast), but bigger names would require exclusive signing and we'd be in a very similar situation as the record companies - an oligopoly.
Lastly, cnn.com is no worse than cnn-the-channel.. It's simple content regurgitation. But even cnn attempts to adhere to the multiple-sources before disclosure of rumors. slashdot isn't the be-all-end-all of rumors/current events, after all. Which furthers the case that what-ever system replaces the failing ad-system, it had better support culturalizm, and not fall into the MTV-look-alike madness - never deviating from the proven formulas - The ubiquitous "bottom line".
Diversity makes the current version of the web very desirable. It was also a fundamental building block of American development: from religion to resources to military organization to banking systems. Unfortunately, it's only natural to wish to replace diversity with efficiency (diversity inherently involves redundancy). We're seeing America approach more traditional European levels of consolidation. What's good for business isn't always good for darwinistic survivability. Sadly it's often only the logistical or ledgislative divides that allow diversity to flurish amid corporatism.
-Michael
Micropayments are ANNOYING; Cable Model (Score:2)
Slashdot happens to have a GREAT target audiance. A good potion of it's viewers are people in decision-making positions regarding technology. I know that I spent over 10K on a business decision with a company that I found via Slashdot, I know that I'm not alone.
The real solution is cable TV style, but not networks of sites. Broadbands makes it possible.
In the dial-up world, phone lines were part of the infrastructure costs. People sitting online ate up limited resources. With DSL/Cable, there is no "cost" of being online, only bandwidth.
To make things more rediculous, bandwidth is asynchronous. This resulted in ISPs selling downstream bandwidth to consumers, and upstream bandwidth for web hosting, a hack system. The real solution is for ISPs to pay for content.
For example, Akamai has cacheing servers. Eventually, you host your content with Akamai or competitors, but instead of paying Akamai, Akamai pays you. Akamai charges the ISPs for the free "bandwidth" (if I connect from my ISP to the Internet, I use their expensive Internet connections, if I connect to a server sitting in their farm, I use no Internet bandwidth) because the ISPs pay less to Akamai than to their T3 providers.
In this model, I am paying not just for bandwidth, but for content/bandwidth. If my ISP has it local, I use no Internet bandwidth. If my ISP doesn't carry it, they "pay" for me to get it from their bandwidth.
With that model, ISPs try to maximize their free bandwidth (Cacheing) and minimize their expensive bandwidth (non-cacheing).
Think of it as proxy-serving on a mass scale.
For example, ISPs shouldn't be allowed to require a proxy server, they are distributing someone else's copyrighted work for a fee. They should be required to pay for the right to proxy, which would solve the situation.
Good content => more hits => more bandwidth => more money
Alex
tragedy of the commons (Score:2)
While an interesting technical idea, basic economics conlcudes that this is an untenable idea. The best example from economics is an environmental one: the tragedy of the commons in 18th(?) century England. Most are familiar with this example, but for those are not, check here [aol.com].
Essentially, the same arguments that apply to envoronmental commons apply to shared, freely distributed content. Groups in economic systems tend to optimize thier own personal consumption. This is true despite sincere intentions and ideologies of individuals, at a societal level. No one will voluntarily pay for content as a for-profit enterprise.
Clearly, people are willing to defy economic rationalism for non-profit institutions, but this is a very different proposition. Show me a non-religious or non-profit organization that collects revenues through a volunteer model!
Ad's indeed can be useful... (Score:1)
But well ogranized ads can really make money. This is done by Yahoo, or other sites which track "your" interest. Thus for example when you search "KONQUEROR" on google you'll come up with "Nautilus" (which is better as they say), and wonder what it is. A single click, wow, the ad hitted the target.
I get ads on my native language on Yahoo, and even "GoZilla" (i must admit, i still use windblowz for "browsing").
But most of the "little" sites cannot do that, because accessed enough to track user interest. Maybe an online database (GPL'd maybe) of all the interest of all the nodes would solve the problem.
Anyone remember the good old days... (Score:1)
Yeah, that lasted all of two seconds.
Problem is, this is a capitalist society. Money makes the world go round. The all mighty buck rules, and another half dozen similar sayings that get the point across.
We may find ways around advertising online (with said programs to block banners ect...), just as we can find ways to avoid commercials on TV (change the channel, use a VCR programed not to tape commercials). But advertisers will always find a way around that (putting product placements within TV or movies, for example).
Personally, I've completely tuned myself out from commercials (buy Coke), and they don't affect me whatsoever (no, buy Pepsi). So I say we should just accept advertising on the internet, not try to block it, and just tune ourselves out. It worked for me! (buy Jolt) That way we can avoid this micropayment issue altogether.
Not for content, just for NO ads (Score:2)
Micropayment: No, Subscription: Yes (Score:5)
Online content providers have skipped over a "known good" revenue generation model; that of subscription services. I won't participate as a consumer in micropayment systems. Its too risky. I can't afford to pay $0.05 several hundred, or thousand times a month for content whose value is only known after I've paid. Refund systems layered on top of micropayment just waste my time.
I feel subscriptions are well worth my money. If I find an online resource that has a mandate and reputation for delivering detailed, accurate information with a specific focus, I'd be happy to pay a larger sum of money (larger than a micropayment) under the assumption that they'll continue producing similar information.
For example, I'd probably be willing to pay CA$3/month for access to slashdot discussions. I'd be willing to pay $5 or $10 per month for Access to FirstMonday [firstmonday.org]. I already pay over US$100/year for access to the IEEE Computer Society's Online Library [computer.org] (it's worth every penny!).
I don't bother with "free" information presented by CNN and other "news magazines". The accuracy of the information they present is questionable, and the cover is shallow.
Perhaps if web sites generated revenue from subscriptions instead of banner-ad sales we could be rid of these ridiculous three column layouts that impede understanding of the core content they contain.
Why do people keep asking ? DO IT ... (Score:1)
I'd shell out a buck or two to
Maybe PayPal could investigate doing something like this SOME time. They seem to have a nice infrastructure (although I do miss direct wire transfers, which are a convenient way for me to transfer money (remember, this is Europe) and even allows me to automate the process).
If you keep asking whether I would do something you will never find out whether I actually will. Especially not on SlashDot. Give it a try, maybe give it some backing, if it doesn't work out, improve your concept. People are good. Usually. They are lazy, too.
We're too big for "the old days" -- face it (Score:5)
Someone says, "What a great site!" and tells all their friends. Sooner or later, the traffic to the site increases way beyond what can be served by $X. So our friendly hobbyist who had such a great site to share has very few options:
1. Shut down
2. Relocate and hope people don't find him
3. Hope some nice sponsor funds his work.
4. Get money from somewhere to increase bandwidth.
Nobody wants option 1. Otherwise you have dozens of little sites popping up and dying as soon as they gather some intertia.
Option 2 is hardly better than option 1.
Option 3 is not going to happen often, and may be unattractive as you're bowing to their control, possibly.
Option 4 is all that's left. So how do these guys get money? Banner Ads? But we know those aren't working -- ad companies refusing to pay sites running their ads, etc. What about asking their dedicated fans to pony up a little
If it works, why not have it?
I visit Penny Arcade religiously. I've told everyone I know who plays video games to check out the site. I've learned about great games from them, I've laughed my ass off at their strips. When they put up a micropayment box I immediately sent my micropayment in.
If your fans love your work enough to pay you to do it...great! You've succeeded. How many sites would I be willing to micropay to get at? 3, maybe. But it's one way to cope with the increased monetary restrictions of what was originally a little hobby turning into something that costs an incredible amount to maintain.
The OpenP2P article is more compelling (Score:2)
The second article (at openp2p) points out correctly that micropayments have, are, and will continue to die painful deaths for one simple reason: users hate them. It also points out the flaws in the first argument, namely that the micropayments we have in our daily lives now almost inevitably come from monopolies. When consumers have a choice, they inevitably go for flat pricing instead.
Just because the advertising model failed, it doesn't then follow that the micropayment model must work. In fact, both could fail, and the Net will keep on going. Oh sure, some of the commercial sites might stamp their feet, hold their breath, take their ball and go home. Go ahead, I say. Take your products and leave. In the meantime, the rest of us can enjoy the community of the Net and keep micropayments where they belong: for the use of monopolies.
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Back to square 1 (Score:1)
-MR
Not likely... (Score:1)
- Abuse. People would find a million and one ways to abuse it, from micropayment pop-ups that go off incessantly, to sites that constantly refresh to get payments.
- Content. Am I really going to make a micropayment to CNN every time I check it for a quick update and nothing has changed in the last four hours?
- Too much surfing! Unless the micropayments were almost meaningless, serious websurfers would be broke all the time.
Re:Bandwidth and hosting is cheap (Score:1)
If there exist ways for these folks to get paid, and there are users who are willing to pay, then why not encourage that? Why not build the infrastructure?
I don't have time to keep watch on everything in the video game industry. I rely on Blue and his small crew to keep me up to date. Just like I rely on the Ars Technica crew to keep me up to date on new hardware. And Penny Arcade to make me laugh (and point me to timewasting games like Counter-Strike and Bejeweled). Those services are worth a few bucks a month -- and if enough of us think so, enough that those guys can actually make that their day job -- then great. I'm all for it.
when are advertising agencies going to realize... (Score:2)
For example, suppose Coca-Cola set up a cable tv channel where you could buy Coke by dialing up a phone number, etc. Now how sane would it be for Coca-Cola to assume that the success of a tv ad is measured in the number of times an individual changes the channel to the Coke channel?
Right now, there is a Rackspace banner ad displayed on my screen. I'm not going to click on it. Why? Cause I don't need it! But you can bet your dollar that if I ever do need it, I will probably have this vague feeling that "rackspace" is something I should look into, or that Rackspace is something that I'm familiar with and is a good product for "some strange reason".
Ads never were, and never will be, about getting someone to want to "pursue", "possess", "interact with", "get" the ad. They are about increasing your familiarity with product and getting you to want the product.
This is why, if subscription or micropayments or whatever are implemented, the best sites ultimately will get paid by banner ads. When a site is REALLY good, and gets tons of hits, ad smart agencies will pay to have their ads displayed on that site just for the exposure. They won't care if people click or it or not, because millions of people will SEE their product and KNOW about it. The bottom line is the bottom line, not the number of clicks.
Re:Easily more profitable (Score:1)
Micropayments are stupid (Score:1)
Forcing users to fork out for content is going to be too much work on both sides
Re:tragedy of the commons (Score:2)
Let me answer it this way... (Score:2)
However, slashdot, please don't drop your banner ad agreements... hint hint.
Re:No (Score:1)
I was trying to link the isp payment to the accessing of the web content, since without web content, there's really no need for an ISP. (again, I'm ruling out IRC, email, etc. remember broad strokes)
Re:Amazon's Honor System (Score:1)
Re:An idea for a way to fund content providers (Score:1)
There are a variety of ways ISPs could be coerced into doing such a thing. One would be regulation enforcing it (via international treaty, most likely). A more likely idea would be for sites to only open themselves to viewers from pages that enable this (they're the only ones the site gets money from, so I see why they'd do it). The extra pages accessible to customers (and thus wider customer base) are the benefit to the ISP. Also, in my example where I said +$8 a month, my base cost is $40 for DSL, so by comparison I wasn't talking about very much money. Also, AOL with its $20/month dialup cost has shown that Average Joe doesn't shop around for prices very much.
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A picture is worth 500 DWORDS.
I've got an excellent reply to that... (Score:1)
Slippery Slope (Score:1)
Economics (Score:2)
Let's say a new movie comes out that has a killer soundtrack. I, as a consumer, could use Napster or Gnutella to download the song for free, but what if the movie studio offered a web site that included not only the ability to download the tracks, but also had screen savers tied into the movie, downloadable trailers and teasers, and occaisonal online chat sessions with the stars and production crew? Essentially they could provide a whole range of products and services that I simply can't get in one place anywhere else. They aggregate the content, making it searchable and easy to get from one source. Consumers might be willing to pay for this service that offers value over and above what the mere content is worth. Perhaps they could charge $1.00 a month for access. This could tie in to a whole service offering for the studio. For a small subscription fee you could access a whole range of services for all their movies. Searchable movie databases, old scripts, etc.
This model is essentially the Free Software model. The content (software) is free. What companies charge for is the service that supports the content.
-Vercingetorix
voluntary micropayments opendesign.cx/gold.htm (Score:1)
Setting up an e-gold account is painless and free, if all the open source projects would do it then maybee we would make progress a bit faster.
cya, Andrew...
Re:Pay content - Free internet? (Score:1)
Then again, I don't have cable.
cb
I already pay. (Score:2)
I'm not willing to spend even more of my money to access additional information. I don't like pay sites. Never have, never will. I've always been able to find the information somewhere else.
I'm sure there's a solution out there that would benefit all parties involved, but additional fees are going to turn off a lot of people. Just look at Napster.
"Micropayments" in the ezine model (Score:2)
Here's how I imagine an ezine conglomerate like TOTK.com Sports [totk.com] using micropayments:
Do I expect to make scads of money? Nope. I could make a shitload more, likely, if I got $5 CPM text ads in my various ezines. If you think that isn't a chunk of change, start running numbers of subscribers in the tens of thousands for a daily ezine--not bad work if you can get it [and run three to five ads per day]. But that's not what I want to do--I just want to cover costs and have pretty toys. If I wanted to work as a "professional", I'd have gone to journalism school.
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Napster model (Score:1)
Re:Slippery Slope (Score:2)
I might pay a small ammount for a few sites, but if every site started charging, i probably wouldn't use the internet as much. A buck here and a buck there ads up real quick, and with the millions of content sites out there, i doubt many sites could get enough subscribers to stay afloat.
Some of us want more (Score:2)
That's precisely the point. Very often what you get for free is worth pretty much what you paid for it. Few of us want "half-assed attempts" at content, so much as we want content -- and, quite frankly, not so many of us are all that interested in content. TV is still a very cost-effective medium for delivering content the hearts and minds of customers, and until the web turns from a cutesy giveaway of feeble stuff into a true, viable means for delivering content, the advertising dollars will go elsewhere -- the the well-entrenched "standard" media and the next "hot" new medium.
With all due respect, the market has a way of punishing bad content and rewarding the good. Not all of us share the whim of the market, but the problem with free content, particularly on a quality basis, is that it isn't subject to traditional market forces -- which is why we have so many "half-assed attempts" at content on the net.
Over "will people pay", these have a new problem (Score:2)
This is consistent with what is done with quotes from the stock exchanges: the delayed feed is available for free, while the realtime feed is a for-pay option.
But I think there are other areas for which people are willing to pay. One example: quality. If there's a significant quality difference between the free information and the for-pay information, then at least some people will pay for the latter.
This quality comes in at least two forms: the presentation of the information itself, and the organization of - or easy of locating - the information.
For example, I pay for a subscription to "The Economist". I do this for all of the above reasons.
But micropayments raise a completely different issue than just "will people pay for content". I pay for subscriptions (ie. The Economist) based upon a fixed rate. It's a kind of "fire and forget" model.
If I had to pay for each article (which is the possibility introduced by micropayments), I end up doing a lot more work to read, just in the process of deciding whether or not an article is worth the fee. That work - which involves time - is a cost over and above the actual cash payment being made. It is a cost paid for each and every article, WHETHER OR NOT I DECIDE TO BUY.
That's a disincentive to review a site for possible articles, and will therefore bring readership down. Note that this is before we even consider whether an individual piece of content is worth the price being charged.
That is not a good sign for the "pay per view" model on the Internet.
Re:I already pay. (Score:3)
I allready pay for gas in my car, but I do expect to have to pay for the newspaper when I drive up to the local store. I don't really think that 7-Eleven cares too much how much I paid for my car last month, I'm going to have to pay for my damn newspaper. Just as a content provider doesn't give a damn what you pay for your internet access. Remember how usless your broadband is without content...
Jakob Nielsen has been predicting this for years (Score:2)
His arguments are that current web models for raising revenue don't work. In this case I think he's talking about web pages that don't sell a product, and have just content. Most people have a blind eye to banner ads, and I don't know anyone who doesn't close popups before they even finish loading.
He's been saying for years (completely incorrect every time) that micropayments are coming, probably for those very special sites like Yahoo, that fulfill a functions that few have matched. Probably something like a dollar or two a month.
Most recent article on the topic [useit.com]
Personally I don't agree with him, and if it weren't for that fact that I respect so many of his other predictions and theories, I'd probably ignore it. I think that some people want micropayments to happen because they want the web to thrive, and this is the only way they can think of for it to continue to function economically. They might be right in that it's the best way (I don't know), but I don't think that means that it'll happen.
Re:We don't need "Micropayments" (Score:2)
JMR
The Internet doesn't need ads (Score:2)
But general advertising on the Internet has been a flop, and probably will continue to be. And that's OK. All the catalogs, brochures, and ordering sites will stay online. All the search engines will stay up, powered by placement fees and kickbacks from the ordering sites. Print and TV outlets will maintain their online sites as adjuncts to their main business. And the few sites that charge (the Wall Street Journal and Consumer Reports) will have very high quality content. Pure online content sites will be low-budget operations run as sidelines of other activites. (Think Slashdot, not Excite@Home).
As for the Internet infrastructure, you pay for that with your $20-$50 per month or so to your ISP/connectivity provider. And the technology gets cheaper all the time. The free ISPs are on the way out; there has to be some revenue to pay for the service.
And that's the way it is. No problem.
Re:We're too big for "the old days" -- face it (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
An idea for a way to fund content providers (Score:2)
Each user pays an additional amount (say, 10% added to the ISP's monthly fee), and this money is distributed among web pages. The way it is distributed is controlled client-side, and can be overriden by the user, but defaults to being in proportion to the number of hours viewing (decided by the browser, based on number of hours with a web page opened and in focus). Web pages which already require paying for content are excluded, web pages on free providers are excluded, web pages from which no *ML or TXT files have been downloaded are excluded (no banner providers, web bugs, etc).
If, for example, in a month I spend 6 hours reading Slashdot, two hours reading User Friendly, and do no other web surfing, then of the $8 extra I'd be paying my ISP, $6 would go to VA Linux and $2 would go to Iliad.
There are many benefits to this sort of system. First, it provides an incentive to provide content. It allows people to control where their micropayment money is going, encouraging quality content. It provides far more funding than banner ads, so annoying banners are no longer necessary for web pages.
Obviously, a potential problem with this is abuses, such as people manually setting all this money to go to their friends (and receiving from them in return). Certain anti-abuse measures could be put in place; ie, a web page which has had less than 100 unique viewers is not included, and users don't default to giving to web pages where they have spent less than, say, half an hour. The system would have to be carefully designed to protect privacy and security. The client's decision on how to distribute payments should be visible only to the ISP, and there it should be immediately pooled with all the payments and not logged separately. The data stays encrypted (private key/public key) during all transfers, and other normal routine security precautions are taken.
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A picture is worth 500 DWORDS.
Now this is ironic (Score:2)
Today, ist this article, wailign and bemnoanign the possabiltiy of having to PAy soemthing for web sites, right under the one wailign and bemoaning that ads might get more intrusive.
Make up your minds folks. You aren't a charity and noone is interested in feeding your entertainment habit out of their own pockets.
proposal: introduce subscriptions to /. (Score:2)
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I would pay for Slashdot to continue (Score:2)
In all actuality, I like many other /. readers I imagine, would pay a small amount each month to keep /. going.
The thing is, I realize that this site provides value to me and I have been to an extent taking a free ride since I have never purchased anything that has been advertised here. Also, I realize slashdot is likely not bringing in nearly as much money now as when ads sold for $34 per 1,000 banner hits. I'm not sure what the going rate is now(anyone?) but I know ads don't make nearly as much as they used to.
Given the fact that advertising is starting to really suck as a revenue model, and the fact that I really would like to see this site keep going, I would be happy to pay a small amount each month as a subscription fee. Especially if the subscribers got some perks the freeloaders didn't.
I am sure many readers wouldn't pay. However, if that was a veiled question, Hemos, I am also sure that many of /.s readers would ante up. I say go for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've been wondering... (Score:2)
...if micropayments will take off.
Recently someone sent me an invitation to join their "payment based" web page group - basically a group of web popular gaming web pages would be accessable only by "paying customers" (folks paying $3-$5 a month for access), then share the profits according to who was the most popular.
I'm still keeping my eye on that one (because you never know), but for now I'm rejecting the idea. Mainly because the Internet has fostered an attitude that "Information wants to be free" - an idea that I support. (That's why all of the info on my site is free - you can contribute if you wish, but you don't have to).
But because "Information wants to be free", the other idea is "So why should I pay for information?" Micropayments will help a little, but I'm guessing that a majority (over 90%) won't ever pay. It's just the way it is (as Napster recently proved - how many people were downloaders as opposed to uploaders?).
Micropayments and subscriptions probably won't work with the massive amounts of people willing to volunteer information (look at the number of computer gaming fan sites). I'm not saying its a bad thing - it makes us all compete that much harder. And I imagine that web-based advertising will come back in force - it will just take it a few years for people to a) grow used to the idea and b) businesses to get that you can't advertise Jock Itch Cream on Womengamers.com.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Amount of Information (Score:2)
This means you have to be different or better than the other guys.
Ad you have to provide you're worth it to the users before they will pay. I will not shell out even a tiny bit of money for something on just a promise that it's cool. Show me first, maybe even let me decide if it's worth the money after I've already seen it.
We don't need "Micropayments" (Score:5)
The problem that "Micropayments" have is the name carries a lot of baggage. Usually people interpret it to mean metered compulsory payment (albiet a small payment) of every page you hit. This will never work because people just don't like to pay for anything before they know if it's worth paying for or not. In a world where infinite copies can be made for nothing it just doesn't make sense to pay for information up front.
Voluntary payments are the revenue model of the future. It's how artists were compensated before Copyright, it's how it'll work after copyright. The difference now is the entire world can potentially toss coins into your hat and you don't have to actually stand on a street corner performing to collect the tips. Artists will find that the most revenue will be made by letting your work spread as far and wide as possible while at the same time making it as easy as possible for your fans to enrich your no matter where they get your work from. The ones that try to lock up their work and force people to pay for it in advance will fail.
burris
Idiot Alert... (Score:2)
Now, I don't know RMS's opinion on micropayments, but I doubt that he's against worthy content providers being reimbursed for their expenses. I don't know of a single instance where he has claimed that anything should be free as in beer, period. Free as in freedom, yes.
Obviously, someone has made some fairly rash generalizations about these ideologists.
Re:Some of us want more (Score:2)
You obviously didn't read the artcle (Score:2)
Nice try, but you're going to need a more substantive objection to micropayments than this minor technicality if you wish to convince me of its inadequacy.
Re:I already pay. (Score:2)
burris
Re:Micropayments Can Help Cool Content (Score:2)
The guys who do Goats [goats.com] strip are doing the Amazon/PayPal tip jar thing as well. There up to about $1400 through the Amazon portion so far, probably more through PayPal. I suspect we'll start seeing a lot of other web comics start doing this pretty soon.
I for one hope this tip-jar thing sticks around. For PA, I plan on giving a dollar or two probably once a month. It's a lot better than any form of subscription service, as it allows me to choose when and where I want to pay for the content or not. Plus, it in theory allows the creators to give us a better product. Privacy I don't really see as that big an issue. It's no different than any other credit-card transaction I've made over the web the past 2 years. And according to the Amazon site, the creators you donate too don't recieve the identification of who's donating in any way.
The cut Amazon takes out is kinda steep (15%), but they do make it very easy for both the customers and the site creators to set things up. Amazon's been psudo-evil in the past with 1-Click and target pricing, but on this one I think they've done things right.
Re:If and only if... (Score:2)
As a (hopefully) non-fuckwit (but definitely) less-than-five-percenter, let me suggest that you consider using my favorite currency (e-gold) and others that don't rely on making any merchant/consumer distinction. If you want choice on where your money goes to, that's got to be what you want, whether it's us, PayPal, or whoever fails next -- (probably Amazon's little scheme, if you ask me).
I'm hoping that sites like www.fairtunes.com catch on soon for more than just music, and I can simply put a free e-gold tipjar anywhere with www.two-cents-worth.com (but I've gotta go now!).
JMR
Micropayment is rational business model (Score:2)
You present snippets and precis of your content. It shouldn't cost too much. It will establish your copyright or ownership.
To break-even with your site, you charge a micropayment for any hit onto something useful on your site.
If they surfers aren't already using a micro payment service provider, you spawn links to services like BTarrray, et alia so your prospective customers can make their purchase.
Those who are interested enough to pay the ten-cents will get their info. Those who aren't won't have cost you an arm and a leg.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Micropayments (Score:2)
One word: (Score:2)
Lengthier explanation:
The whole infrastructure of the net is such that if one person charges for information, someone else will likely put similar information up for free. Or alternatively, an entire "infowarez" culture could start.
I don't think people will pay for *information* alone...
Good idea. (Score:2)
I wonder.... (Score:3)
however I have heard that M$ pays handsomely for sites that choose to display their "Freedom to innovate" ads.. That would be so cool, to have slashdot to display that ad.
Dont moderate this up or down..just leave it as the way it is.
A problem with micropayment... (Score:2)
(Also, micropayment systems out there are 100% incompatiable, and this is unlikely to change.)
Instead of buying "less", maybe the model that's needed is that which the Internet as a whole uses, which is to not buy any "thing", but rather a certain slice of computer time, bandwidth, whatever.
(The more efficient you are at utilising the resouces purchased, the more you can get from them. So, instead of paying $0.02 for someone's opinion, you might pay $10 for a million clock cycles on some opinion server, and you can access all the opinions you want, within that clock cycle limit.)
Also, the Galactibanks refuse to deal with small, fiddly change.
No (Score:2)
However, I think micropayment systems that allow charges to be added to your ISP bill might have a better chance of survival because the ISP already has a billing relationship with the user.
IEEE: bad example (Score:2)
I very much hope that the IEEE is a temporary aberration when it comes to on-line publishing, because a model in which a few on-line publishers can dictate on the basis of their market position what they pay content creators and charge subscribers is not desirable.
Missing the Point (Score:2)
Re:I already pay. (Score:2)
Obviously, the bandwidth providers benefit.
Now, if there's no content, no one's going to buy bandwidth. So bandwidth providers have a vested interest in seeing that content is out there. A random thought - maybe they should act as patrons?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Of course I would ... (Score:2)
My favorite example of a site that needs micropayments is The Oxford English Dictionary [oed.com]. It was and is hugely expensive to reproduce, and if it can't generate revenue, it will die. As a dictionary of the English language, it stands head and shoulders above anything else. If I had access to it, I would look up words in it by default; nothing else comes close.
But I don't have access. Currently you can gain access to the online edition by paying an annual subscription fee of $550! Who's going to do that? Academics and a few professional writers and editors. At that price, it's useless to me and most of the other people who might use it. Worse (and more to the point), it could be generating a lot more revenue if it were available to a larger audience through micropayments.
No. (Score:2)
The content would have to get a lot better. Would you pay for Salon.com or Wired.com? I read parts of these sites every day, but I wouldn't pay anything for them. The content just isn't good enough. What about OldManMurray.com (IMHO the best site on the internet)? They would have to actually update more than once a month.
The business model isn't invalid, it just can't support massive amounts of waste. Remember reading about the indoor slides between floors at Excite? How cool! I wonder why they don't have those kind of things at Random House? Because Random House is evil, dammit! They don't care about our freedom and personal amusement, they just want to make money.
Which is, of course, what all businesses are required to do.
I'm part of the problem and I ain't changing. (Score:2)
Ever since those idiotic banner ads started showing up I've been using proxy filters for Web browsing. This breaks some services, and I live without them. It is now breaking fewer services than my unwillingness to run Java does.
The idea that ad delivery costs browsing time, and that ad creators are willing to make me pay with time in advance to see the ads, is all I ever needed to know about them.
Advertisers, instead of advertising/annoying people, spend your money making a -usable- Web site without a lot of 'experience management' crap. When I want to buy something, I'll come to your Web site if you have it -but try to get me to sign in or have a username/password pair and I'll leave. Show me a "x-shockwave-flash" error and I'm gone. Insist on cookies, Java, Javascript, ActiveX or whatever and I'm history.
And don't spam.
Once you've got through all these criteria you have a site from which I'll -buy stuff-. There aren't many. Amazon spams, so does Elstead Maps. They're two of my former suppliers. McMaster-Carr and Mouser Electronics meet all the criteria above (well, OK, for McM I'll turn on Javascript) and they have been selling me stuff for years. Textbooksource.net is beginning to look good.
So - do you want sales, or do you want to create a user experience? If you just want to sell stuff, get on with it and lose the cute graphics. If you want to create a user experience, forget it, because -my- experience is going to be locate, purchase, leave. If you want a 'relationship', forget it. We'll have one if -I- say so. I'm the one with the money, remember?
Slippery when wet. (Score:2)
There's a lot of money out there to be grabbed at a nickel a shot (pardon the pun.)
Re:What happens to the free servers? (Score:2)
Furthurmore, the assumption that a web site must cost a lot to run is questionable, at least. Bandwidth is cheap, disk is cheap, CPU is cheap. Setting up a web site needn't cost a arm and leg if people would just band together. I know several people who got together, bought space at a coloc, and set up their own server for US$50/month/person. And that was only for 5 people!
That said, I would support advertising supported sites if and only if I get value for my money. I don't want to see any form of auto-billing - as has been pointed out, this is too easy to abuse. I don't want to be ripped off by content that I could get free: but if I could get known trolls blocked from my viewing of
Back in the old days... (Score:2)
I am going to take a trip back to my formidable years, when I was BBSing at the sweet age of 13. And I will disregard the fact I was pretending to be much older.
I remember my favorite sites: the people, the interface, and the online games. Those sites were all free and they rocked. You dialed up in you were in. It wasn't too complicated.
I also remember the other sites which charged a membership fee or some other gimmick to attract people and get them to pay. But I don't remember those sites as much as the free ones.
I know some people did pay the monthly fees but I never stayed on a BBS which did. Maybe it was because they didn't offer the things which I wanted. Or didn't offer a sense of community which I felt on the other BBSes. Plus when you are 13, you spend your money on other things of great importance.
I remember my favorite BBS had get togethers in the park during the summer and we could meet the people behind the aliases. It felt good to belong to such a group. The closest I feel to a sense of "belonging" nowadays is Slashdot. And they don't even have TradeWars.
Sites, as BBSes, will come and go, but it is what you do with them which will create the fondest memories. And being free don't hurt either. If fact it probably helps a lot. Not to say micropayments won't work, but I am from the old school and the best things in life are free.
I think /. needs to have a annual barbecue somewhere. That would be nice.
No Sir, I Don't Like It. (Score:3)
Easily more profitable (Score:3)
If you think about it, such a small payment will add up to large monthly sums for the sites that carry content users are really interested in. This will also result in a "survival of the fittest" kind of an atmosphere, eliminating a lot of fluff sites out there.
So I say, bring it on.
Nope (Score:2)
I access content on the internet because it is free and readily available. Start charging for that content and it will be back to the old public library for me.
Amazon's Honor System (Score:2)
A little blunt, if you ask me - but an option.
Re:Economics (Score:2)
The only downside of this model is that some industries will probably not see the same profit margins they currently enjoy. Instead of making $171 million, a movie like The Matrix might make only $100 million. Oh well. Nobody said any industry is gauranteed to maintain profits at a certain level.
If anything, a subscription based service like I outlined can serve to offset potential revenue losses from digital piracy. 500,000 people each paying $1 a month to get to the premium movie web site will more than make up for lost box-office revenue. The idea is to build a community around the product that can't be had anywhere else, and that people would be willing to pay a small fee for. You'll never stop outright piracy of digital content, but the real value isn't in the content. It's how the content is aggregated into a bundle of services and other products.
-Vercingetorix
Re:We don't need "Micropayments" (Score:2)
The term "micropayment" generally relates to the fact that a merchant cannot perform a credit card charge against any major credit card without incurring at least a ten cent charge (for most mechants its more like fifty cents). This is a serious inhibiting factor towards financial transactions of small amounts, such as the dollar amount that one might equate with the value of a song from www.mp3.com/pixal [mp3.com] or similarly low-value content. This is where all of the interest in a micropayment system originates, it would be used for transactions of less than a dollar or two.
maru
Re:We're too big for "the old days" -- face it (Score:2)
If Linux or BSD can be coded and given away for free, then someone can type in some text without including half a megabyte of useless graphics.
Some people really do want to make a job out of their former hobby, and I applaud this. In this situation, taking on advertisers or charging fees makes perfect sense. How else will you make money from your work? Consider, however, that this is actual work, not a hobby. When something moves from the realm of being a hobby to being work, you usually expect a certain degree of skill, professionalism, and (in this context) content. Most web sites seriously lack in all three areas. I think that there will be a great shakedown (that's just such a cool phrase) in the number of useless web sites in the coming years.
Why do we need GardenKnowledge.com, GardenPower.com, GardenSecrets.com, and GardenPlus.com, when they all suck royally and have dozens of annoying ads? Will anyone ever miss them? Nope, I don't think so.
p.s. Those are all just example domain names. No offense to actual web sites if they truly exist.
Paying for content gets you better content... (Score:2)
Let's say Billy sets up a gaming review website and charges a small amount of money for each of his articles. If enough people like his articles, he could quite his job or take a part time job and spend all his time creating better content.
Now Billy starts overpricing his content and slacking off on the quality of his content. This is where Bob steps in. Bob sees he can give better quality content cheaper and make a living off of it. If Billy doesn't start producing better quality content, he's not going to get enough money anymore and go back to his day job.
This is basic economics (which a lot of Slashdotters seem to try to ignore), but on the Internet it's a little bit different. Unlike the real world, all the user has to do is click on over to another site and pay them if they have better quality content. This can cause some extreme competition and with money involved people will compete as hard as they can for the consumers money.
Re:Uhm... (Score:2)
Why does there have to be e-commerce involved all the time? Yes, I know severs and bandwidth costs money, but let's not have banner ads and such for ALL web pages. I know C$erve charged extra for "premium content", and that's no longer. I still don't see myself paying monthly for a website when there's most likely hundreds of other equivical sites for free.
I guess popularity( for web sites) has its price.
The Solution? (Score:2)
Re:No Sir, I Don't Like It. (Score:2)
Don't you dare moderate me off-topic...
If and only if... (Score:4)
If it meant that I got to choose who the money went to - that is, that it went to the content creator and not an agent, distributor, middleman, or some other breed of fuckwit five-percenter - then yes, yes, a thousand times YES!
I don't think the problem is that - as one poster put it - that the 'Net will become one giant pay site - content creators should get paid for good work. The problem will be keeping scumbag content-control freaks (Sony, RIAA, MPAA, the U.S. Congress) from mucking it up and taking a cut.
I think it would be the ideal way, though, to pay for good independent content like Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com], Sinfest [sinfest.net], and even Jennicam [jennicam.org] - and all the other content-based sites I like, but for whom I'm not willing to enter into an expensive revolving subscription agreement.
We'll see if it actually happens...
OK,
- B
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As a content provider... (Score:2)
...I both want and need micropayments to become a reality. Why? I look at the Consumer Reports business model--no ads--and see something that should easily work on the Web. However, I don't think that our sports content [totk.com] is good enough--yet--to merit charging CR-level prices. And in trying to go lower, we will get up by transaction fees and be in the same position as we are with Flycast.
Soon, I think a whole lot of DIY e-publishers are going to be with us. We love what we're doing, and we don't want to become rich sports boors [say hello, Mr. Sheffield], but we would like to cover costs and maybe even take a little home one of these days...
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