7 ms·

Pay-Per-Story Platform Blendle Goes Live in Germany

75 points by JeanMertz 11y ago

bitJericho 11y ago
I really want this in the us. I use adblock and will never shut it off. Also something like this would give me a real incentive to finish reading an article since "I paid for it after all."
- JeanMertz 11y ago
  We're already got The Washington Post, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and soon The New York Times in our kiosk. The interface is still in Dutch (for now), but it's a start: https://blendle.com/kiosk/engels https://blendle.com/kiosk/engels Also, be sure to sign up at https://launch.blendle.com https://launch.blendle.com, we're working hard to get this across the Atlantic, stay tuned!
  - bitJericho 11y ago
    That's great. Will this work such that if I see an article on HN I can somehow use your service seamlessly? I'd rather get my news from HN (what I do now) than visiting a different aggregator site.
    - JeanMertz 11y ago
      We've recently launched our "Pay with Blendle" micropayments button on a Dutch publisher's site[0] which allows you to read the article on the publisher's site, but pay using your Blendle wallet, using the same principles (pay-per-article, one-click-refunds, seamless UX). Stay tuned for more news on this front. [0]: http://www.vn.nl/elementaire-deeltjes-gerard-t-hooft/ http://www.vn.nl/elementaire-deeltjes-gerard-t-hooft/
  - imaginenore 11y ago
    But you can't pay per-article, you have to buy the whole newspaper.
    - JeanMertz 11y ago
      No, you pay per article OR you buy the whole newspaper/issue. In fact, if you pay for separate articles in a newspaper and we notice the accumulative total is more than the price of the issue, you automatically get free access to the rest of that issue.
okal 11y ago
This is really problematic, IMO. The idea of paying only for what you like, rather than what you read. People will inevitably end up "voting", as it were, only for stories that line up with their biases.
- bebna 11y ago
  Their already do, or Bild wouldn't be that successful.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  I deeply agree that human bias is a problem in general, but I prefer the reader's bias for the content over the bias of the advertiser or the reader's bias for click-bait. Do you prefer the current world where clicks, click-bait and other manipulations determine money flows? The grossly perverted incentives of the ad-driven web aside, is what people read today less subject to bias? People choose, for example, to read/watch the NY Times vs WSJ, Politico vs Drudge Report, or MSNBC vs Fox News based on which publications line up with their biases. If I don't get to decide whether my reading choices are due to my biases or my ability to discern quality or truth, who does? You? Google? Huff Post? HN's ranking algorithm X the aggregate mindset of HN readers? None of these are biased? People voting with their wallets is the bedrock of the free market, which despite its shortcomings is vastly better than an economy driven by clicks and the manipukation thereof, and driven by advertisers and their agendas.
  - okal 11y ago
    Let me construct a scenario: I come across some well done (by some objective measure: good references, background checks), long form investigative piece. It seems interesting, so I read it, but then find that it clashes with some deeply held belief of mine. I decide at that point that I want my money back, because whatever it is I read made me uncomfortable, or I just didn't like it. What this ends up incentivizing is journalism that merely echoes the beliefs of your target demographic, dressed in beautiful language. My problem is with the money back feature, not the entire idea of it. I think some other measure of engagement e.g. how much time one spends on an article, whether one keeps going back to a particular passage over and over, should be what determines if the publisher gets paid. Not whether the reader "likes" it.
forcer 11y ago
I love the concept. I hope the execution will be right. e.g. if I pay for Economist story, I won't be bombarded with their popups.
- JeanMertz 11y ago
  We don't like popups and ads either, so you most certainly won't find them on our website. You only pay for what you want, and can always refund with a single click. We have a good privacy policy, here's the (loosely translated, this is not the official translation) first paragraph: Blendle takes your privacy very seriously and will store and use your information in a safe and secure way. Publishers have a tendency to demand that we give them the email addresses of everyone who reads their articles, but we refuse to give in to these requests. Also, we don't do ads, so we have no incentive to collect data to sell you relevant ads.
- digital-rubber 11y ago
  I think it will kill magazines and certain media. Where you used to pay more for what you wanted, that did cover the cost of that particular media, your interest plus more. If people now only want to and will pay for what they are interested in, part of the magazine will no longer be able to cover its costs. It'll all shrink, in volume, quality etc
peteretep 11y ago
Cannot wait until you launch this in the UK. The email alerting doesn't seem to let me tell you what country I'm in...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
mightymaike 11y ago
I wonder if they analyse your reading habbits and sell this to third party's.
- mverwijs 11y ago
  We make money by selling articles to you. Not by selling your data to someone else.
omegant 11y ago
I can't find the subscription costs. How did you manage to get the papers to sign? I've been expecting for a service like yours for some time, but here in Spain the news papers are too dumb to try something like this (unless all the other big ones have done it first) you only have to look at the Google law, they are desperate and lost.
- JeanMertz 11y ago
  There are no subscriptions. You sign up, and only pay for what you read. Articles cost €0,30 on average, with smaller news-type articles being cheaper than longreads (interviews, opinion pieces, backstory articles). On signup you get €2,50 for free, and then another €2,50 when you topup your wallet the first time. Regarding signing up the publishers. This took a long time in The Netherlands, but getting an investment from The New York Times and Axel Springer certainly helped speed up the German launch.
  - eevilspock 11y ago
    I hope your model works as an antidote to the perverse incentives of ad-based revenue, but I wonder if you could improve the incentives even more. There will still be advantages to using click-bait and writing that manipulates our curiosity. If you make it trivial to get a refund, that will greatly negate those incentives, but it also enables freeloaders, no? Jean, I would love to hear your or Blendle's thoughs on my variation of a reader payment scheme: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8008960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8008960
    - JeanMertz 11y ago
      In fact, refunds have proven to be a great way to combat click-bait links. The example we've given before is gossip magazines, which thrive on click-bait (purchase-bait?) titles on their front covers. In Blendle, we see a high refund rate on these types of magazine articles, when the title suggests something else than the article presents to the reader. Freeloaders have turned out to be only a minor issue, whom we are willing to live with, if it means we have a great user experience for 99% of the other people using Blendle in good faith. We're of course thinking of ways to tackle this as well, but never at the cost of user experience. RE: Being asked whether or not I want to spend $0.25 or $0.50 twenty or fifty times a day is not an appealing prospect. I agree, this is indeed something we work to improve every day. The two biggest features to combat this are refunds and low-friction purchases. The latter we implement by not requiring any action except for clicking on the text you want to read.
polskibus 11y ago
As far as I know, Piano Platform works well in various countries in Europe. I wonder how does Blendle compare to Piano, from user's and publisher's perspective.
sharpercoder 11y ago
I really like the ability to pay instead of getting ads. However, my big opposition to Blendle is that it breaks the web. How do you guys feel about this?
- an_ko 11y ago
  What do you mean by "break the web" here? I've seen the phrase used to criticise lots of things, e.g.: SOPA/PIPA, mobile-hostile CSS, semantically incorrect HTTP codes.
  - sharpercoder 11y ago
    Linking to an article does not result in a guaranteed full information access. I am never sure the receiving party is able to read the information.

75 points by JeanMertz 11y ago

I really want this in the us. I use adblock and will never shut it off. Also something like this would give me a real incentive to finish reading an article since "I paid for it after all."

JeanMertz 11y ago
We're already got The Washington Post, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and soon The New York Times in our kiosk. The interface is still in Dutch (for now), but it's a start: https://blendle.com/kiosk/engels https://blendle.com/kiosk/engels Also, be sure to sign up at https://launch.blendle.com https://launch.blendle.com, we're working hard to get this across the Atlantic, stay tuned!
- bitJericho 11y ago
  That's great. Will this work such that if I see an article on HN I can somehow use your service seamlessly? I'd rather get my news from HN (what I do now) than visiting a different aggregator site.
  - JeanMertz 11y ago
    We've recently launched our "Pay with Blendle" micropayments button on a Dutch publisher's site[0] which allows you to read the article on the publisher's site, but pay using your Blendle wallet, using the same principles (pay-per-article, one-click-refunds, seamless UX). Stay tuned for more news on this front. [0]: http://www.vn.nl/elementaire-deeltjes-gerard-t-hooft/ http://www.vn.nl/elementaire-deeltjes-gerard-t-hooft/
- imaginenore 11y ago
  But you can't pay per-article, you have to buy the whole newspaper.
  - JeanMertz 11y ago
    No, you pay per article OR you buy the whole newspaper/issue. In fact, if you pay for separate articles in a newspaper and we notice the accumulative total is more than the price of the issue, you automatically get free access to the rest of that issue.

okal 11y ago

This is really problematic, IMO. The idea of paying only for what you like, rather than what you read. People will inevitably end up "voting", as it were, only for stories that line up with their biases.

bebna 11y ago
Their already do, or Bild wouldn't be that successful.
eevilspock 11y ago
I deeply agree that human bias is a problem in general, but I prefer the reader's bias for the content over the bias of the advertiser or the reader's bias for click-bait. Do you prefer the current world where clicks, click-bait and other manipulations determine money flows? The grossly perverted incentives of the ad-driven web aside, is what people read today less subject to bias? People choose, for example, to read/watch the NY Times vs WSJ, Politico vs Drudge Report, or MSNBC vs Fox News based on which publications line up with their biases. If I don't get to decide whether my reading choices are due to my biases or my ability to discern quality or truth, who does? You? Google? Huff Post? HN's ranking algorithm X the aggregate mindset of HN readers? None of these are biased? People voting with their wallets is the bedrock of the free market, which despite its shortcomings is vastly better than an economy driven by clicks and the manipukation thereof, and driven by advertisers and their agendas.
- okal 11y ago
  Let me construct a scenario: I come across some well done (by some objective measure: good references, background checks), long form investigative piece. It seems interesting, so I read it, but then find that it clashes with some deeply held belief of mine. I decide at that point that I want my money back, because whatever it is I read made me uncomfortable, or I just didn't like it. What this ends up incentivizing is journalism that merely echoes the beliefs of your target demographic, dressed in beautiful language. My problem is with the money back feature, not the entire idea of it. I think some other measure of engagement e.g. how much time one spends on an article, whether one keeps going back to a particular passage over and over, should be what determines if the publisher gets paid. Not whether the reader "likes" it.

forcer 11y ago

I love the concept. I hope the execution will be right. e.g. if I pay for Economist story, I won't be bombarded with their popups.

JeanMertz 11y ago
We don't like popups and ads either, so you most certainly won't find them on our website. You only pay for what you want, and can always refund with a single click. We have a good privacy policy, here's the (loosely translated, this is not the official translation) first paragraph: Blendle takes your privacy very seriously and will store and use your information in a safe and secure way. Publishers have a tendency to demand that we give them the email addresses of everyone who reads their articles, but we refuse to give in to these requests. Also, we don't do ads, so we have no incentive to collect data to sell you relevant ads.
digital-rubber 11y ago
I think it will kill magazines and certain media. Where you used to pay more for what you wanted, that did cover the cost of that particular media, your interest plus more. If people now only want to and will pay for what they are interested in, part of the magazine will no longer be able to cover its costs. It'll all shrink, in volume, quality etc

peteretep 11y ago

Cannot wait until you launch this in the UK. The email alerting doesn't seem to let me tell you what country I'm in...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

mightymaike 11y ago

I wonder if they analyse your reading habbits and sell this to third party's.

mverwijs 11y ago
We make money by selling articles to you. Not by selling your data to someone else.

omegant 11y ago

I can't find the subscription costs. How did you manage to get the papers to sign? I've been expecting for a service like yours for some time, but here in Spain the news papers are too dumb to try something like this (unless all the other big ones have done it first) you only have to look at the Google law, they are desperate and lost.

JeanMertz 11y ago
There are no subscriptions. You sign up, and only pay for what you read. Articles cost €0,30 on average, with smaller news-type articles being cheaper than longreads (interviews, opinion pieces, backstory articles). On signup you get €2,50 for free, and then another €2,50 when you topup your wallet the first time. Regarding signing up the publishers. This took a long time in The Netherlands, but getting an investment from The New York Times and Axel Springer certainly helped speed up the German launch.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  I hope your model works as an antidote to the perverse incentives of ad-based revenue, but I wonder if you could improve the incentives even more. There will still be advantages to using click-bait and writing that manipulates our curiosity. If you make it trivial to get a refund, that will greatly negate those incentives, but it also enables freeloaders, no? Jean, I would love to hear your or Blendle's thoughs on my variation of a reader payment scheme: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8008960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8008960
  - JeanMertz 11y ago
    In fact, refunds have proven to be a great way to combat click-bait links. The example we've given before is gossip magazines, which thrive on click-bait (purchase-bait?) titles on their front covers. In Blendle, we see a high refund rate on these types of magazine articles, when the title suggests something else than the article presents to the reader. Freeloaders have turned out to be only a minor issue, whom we are willing to live with, if it means we have a great user experience for 99% of the other people using Blendle in good faith. We're of course thinking of ways to tackle this as well, but never at the cost of user experience. RE: Being asked whether or not I want to spend $0.25 or $0.50 twenty or fifty times a day is not an appealing prospect. I agree, this is indeed something we work to improve every day. The two biggest features to combat this are refunds and low-friction purchases. The latter we implement by not requiring any action except for clicking on the text you want to read.

polskibus 11y ago

As far as I know, Piano Platform works well in various countries in Europe. I wonder how does Blendle compare to Piano, from user's and publisher's perspective.

sharpercoder 11y ago

I really like the ability to pay instead of getting ads. However, my big opposition to Blendle is that it breaks the web. How do you guys feel about this?

an_ko 11y ago
What do you mean by "break the web" here? I've seen the phrase used to criticise lots of things, e.g.: SOPA/PIPA, mobile-hostile CSS, semantically incorrect HTTP codes.
- sharpercoder 11y ago
  Linking to an article does not result in a guaranteed full information access. I am never sure the receiving party is able to read the information.