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> You misunderstand what was written. Actually, I have a fundamentally different perspective. > They don't want to pay for things, the way they might pay for

> You misunderstand what was written. Actually, I have a fundamentally different perspective. > They don't want to pay for things, the way they might pay for things where they are actually gaining something on a permanent basis. The goal of good writing is, in part, to permanently change the reader. Even if they read it once. This is true of literary content, educational content, news content, and even entertainment. But more than that, what good content does is establish a relationship that can be cultivated. Even if you read an article just once, it can become part of the greater relationship that serves a larger purpose. (Perhaps, educational, building towards expertise in a certain knowledge area. Or, perhaps, entertainment, where the reader can reliably expect a change in their emotional state.) > My dad saved all issues of Scientific American from 1949 to 2009 Many of my subscribers save all of the emails I send them. How is that different? > Nobody does that with web articles. Have you never referred back to the same web resource? How many times have you viewed this discussion? Do you wonder why there is a "bookmarks" menu button on your browser? Have you ever emailed an article to yourself to read it later, or printed it out? These are all common behaviors. Someone regularly comments on my Facebook article posts, saying "bookmarking", just so they can reference it later. Ironically, I often email the same article to the same audience multiple times, and the readership rate remains high. Yes, the web is full of low-quality content that degrades the reader, the writer, and the entire culture of the internet. Maybe that content earns 1/3rd of a cent per view -- and deserves it. But is that really what we want to be supporting?

lkrubner 11y ago
Both ChuckMcM and I were remarking on how people actually use the Web, whereas when you write: "But is that really what we want to be supporting?" you are instead remarking about how things should be. Maybe there is some alternate universe where utopia has been established and people pay a lot of money to support good content. However, I would suggest that you read Clay Shirky's remarks on the death of print: "When you have an audience mostly made up of nostalgists, there’s not much market demand for unvarnished truth. This kind of boosterism wouldn’t matter so much if it were only reaching weepy journos whose careers started in the Reagan administration. But the toxic runoff from CJR and Nieman’s form of unpaid PR is poisoning the minds of 19-year-olds." http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2014/06/nostalgia-and-newspapering/ http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2014/06/nostalgia-and-newspaper... There was a long time, during the 1990s and early 00s, when it seemed it might be possible for newspapers to gain revenue by publishing on the web, but we now know that is impossible. See also "This is why the news media is dying: global online ad revenue is $40 billion" Combine that with “Google Controls 44 Percent Of Global Online Advertising“. That leaves at most $25 billion for every content site in the world. Pathetic. Consider that television advertising in the USA is $160 billion a year. http://www.smashcompany.com/business/this-is-why-the-news-media-is-dying-global-online-ad-revenue-for-content-sites-is-maybe-25-billion http://www.smashcompany.com/business/this-is-why-the-news-me... Again, my comments are more about how people actually use the web, rather than how they should use the web.
- JacobJans 11y ago
  > Again, my comments are more about how people actually use the web, rather than how they should use the web. Which is why I addressed each of your points, before adding a new point. > whereas when you write: "But is that really what we want to be supporting?" In this case, I was adding a new point. People DO go back and engage with content more than once. The assertion that people don't do that is wrong. Your reply alone is evidence of that. The additional point I was attempting to make is that bad content is "one and done." Not only does bad content leave the reader unmoved, it is quickly forgotten, usually anonymous, and does nothing to build a relationship with the reader. I'm not sure why you bring up newspapers. 1/3rd of a cent for a newspaper article "view" is in no way sustainable.
  - manicdee 11y ago
    The content on a comment page is each individual comment. Why would I come back to reply to a comment more than once? As for newspapers: today's Sydney Mornig Herald is a few dozen pages, with multiple articles per page. Let's call that 100 articles (current affairs, technology, finance, sports). It costs about a dollar per day. So each article is worth about a cent, for a paper newspaper delivered to your house. The same articles on the web at 1/3 of a cent each read doesn't sound beyond the realms of realistic pricing for a sustainable distribution. Of course I would prefer to spend my money on a non-Murdoch paper. But that gets into politics rather than economics.
    - JacobJans 11y ago
      > As for newspapers: today's Sydney Mornig Herald is a few dozen pages, with multiple articles per page. Let's call that 100 articles (current affairs, technology, finance, sports). It costs about a dollar per day. So each article is worth about a cent, for a paper newspaper delivered to your house. > The same articles on the web at 1/3 of a cent each read doesn't sound beyond the realms of realistic pricing for a sustainable distribution. That demonstrates perfectly how the micropayment model is fundamentally different than the subscription model. The assumption with micropayments is that you're paying only for what you view – not for everything the website produces. With a subscription, you're paying for everything, whether or not your read it. Say you 10 read articles in the paper each day. That works out to $0.10 an article, not $.01 an article, if you're being charged just for what you read. A huge difference. $0.10 would possibly be sustainable for micropayments, especially if you guaranteed the publisher a minimum payment each month. 1/3rd of a cent is simply out of the realm of reality – unless you're agreeing to pay, in advance, for all of the articles they produce. In which case, I don't think you're talking about micropayments anymore.
simoncion 11y ago
> The goal of good writing is, in part, to permanently change the reader. This is a lofty goal. Very little on The Web comes within shooting distance of it. What's more, it has little to do with the fact that paying for access to soft copies of material is -unfortunately- [0] quite a bit different than paying for hard copies of the same thing. > > Nobody does that with web articles. > Have you never referred back to the same web resource? Unless it's a reference manual or similar such thing, almost never. Even the issues of SciAm that I did save were saved for the sections that could be used as reference manuals. Frankly, I'm not one for sentiment. :) > Have you ever emailed an article to yourself to read it later... I've emailed the URL to an article to myself to read later because I was either * too busy with another task at the time to read it, but it looked like it was related to another one of my projects * on a smartphone, which is often terrible for reading idea-heavy material [0] I say "unfortunately", because it seems that "most" people don't understand how to save complete copies of online resources to their local machine.

lkrubner 11y ago

Both ChuckMcM and I were remarking on how people actually use the Web, whereas when you write: "But is that really what we want to be supporting?" you are instead remarking about how things should be. Maybe there is some alternate universe where utopia has been established and people pay a lot of money to support good content. However, I would suggest that you read Clay Shirky's remarks on the death of print: "When you have an audience mostly made up of nostalgists, there’s not much market demand for unvarnished truth. This kind of boosterism wouldn’t matter so much if it were only reaching weepy journos whose careers started in the Reagan administration. But the toxic runoff from CJR and Nieman’s form of unpaid PR is poisoning the minds of 19-year-olds." http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2014/06/nostalgia-and-newspapering/ http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2014/06/nostalgia-and-newspaper... There was a long time, during the 1990s and early 00s, when it seemed it might be possible for newspapers to gain revenue by publishing on the web, but we now know that is impossible. See also "This is why the news media is dying: global online ad revenue is $40 billion" Combine that with “Google Controls 44 Percent Of Global Online Advertising“. That leaves at most $25 billion for every content site in the world. Pathetic. Consider that television advertising in the USA is $160 billion a year. http://www.smashcompany.com/business/this-is-why-the-news-media-is-dying-global-online-ad-revenue-for-content-sites-is-maybe-25-billion http://www.smashcompany.com/business/this-is-why-the-news-me... Again, my comments are more about how people actually use the web, rather than how they should use the web.

JacobJans 11y ago
> Again, my comments are more about how people actually use the web, rather than how they should use the web. Which is why I addressed each of your points, before adding a new point. > whereas when you write: "But is that really what we want to be supporting?" In this case, I was adding a new point. People DO go back and engage with content more than once. The assertion that people don't do that is wrong. Your reply alone is evidence of that. The additional point I was attempting to make is that bad content is "one and done." Not only does bad content leave the reader unmoved, it is quickly forgotten, usually anonymous, and does nothing to build a relationship with the reader. I'm not sure why you bring up newspapers. 1/3rd of a cent for a newspaper article "view" is in no way sustainable.
- manicdee 11y ago
  The content on a comment page is each individual comment. Why would I come back to reply to a comment more than once? As for newspapers: today's Sydney Mornig Herald is a few dozen pages, with multiple articles per page. Let's call that 100 articles (current affairs, technology, finance, sports). It costs about a dollar per day. So each article is worth about a cent, for a paper newspaper delivered to your house. The same articles on the web at 1/3 of a cent each read doesn't sound beyond the realms of realistic pricing for a sustainable distribution. Of course I would prefer to spend my money on a non-Murdoch paper. But that gets into politics rather than economics.
  - JacobJans 11y ago
    > As for newspapers: today's Sydney Mornig Herald is a few dozen pages, with multiple articles per page. Let's call that 100 articles (current affairs, technology, finance, sports). It costs about a dollar per day. So each article is worth about a cent, for a paper newspaper delivered to your house. > The same articles on the web at 1/3 of a cent each read doesn't sound beyond the realms of realistic pricing for a sustainable distribution. That demonstrates perfectly how the micropayment model is fundamentally different than the subscription model. The assumption with micropayments is that you're paying only for what you view – not for everything the website produces. With a subscription, you're paying for everything, whether or not your read it. Say you 10 read articles in the paper each day. That works out to $0.10 an article, not $.01 an article, if you're being charged just for what you read. A huge difference. $0.10 would possibly be sustainable for micropayments, especially if you guaranteed the publisher a minimum payment each month. 1/3rd of a cent is simply out of the realm of reality – unless you're agreeing to pay, in advance, for all of the articles they produce. In which case, I don't think you're talking about micropayments anymore.

simoncion 11y ago

> The goal of good writing is, in part, to permanently change the reader. This is a lofty goal. Very little on The Web comes within shooting distance of it. What's more, it has little to do with the fact that paying for access to soft copies of material is -unfortunately- [0] quite a bit different than paying for hard copies of the same thing. > > Nobody does that with web articles. > Have you never referred back to the same web resource? Unless it's a reference manual or similar such thing, almost never. Even the issues of SciAm that I did save were saved for the sections that could be used as reference manuals. Frankly, I'm not one for sentiment. :) > Have you ever emailed an article to yourself to read it later... I've emailed the URL to an article to myself to read later because I was either * too busy with another task at the time to read it, but it looked like it was related to another one of my projects * on a smartphone, which is often terrible for reading idea-heavy material [0] I say "unfortunately", because it seems that "most" people don't understand how to save complete copies of online resources to their local machine.