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The article doesn't define the "open web," and platforms like Facebook and Twitter would seem to mostly follow the dictates set out in Tantek's original definit

by cwyers 11y ago

The article doesn't define the "open web," and platforms like Facebook and Twitter would seem to mostly follow the dictates set out in Tantek's original definition.[1] So it's hard to guess at what the author means -- Facebook and Twitter aren't "the open web" by tautology, basically. It's really hard to engage with the author's arguments that way. What is trivial to understand is that the author's proposed remedy doesn't work: > The answer is simple, but it isn’t easy. We need to stop pretending that content is free. Publications need to ask readers to pay for their content directly, and readers need to be willing to give up money, as opposed to their privacy and attention. This means that publications will have to abandon the rapid-growth business models driven by display ads, which have driven them to rely on Facebook for millions of pageviews a month. The fundamental problem with this is that siloing content the way the author suggests (publications with strong identities and paywalls to get readers to give money in exchange for content) breaks hyperlinks. It breaks sharing. Paywalls work when there's a marginal benefit to knowing something that someone else doesn't -- say, it helps you pick stocks better than the next guys. Otherwise, all else being equal, the article I can share with my friends, link to in my blog post, that I can engage with and respond to and have other people able to read the same article I am -- that's far more valuable than the article that I can read but can't share. We didn't get here because we're all stupid, or because people are unwilling to pay for anything ever. We got here because we were trying to come up with a model that allows people who make content to be compensated for it without betraying the fundamental thing that made the Web the Web -- the hyperlink. If your proposed alternative business model doesn't even TRY to engage with the question of linking and sharing, it's not going to work. 1) http://tantek.com/2010/281/b1/what-is-the-open-web http://tantek.com/2010/281/b1/what-is-the-open-web

romaniv 11y ago
Paywalls do not work, but Kickstarter and Patreon do work. Also, hosting a website for several thousand people (as opposed to hundreds of thousands) it so cheap this days that the cost becomes negligible. It maintenance becomes the most "expensive" - or annoying if you're doing it yourself - part of it all.
pauleastlund 11y ago
What is a page view on an article worth these days? A couple cents? Less? If the micropayments implementation was right, and if paying for content became a more mainstream idea, I don't think you'd feel that you "[could] read but [couldn't] share" an article just because it charged a nickel to continue past the intro paragraph. I don't see how that would break hyperlinks.
- sk8ingdom 11y ago
  The problem with this model is that the mental transaction (do I care enough to pay for this) is more expensive than the couple of cents it costs for access. A similar problem exists when trying to decide to pay for an article from a journal you don't have access to. Is the abstract compelling enough for me to fork out $100 dollars for this article? What if the abstract was misleading? Can I return it? As a consumer, I'd rather just pay a higher flat fee for internet access / browsing and have that collective wealth distributed to content providers based on some metrics. Better content gets bigger portion of the pie. The problem is probably determining the metrics.
- cwyers 11y ago
  Behavior economics suggests that you're wrong[1]. Users do not like metered useage even when it benefits them. An anecdotal illustration of this at work: > What was the biggest complaint of AOL users? Not the widely mocked and irritating blue bar that appeared when members downloaded information. Not the frequent unsolicited junk e-mail. Not dropped connections. Their overwhelming gripe: the ticking clock. Users didn’t want to pay by the hour anymore. ... Case had heard from one AOL member who insisted that she was being cheated by AOL’s hourly rate pricing. When he checked her average monthly usage, he found that she would be paying AOL more under the flat-rate price of $19.95. When Case informed the user of that fact, her reaction was immediate. ‘I don’t care,’ she told an incredulous Case. ’I am being cheated by you.’ The transactional friction between "free" and "not free" is high, even for very small values of "not free." This has been backed up by experiments[2]: > In his book Predictably Irrational, Ariely describes a series of simple experiments that offered subjects something desirable – chocolate – at a variety of prices. Two types of chocolate were used – a Hershey’s kiss and a Lindt chocolate truffle. While the kiss is an inexpensive and common treat, a Lindt truffle is a far more tasty confection that costs an order of magnitude more than the kiss. > The first experiment offered subjects a truffle for 15 cents (about half its actual cost) or a kiss for 1 cent. Nearly three out of four subjects chose the truffle, which seems logical enough based on the relative value of the offers. > The next experiment reduced the price of each product by one cent – the truffle was offered at 14 cents, and the kiss was free. Although the price differential remained the same, the behavior of the subjects changed dramatically: more than two thirds of the subjects chose the free chocolate kiss over the bargain-priced truffle. It's not about getting the right micropayment system, it's about overcoming something about how humans understand and deal with price signals. You can either sit around trying to rewire people or you can come up with a business model designed for people. Micropayments as a business model for web content is wishcasting. 1) http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/case.against.micropayments.pdf http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/case.against.micropaymen... 2) http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/the-power-of-free.htm http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/the-power...

by cwyers 11y ago

romaniv 11y ago

Paywalls do not work, but Kickstarter and Patreon do work. Also, hosting a website for several thousand people (as opposed to hundreds of thousands) it so cheap this days that the cost becomes negligible. It maintenance becomes the most "expensive" - or annoying if you're doing it yourself - part of it all.

pauleastlund 11y ago

What is a page view on an article worth these days? A couple cents? Less? If the micropayments implementation was right, and if paying for content became a more mainstream idea, I don't think you'd feel that you "[could] read but [couldn't] share" an article just because it charged a nickel to continue past the intro paragraph. I don't see how that would break hyperlinks.

sk8ingdom 11y ago
The problem with this model is that the mental transaction (do I care enough to pay for this) is more expensive than the couple of cents it costs for access. A similar problem exists when trying to decide to pay for an article from a journal you don't have access to. Is the abstract compelling enough for me to fork out $100 dollars for this article? What if the abstract was misleading? Can I return it? As a consumer, I'd rather just pay a higher flat fee for internet access / browsing and have that collective wealth distributed to content providers based on some metrics. Better content gets bigger portion of the pie. The problem is probably determining the metrics.
cwyers 11y ago
Behavior economics suggests that you're wrong[1]. Users do not like metered useage even when it benefits them. An anecdotal illustration of this at work: > What was the biggest complaint of AOL users? Not the widely mocked and irritating blue bar that appeared when members downloaded information. Not the frequent unsolicited junk e-mail. Not dropped connections. Their overwhelming gripe: the ticking clock. Users didn’t want to pay by the hour anymore. ... Case had heard from one AOL member who insisted that she was being cheated by AOL’s hourly rate pricing. When he checked her average monthly usage, he found that she would be paying AOL more under the flat-rate price of $19.95. When Case informed the user of that fact, her reaction was immediate. ‘I don’t care,’ she told an incredulous Case. ’I am being cheated by you.’ The transactional friction between "free" and "not free" is high, even for very small values of "not free." This has been backed up by experiments[2]: > In his book Predictably Irrational, Ariely describes a series of simple experiments that offered subjects something desirable – chocolate – at a variety of prices. Two types of chocolate were used – a Hershey’s kiss and a Lindt chocolate truffle. While the kiss is an inexpensive and common treat, a Lindt truffle is a far more tasty confection that costs an order of magnitude more than the kiss. > The first experiment offered subjects a truffle for 15 cents (about half its actual cost) or a kiss for 1 cent. Nearly three out of four subjects chose the truffle, which seems logical enough based on the relative value of the offers. > The next experiment reduced the price of each product by one cent – the truffle was offered at 14 cents, and the kiss was free. Although the price differential remained the same, the behavior of the subjects changed dramatically: more than two thirds of the subjects chose the free chocolate kiss over the bargain-priced truffle. It's not about getting the right micropayment system, it's about overcoming something about how humans understand and deal with price signals. You can either sit around trying to rewire people or you can come up with a business model designed for people. Micropayments as a business model for web content is wishcasting. 1) http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/case.against.micropayments.pdf http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/case.against.micropaymen... 2) http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/the-power-of-free.htm http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/the-power...