8 ms·

Enjoy your future of pay walls!

by owenwil 11y ago

lumberjack 11y ago
Content optimized to generate revenue through direct payments will be of higher quality than content optimized to generate ad revenue. For example a paid search engine would display the most accurate results instead of those results that are quasi accurate but most likely to generate ad revenue. Also.on such an internet it would be easier to get users to pay for content because there would be infrastructure in.place and it would be the norm.
pdkl95 11y ago
I will. I will also enjoy watching a large amount of "content" find out exactly how much they were actually worth.
- owenwil 11y ago
  There's definitely a shakeout coming among publishers and I won't deny that's a good thing, especially with all the clickbait out there now. It's just a shame the bad players have ruined free content for everyone else by slathering bad advertising everywhere.
  - commentzorro 11y ago
    The clickbait sites will do fine. The folks reading these sites on a regular basis are going to keep reading these site because they like the material. And these same people don't run ad blockers. These are the people that click on the first thing that comes up in google because it's the first thing that shows up. They don't know, than after being told, don't care that the first thing that comes up is an ad. And they are the majority of the population.
louhike 11y ago
I consider paywalls to be a good solution. I'd rather pay with my money than having to see ads. I even think it is more sane for websites as they are not reliants on the companies provding the ads, avoiding some corruption.
- Killswitch 11y ago
  I don't know man, I visit sometimes hundreds of sites a day, if I had to pay even $1/day to visit a site, I'd be paying hundreds of dollars a day. I'd rather view an ad. I already pay out the ass for internet. I don't need to pay to view content on the internet too.
  - paulddraper 11y ago
    "pay out the a" is an odd expression. It seems what you are paying isn't worth very much (i.e. a pile of worthless s)
    - Killswitch 11y ago
      It isn't. I pay $65/mo for "up to 50Mbps" internet. I am paying no less than $1.3/mo per Mbps.
  - louhike 11y ago
    You could pay for some websites and be limited by a paywall for the others. And the content on the internet has nothing to do with your ISP so I have somme difficulty understanding your argument "I don't need to pay to view content on the internet too.".
    - Killswitch 11y ago
      Meaning, a paywall everywhere is not a smart thing to do. Yes I know content is independent of ISP, that's why I accept ads. Because that's how content producers afford to give you content without charging you.
  - tbabb 11y ago
    The value of your view is closer to 0.1 cents. So 100 web clicks a day would cost about a dime to remove ads.
anonymfus 11y ago
The good way to avoid the future of pay walls is to share content. Users must bankrupt major copyright holders and media monopolies to stop them influencing laws and technology.
- reacweb 11y ago
  Welcome to Kopimism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism
- bovermyer 11y ago
  And if everyone shares all content for free and all copyright goes away, how do you expect independent authors and artists to get enough money to, y'know, live?
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    A basic income that's going to need to exist for most of the population regardless?
    - bovermyer 11y ago
      That will require a socialist restructuring of America, which while greatly needed, is never going to happen.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        Except that a large majority of the US population is already moving towards Social Security and Medicare. As more of the population is covered by them, it becomes trivial to cover the remaining populace not on them.
anc84 11y ago
I think that would also imply a reduction in clickbait so I will!
x1024 11y ago
That's only a scary threat to people who are afraid of spending money.
- frobozz 11y ago
  It's scary to people who are uncomfortable spending money sight-unseen on non-refundable goods with no guarantee of fitness-for-purpose and insufficient information to make educated estimations of the value of said goods. That should be just about everyone who hasn't money to burn. It's also scary to anyone considering breaking into the market. I certainly wouldn't pay to read content written by someone I've never heard of, published by a company I've never heard of, without a very compelling reason, such as a strong recommendation from someone whom I trust to have appropriate opinions on that specific kind of content. It's also scary to anyone who hopes that the Internet could help to break the echo chamber effect. If my online reading is confined to what I'm willing to pay for (and indeed, to what I'm willing the author/publisher to be paid for, which is a subtly different thing), then my exposure to conflicting views is going to be restricted.
- dwild 11y ago
  Or anyone under 18 years old. I learned so much on the internet, forum, learning website, etc... theses were living out of ads, they still do and in fact there multiple one that I was using when I was young that are now real enterprise and make quite a bit of money from theses ads. Now that I'm an adult, I'm happy to pay for content but that wasn't possible for me younger.
mahranch 11y ago
> Enjoy your future of pay walls! I love how people say "I will!" For starters, most won't. These are people who tend to be ideological and naive kids who probably still have their parents paying their bills. Or they don't really fully understand what the implications are. Also, subscription models have proven to be poor solutions and don't work very well at best, and at worst, completely fail taking the website with it. Another thing, what about poor people? We talk about how people "are happy to pay for content they like!" Only, there are going to be a massive amount of people who simply can't afford to use the internet that way. If the entire internet turned into "pay as you go", the poor & working class are screwed. They're the ones who are going to be the hardest hit. Not just poor people in the U.S but what about all that traffic from other countries? And there is a lot of it... That's a lot of people who used to be able to keep up with current events, study science, math, history (educate themselves), chat on forums, make new friends, play games who now can't, because they can't afford it. To me, that's a shame. A travesty even if you take into account the educational aspect. I feel like the people who push for the paywall & a la carte type solutions don't really consider the full implications of their suggestions. I mean, I thought about it myself the last time it came up on hackernews for weeks, no, months and I still have no clue how the internet would evolve as a result. And what little I did conclude wasn't good. Yet these people seem to be so certain...
- 746F7475 11y ago
  Majority of people aren't blocking ads and considering how low ad revenues are while the amount of ads blocked might seem high it doesn't really affect the revenue as much as advertisers like to suggest.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  I've already addressed your claims in this thread, but as for these new arguments: > most won't This is an unsubstantiated claim. > subscription models have proven to be poor solutions Really? I guess you haven't seen the people that have moved from youtube to twitch.tv (because of the subscriptions) and patreon. > what about poor people? Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit, it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free. As we have repeatedly discussed on HN, if it's free, you are the product[1]. Moving to explicit payments - or other forms of funding - is a huge improvement over taking advantage of the ignorance most people have about what they are paying for "free" content. > study science, math, history (educate themselves) Do academic websites have ads in your world? Does wikipedia? You seem to have a very inaccurate view of what is available on the internet. [1] https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#balkan https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...
DavideNL 11y ago
That's exactly the point, i rather see nothing at all (if i don't have the budget to pay for something) rather than getting drained by all the advertising distractions, and i suspect many people feel the same.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
NumberCruncher 11y ago
It´s not about pay walls. For example: I want to rent a flat and I´m ready to spend 30% of my mothly net salary so I go online and what do I see? 6 different irrelevant ads. And this is a site, where the the landlords have to pay for placing their adverts. I want to go to the cinema and check out online the program. What do I see? 2 irrelevant ads on the site, one more before the trailer and if I buy a ticket I get in the cinema 30-40 mins of bullshit ads before the movie begins. This is really distracting.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Oh god, I really hate the cinema ads. I've already paid for the damn thing! Obviously I didn't pay enough, or I wouldn't be seeing ads, but it's still frustrating. I guess it was either ads or a price increase. Those are easy to block, though, just arrive 8 minutes late.
SixSigma 11y ago
I paid for my TV channel and it still shows me ads!
gglitch 11y ago
For me, precise and binding terms of service are what's at issue. When people start forking over dollars, they will be more sensitized to precisely what's being exchanged. They way the deal is structured now, they're implicitly agreeing, usually without knowing about it in the first place, to give over an unspecified amount and type of information to an unspecified set of businesses who will be licensed to use it in unspecified ways for an unspecified period of time. That's just stupid. I'd be all for an advertising-based model if there were precise terms of service that would be binding for both parties. Until then, I cannot prove that I'm not being screwed now or later by someone completely unrelated to the content I'm trying to read.
mandor 11y ago
A while ago, Internet was about people sharing things, freely. And it was an interesting place! Not all the content has to be written by professional writers and a lot of code is actually written for free by volunteers...

Enjoy your future of pay walls!

by owenwil 11y ago

Enjoy your future of pay walls!

Content optimized to generate revenue through direct payments will be of higher quality than content optimized to generate ad revenue. For example a paid search engine would display the most accurate results instead of those results that are quasi accurate but most likely to generate ad revenue. Also.on such an internet it would be easier to get users to pay for content because there would be infrastructure in.place and it would be the norm.

pdkl95 11y ago

I will. I will also enjoy watching a large amount of "content" find out exactly how much they were actually worth.

owenwil 11y ago
There's definitely a shakeout coming among publishers and I won't deny that's a good thing, especially with all the clickbait out there now. It's just a shame the bad players have ruined free content for everyone else by slathering bad advertising everywhere.
- commentzorro 11y ago
  The clickbait sites will do fine. The folks reading these sites on a regular basis are going to keep reading these site because they like the material. And these same people don't run ad blockers. These are the people that click on the first thing that comes up in google because it's the first thing that shows up. They don't know, than after being told, don't care that the first thing that comes up is an ad. And they are the majority of the population.

louhike 11y ago

I consider paywalls to be a good solution. I'd rather pay with my money than having to see ads. I even think it is more sane for websites as they are not reliants on the companies provding the ads, avoiding some corruption.

Killswitch 11y ago
I don't know man, I visit sometimes hundreds of sites a day, if I had to pay even $1/day to visit a site, I'd be paying hundreds of dollars a day. I'd rather view an ad. I already pay out the ass for internet. I don't need to pay to view content on the internet too.
- paulddraper 11y ago
  "pay out the a" is an odd expression. It seems what you are paying isn't worth very much (i.e. a pile of worthless s)
  - Killswitch 11y ago
    It isn't. I pay $65/mo for "up to 50Mbps" internet. I am paying no less than $1.3/mo per Mbps.
- louhike 11y ago
  You could pay for some websites and be limited by a paywall for the others. And the content on the internet has nothing to do with your ISP so I have somme difficulty understanding your argument "I don't need to pay to view content on the internet too.".
  - Killswitch 11y ago
    Meaning, a paywall everywhere is not a smart thing to do. Yes I know content is independent of ISP, that's why I accept ads. Because that's how content producers afford to give you content without charging you.
- tbabb 11y ago
  The value of your view is closer to 0.1 cents. So 100 web clicks a day would cost about a dime to remove ads.

anonymfus 11y ago

The good way to avoid the future of pay walls is to share content. Users must bankrupt major copyright holders and media monopolies to stop them influencing laws and technology.

reacweb 11y ago
Welcome to Kopimism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism
bovermyer 11y ago
And if everyone shares all content for free and all copyright goes away, how do you expect independent authors and artists to get enough money to, y'know, live?
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  A basic income that's going to need to exist for most of the population regardless?
  - bovermyer 11y ago
    That will require a socialist restructuring of America, which while greatly needed, is never going to happen.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      Except that a large majority of the US population is already moving towards Social Security and Medicare. As more of the population is covered by them, it becomes trivial to cover the remaining populace not on them.

anc84 11y ago

I think that would also imply a reduction in clickbait so I will!

x1024 11y ago

That's only a scary threat to people who are afraid of spending money.

frobozz 11y ago
It's scary to people who are uncomfortable spending money sight-unseen on non-refundable goods with no guarantee of fitness-for-purpose and insufficient information to make educated estimations of the value of said goods. That should be just about everyone who hasn't money to burn. It's also scary to anyone considering breaking into the market. I certainly wouldn't pay to read content written by someone I've never heard of, published by a company I've never heard of, without a very compelling reason, such as a strong recommendation from someone whom I trust to have appropriate opinions on that specific kind of content. It's also scary to anyone who hopes that the Internet could help to break the echo chamber effect. If my online reading is confined to what I'm willing to pay for (and indeed, to what I'm willing the author/publisher to be paid for, which is a subtly different thing), then my exposure to conflicting views is going to be restricted.
dwild 11y ago
Or anyone under 18 years old. I learned so much on the internet, forum, learning website, etc... theses were living out of ads, they still do and in fact there multiple one that I was using when I was young that are now real enterprise and make quite a bit of money from theses ads. Now that I'm an adult, I'm happy to pay for content but that wasn't possible for me younger.

mahranch 11y ago

> Enjoy your future of pay walls! I love how people say "I will!" For starters, most won't. These are people who tend to be ideological and naive kids who probably still have their parents paying their bills. Or they don't really fully understand what the implications are. Also, subscription models have proven to be poor solutions and don't work very well at best, and at worst, completely fail taking the website with it. Another thing, what about poor people? We talk about how people "are happy to pay for content they like!" Only, there are going to be a massive amount of people who simply can't afford to use the internet that way. If the entire internet turned into "pay as you go", the poor & working class are screwed. They're the ones who are going to be the hardest hit. Not just poor people in the U.S but what about all that traffic from other countries? And there is a lot of it... That's a lot of people who used to be able to keep up with current events, study science, math, history (educate themselves), chat on forums, make new friends, play games who now can't, because they can't afford it. To me, that's a shame. A travesty even if you take into account the educational aspect. I feel like the people who push for the paywall & a la carte type solutions don't really consider the full implications of their suggestions. I mean, I thought about it myself the last time it came up on hackernews for weeks, no, months and I still have no clue how the internet would evolve as a result. And what little I did conclude wasn't good. Yet these people seem to be so certain...

746F7475 11y ago
Majority of people aren't blocking ads and considering how low ad revenues are while the amount of ads blocked might seem high it doesn't really affect the revenue as much as advertisers like to suggest.
pdkl95 11y ago
I've already addressed your claims in this thread, but as for these new arguments: > most won't This is an unsubstantiated claim. > subscription models have proven to be poor solutions Really? I guess you haven't seen the people that have moved from youtube to twitch.tv (because of the subscriptions) and patreon. > what about poor people? Not only is this a cheap emotional gambit, it pre-supposes that they are currently getting content for free. As we have repeatedly discussed on HN, if it's free, you are the product[1]. Moving to explicit payments - or other forms of funding - is a huge improvement over taking advantage of the ignorance most people have about what they are paying for "free" content. > study science, math, history (educate themselves) Do academic websites have ads in your world? Does wikipedia? You seem to have a very inaccurate view of what is available on the internet. [1] https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#balkan https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...

DavideNL 11y ago

That's exactly the point, i rather see nothing at all (if i don't have the budget to pay for something) rather than getting drained by all the advertising distractions, and i suspect many people feel the same.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

NumberCruncher 11y ago

It´s not about pay walls. For example: I want to rent a flat and I´m ready to spend 30% of my mothly net salary so I go online and what do I see? 6 different irrelevant ads. And this is a site, where the the landlords have to pay for placing their adverts. I want to go to the cinema and check out online the program. What do I see? 2 irrelevant ads on the site, one more before the trailer and if I buy a ticket I get in the cinema 30-40 mins of bullshit ads before the movie begins. This is really distracting.

StavrosK 11y ago
Oh god, I really hate the cinema ads. I've already paid for the damn thing! Obviously I didn't pay enough, or I wouldn't be seeing ads, but it's still frustrating. I guess it was either ads or a price increase. Those are easy to block, though, just arrive 8 minutes late.

SixSigma 11y ago

I paid for my TV channel and it still shows me ads!

gglitch 11y ago

For me, precise and binding terms of service are what's at issue. When people start forking over dollars, they will be more sensitized to precisely what's being exchanged. They way the deal is structured now, they're implicitly agreeing, usually without knowing about it in the first place, to give over an unspecified amount and type of information to an unspecified set of businesses who will be licensed to use it in unspecified ways for an unspecified period of time. That's just stupid. I'd be all for an advertising-based model if there were precise terms of service that would be binding for both parties. Until then, I cannot prove that I'm not being screwed now or later by someone completely unrelated to the content I'm trying to read.

mandor 11y ago

A while ago, Internet was about people sharing things, freely. And it was an interesting place! Not all the content has to be written by professional writers and a lot of code is actually written for free by volunteers...