4 ms·
I wrote a response to this medium post, figured I'd copy it here since I'm unsure of the overlap in forum participants: I had an idea for a model last week tha
by gooseus 10y ago
I wrote a response to this medium post, figured I'd copy it here since I'm unsure of the overlap in forum participants:
I had an idea for a model last week that I think would be worth consideration. It’s sort of a Humble Bundle x Kickstarter x Patreon model.
I’m envisioning a system that allows consumers to pay what they want for access to the content they value, but also allows creators to establish a threshold point where the content would become freely available.
So Ev Williams does a bunch of research and writes an article and says “Awesome article Ev! I probably put 10 hours into it and if I got $500 in return for that work I’d be super psyched… but I also want EVERYONE to read my awesome article cause it’s important…”
I would propose a system by which the article is published with a paywall indicating that the article is only available to contributors until $500 threshold is reached. After the $500 threshold is reached, the article is released publicly and those contributors who paid get Patron/Contributor credits on the article (or some other social reward).
Consumers interested in AI will pay for AI content, those interested in Marketing will pay for marketing content and any content in any subject good enough to reach the threshold can be enjoyed by everyone.
This is off the cuff and I’m sure there are issues, but I think this category of model is worth exploring since it compensates creators for their work, allows eventual free distribution of information and doesn’t make the platform or creators beholden to advertisers.
- ews 10y agoNot a bad idea, I was working on something very very similar until few months ago.
- CodeTheInternet 10y ago> article is only available to contributors So contribute $1 then copy-paste to pastebin?
- gooseus 10y agoSure, just like signing up for a 30 day trial of Netflix and then ripping all the content to bit torrent. While I'm sure it's a concern I don't think Netflix looking to change their model over it. Good actors still outnumber bad actors.
- madgar 10y agoRipping from Netflix and sharing is hard. Total idiots can copy/paste articles. I see full paywalled articles copy/pasted into Reddit threads every day, and in hacker news threads about every week.
- gooseus 10y agoAgreed, but why do that when the paywall is designed only to make a set amount of money in total and then make it public for everyone? My assumption is that people release paywalled content free as as a form of protest, I would think that with the proper model piracy would be reduced to negligible harm. A twist on this model could also be to put a secondary release for the content that is time-based. So the content is going to be freely available no matter what, why pay even $1 to be Robin Hood when everyone is just going to need to wait a few days - week to get it?
- bdcravens 10y agoWouldn't 99% of content go unread? For those who would get readers, wouldn't most be willing to wait?
- gooseus 10y agoI think that would depend on the content and the reputation of the author. I think that this model would be optional per article... so if you don't have a following willing to compensate then you need to work on your craft till you do. Honestly, I can sit here and defend my idea all night but I really don't know what would happen. The only way to find out is for someone to test assumptions with an actual test and I ain't got time for that... Medium does though and they have the money and the resources and the imperative to try something new... so why not try it and see what happens?
- rokhayakebe 10y agoWould it mean 99% of all content is worthless then?
- bdcravens 10y agoNot necessarily, just unknown authors who may have a lot of great content, but would never achieve escape velocity for the world to discover them if there's a patron paywall in place.
- angry-hacker 10y agoInternet doesn't work that way and people don't want to pay, it's simple as that. Even HN readers avoid paywalls like plague. Just check every thread when it comes up. Internet is all about sharing and linking. Ads suck but this is the best model we have yet come up with the way we assume Internet works.
- greenleafjacob 10y agoI think there is something to micropayments here. The cost per incremental page view is extremely low, so the payment should be 2-3 orders of magnitude lower than it is now (more like $0.50 per month for 50 articles than $4/mo @ WSJ).
- spitfire 10y agoThat would put a ceiling but not a floor on what people can earn. Not saying it's unworkable, but just that it would have that effect.