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Cognitive Load -- TL;DR: this continues to compound the cognitive overload of payment for content. Under Brin's system, now I've got to: Decide if I want

Cognitive Load -- TL;DR: this continues to compound the cognitive overload of payment for content. Under Brin's system, now I've got to: Decide if I want to read something. Decide if I want to pay for reading something. Decide if I've got buyer's remorse for having paid for something, and if so, Wrestle with the vendor's reimbursement system in the event of any dispute.1 1) Happens no matter what. 2) Can be automatic, so no decision applies. If the cost is low enough, it could just amount to some slightly varying small amount that gets auto-paid every month. It would be just like FastTrak toll payment -- something I don't really think about. 3) and 4) I don't think like this with regard to Patreon. If I decide a creator doesn't deserve my money anymore, I just stop paying them. I really couldn't give a rat's ass about the $1 I sent them last month. So fundamentally at odds with information goods, particularly in mass media -- Wat!? Where is the evidence? Is Netflix massively out-earning Amazon Prime Video? If this was the case, why did video rental ever happen, and how does RedBox still exist? How does Steam and the Apple App Store exist and make money, for that matter? Apps and video games are just media, after all.

dredmorbius 10y ago
Fair questions. I've addressed a number of these in existing articles concerning information and markets. A search of my subreddit turns up most of these: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=information+markets&restrict_sr=on https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=information+ma... Specific to your questions: 1. The problem with per-article paid access is that the question of access is tied to the question of cost. I'm working at a scale of information where I'm looking at thousands of books and articles. The overhead is nontrivial. A library model -- where you simply have stacks access and don't pay per item viewed -- works out quite well. A rental model, where you're aware that each item carries some access cost, however low: $10, $1, $0.10, $0.1 -- adds up. For much of the world, any per-item cost is high. The Internet offers us several such "library" models --Sci-Hub, LibGen, and BookZZ each provided unencumbered access to massive troves of published material. Extralegally. Yes, you might find some way of wedging a paid-access metering model onto this, but to what end? Consider that the average American spends something on the order of $200 on direct media purchases (books, magazines, music, video) in a year, and an indirect $600 or so in advertising. Which has all kinds of distortionary effects on what is available, or produced. There are ~300k writers and editors in the country, whose core need is to a) keep a roof over their head and food on the table and b) have the tools for writing available to them. Seems to me that cutting out the inefficiencies and distortions of advertising would be a net win. Your 2) is false: at some point, I've got to consciously decide whether or not I'm paying for content. Otherwise you're making a sham of the concept of a discretionary payment system. For 3 & 4: it depends on what the granularity of the system is, on both payments and units of consumption. First, with Patreon, you aren't paying for access to individual items of content, for the most part. The models vary, but range from "I'm pitching in to support someon I believe in" to "I'm gaining time-based channel access". There's a word for that last, it's call a subscription. And subscription-based media access ... is very much a thing. There's an entire industry that grew up around this, at a previous time when per-item access to media was expensive, and the joint problems of "how do I sample the wares" (for audiences) and "how do we keep our authors fed , housed, and clothed" (for broadcasters) came up. The answer was the literary or publisher's magazine. This was a regularly-produced (weekly, monthly, quarterly) publication, with a stable of writers, a compilation of works included with each issue, often publishing longer works in serial form, etc., etc. It served as an advertisement for long-form books, should subscribers choose to buy them. It mitigated the risks (and bundled purchasing decisions), at the level of multiple authors (anywhere from a handful to 100s), on an annual basis, and generally offered something in any given issue worth reading. It wasn't until the 1860s or so that additional advertising (beyond the books and publications themselves) became a significant component, though that grew rapidly through the last half of the 19th century. Hamilton Holt's Commercialism and Journalism, 1909, covers this in a brief 115 page booklet (available at the Internet Archive). (Holt was a magazine publisher, reporting on the industry.) I see the present situation of one in which the question of where and how the bundling size has changed, and is shaking out. The previous regime served the needs and limits of paper-based publication, as well as vinyl & CD-based audio, and VCR and DVD-based video. In a world of ubiquitous digital distribution, those limits and gateways no longer exist. And information is a public good, as Google's Chief Economist argues.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  1. The problem with per-article paid access is that the question of access is tied to the question of cost. I'm working at a scale of information where I'm looking at thousands Prices should be in tenths of a penny. Your 2) is false: at some point, I've got to consciously decide whether or not I'm paying for content. Otherwise you're making a sham of the concept of a discretionary payment system. Much as bundling has made a sham of cable programming consumer choice? Micropayments done correctly would pay directly per view. You'd exercise consumer choice by visiting or not visiting. If you're dissatisfied with a content producer, you stop visiting. If micropayments are measured in tenths of a penny, it's not even worth getting the refund. Instead of having your eyeballs paid for indirectly through advertisers, both viewers and advertisers can be bidding for your eyeballs. Long tail advertisers will be better served, and long tail consumers will be treated better by advertisers. For 3 & 4: it depends on what the granularity of the system...The answer was the literary or publisher's magazine. Note that digital goods aren't as limited in granularity as they were in the days of paper, vinyl, & CD. And information is a public good, as Google's Chief Economist argues. There are problems with advertisements paying for public goods. That's subject to its own kind of "Tradgedy of the Commons."
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    > Prices should be in tenths of a penny. Sorry, per item? Or graded in tenths of a cent? On what basis? What do you see a total spend being? What kind of income do authors, composers, filmakers receive? Independent of work length or effort? What works are you incentivising as a consequence? And again, to what end, and providing what kind of information structure. Think through the pricing system, because 1) this isn't trivial, 2) what you incentivise matters and 3) what matters, ultimately, is whether and how those who can write are paid relative to other options. > Micropayments ... would pay per view. Why is that a desireable objective? Should, say, healthcare, education, or fire prevention be paid on a per-service basis, by those who receive those services directly? Why or why not? What are the consequences of such a payments system? How do those consequences change with different social (or urban) environments, or shape those environments. Bonus: Look up Crassus. After you answer. Adjust accordingly, if you like. > Digital goods aren't limited in granularity... No, but attention is markedly finite. Purchase decisions are a high-attention action. > Advertising ... "Tragedy of the Commons" I'm generally familiar with advertising, and quite familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons. I don't see how these two go together.

dredmorbius 10y ago

Fair questions. I've addressed a number of these in existing articles concerning information and markets. A search of my subreddit turns up most of these: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=information+markets&restrict_sr=on https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=information+ma... Specific to your questions: 1. The problem with per-article paid access is that the question of access is tied to the question of cost. I'm working at a scale of information where I'm looking at thousands of books and articles. The overhead is nontrivial. A library model -- where you simply have stacks access and don't pay per item viewed -- works out quite well. A rental model, where you're aware that each item carries some access cost, however low: $10, $1, $0.10, $0.1 -- adds up. For much of the world, any per-item cost is high. The Internet offers us several such "library" models --Sci-Hub, LibGen, and BookZZ each provided unencumbered access to massive troves of published material. Extralegally. Yes, you might find some way of wedging a paid-access metering model onto this, but to what end? Consider that the average American spends something on the order of $200 on direct media purchases (books, magazines, music, video) in a year, and an indirect $600 or so in advertising. Which has all kinds of distortionary effects on what is available, or produced. There are ~300k writers and editors in the country, whose core need is to a) keep a roof over their head and food on the table and b) have the tools for writing available to them. Seems to me that cutting out the inefficiencies and distortions of advertising would be a net win. Your 2) is false: at some point, I've got to consciously decide whether or not I'm paying for content. Otherwise you're making a sham of the concept of a discretionary payment system. For 3 & 4: it depends on what the granularity of the system is, on both payments and units of consumption. First, with Patreon, you aren't paying for access to individual items of content, for the most part. The models vary, but range from "I'm pitching in to support someon I believe in" to "I'm gaining time-based channel access". There's a word for that last, it's call a subscription. And subscription-based media access ... is very much a thing. There's an entire industry that grew up around this, at a previous time when per-item access to media was expensive, and the joint problems of "how do I sample the wares" (for audiences) and "how do we keep our authors fed , housed, and clothed" (for broadcasters) came up. The answer was the literary or publisher's magazine. This was a regularly-produced (weekly, monthly, quarterly) publication, with a stable of writers, a compilation of works included with each issue, often publishing longer works in serial form, etc., etc. It served as an advertisement for long-form books, should subscribers choose to buy them. It mitigated the risks (and bundled purchasing decisions), at the level of multiple authors (anywhere from a handful to 100s), on an annual basis, and generally offered something in any given issue worth reading. It wasn't until the 1860s or so that additional advertising (beyond the books and publications themselves) became a significant component, though that grew rapidly through the last half of the 19th century. Hamilton Holt's Commercialism and Journalism, 1909, covers this in a brief 115 page booklet (available at the Internet Archive). (Holt was a magazine publisher, reporting on the industry.) I see the present situation of one in which the question of where and how the bundling size has changed, and is shaking out. The previous regime served the needs and limits of paper-based publication, as well as vinyl & CD-based audio, and VCR and DVD-based video. In a world of ubiquitous digital distribution, those limits and gateways no longer exist. And information is a public good, as Google's Chief Economist argues.

stcredzero 10y ago
1. The problem with per-article paid access is that the question of access is tied to the question of cost. I'm working at a scale of information where I'm looking at thousands Prices should be in tenths of a penny. Your 2) is false: at some point, I've got to consciously decide whether or not I'm paying for content. Otherwise you're making a sham of the concept of a discretionary payment system. Much as bundling has made a sham of cable programming consumer choice? Micropayments done correctly would pay directly per view. You'd exercise consumer choice by visiting or not visiting. If you're dissatisfied with a content producer, you stop visiting. If micropayments are measured in tenths of a penny, it's not even worth getting the refund. Instead of having your eyeballs paid for indirectly through advertisers, both viewers and advertisers can be bidding for your eyeballs. Long tail advertisers will be better served, and long tail consumers will be treated better by advertisers. For 3 & 4: it depends on what the granularity of the system...The answer was the literary or publisher's magazine. Note that digital goods aren't as limited in granularity as they were in the days of paper, vinyl, & CD. And information is a public good, as Google's Chief Economist argues. There are problems with advertisements paying for public goods. That's subject to its own kind of "Tradgedy of the Commons."
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  > Prices should be in tenths of a penny. Sorry, per item? Or graded in tenths of a cent? On what basis? What do you see a total spend being? What kind of income do authors, composers, filmakers receive? Independent of work length or effort? What works are you incentivising as a consequence? And again, to what end, and providing what kind of information structure. Think through the pricing system, because 1) this isn't trivial, 2) what you incentivise matters and 3) what matters, ultimately, is whether and how those who can write are paid relative to other options. > Micropayments ... would pay per view. Why is that a desireable objective? Should, say, healthcare, education, or fire prevention be paid on a per-service basis, by those who receive those services directly? Why or why not? What are the consequences of such a payments system? How do those consequences change with different social (or urban) environments, or shape those environments. Bonus: Look up Crassus. After you answer. Adjust accordingly, if you like. > Digital goods aren't limited in granularity... No, but attention is markedly finite. Purchase decisions are a high-attention action. > Advertising ... "Tragedy of the Commons" I'm generally familiar with advertising, and quite familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons. I don't see how these two go together.