5 ms·

> What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. Former news editor here. I have spent a loooong time thinking

by jawns 9y ago

> What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. Former news editor here. I have spent a loooong time thinking about how to help my beloved news industry find a payment model that works. I've become convinced that a "cable subscription" model has more promise than a micropayments model. Here's what's wrong with a micropayments model. Each microtransaction is an additional cost incurred by the user, and in many models that cost can vary based on the website visited and other factors. And so every single time you choose to engage in a microtransaction, you have to do some brief mental gymnastics to determine whether the transaction is valuable enough to you to proceed. It may be only a few cents, so for many people it's not a big deliberation, but the decision is always there, every time. The benefit of this approach is that there's very little economic waste involved; you pay only for what you buy. But it encourages stingy, penny-pinching behavior, and that's horrible for adoption. If you want broad, mass-market support, it's a big problem. Under the cable subscription model, you pay a fixed monthly fee for access to a large number of "channels," and in return you can access those channels as much as you want. Under the hood, that subscription fee can be doled out to each channel based on how much it's accessed, or divided equally, or by some other method in between. But to the end user, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet, and they just don't need to think about it. Part of the fee they're paying is for content itself and part of it is for the convenience of not having to regulate usage. The downside of this approach is that there's more economic waste involved; some light users won't get their money's worth and will end up subsidizing heavy users. But it discourages stingy behavior, and that's great for adoption. Later on down the line, once the cable-subscription model has been widely adopted, the market will eventually demand more a la carte payment models (we see this happening right now in the fairly mature cable television industry). But for right now, widespread adoption should be the primary focus of any online payment model. Ultimately, a good number of the major U.S. news publishers would need to get on board, and to date they have been relatively unwilling to cooperate (which may be due to regulatory hurdles). But I'm pretty sure that's what needs to happen. Less sure whether it will be enough to save the industry.

tpeo 9y ago
Why not both?
test6554 9y ago
I think you make some good points, but couldn't someone just buy 20 or 50 article credits from you in a single transaction and then choose which articles they want to use their credits on (no time limit and no counting credits toward articles they don't specifically say they want to use a credit for).
- jawns 9y ago
  That's the way most micropayment systems currently work. No, it doesn't solve the problem, because really all you're doing is exchanging dollars for credits. You still have to decide, every time, whether you want to spend a certain number of credits to view a certain piece of content.
  - test6554 9y ago
    Users who purchased the credits go from unknown prospects to customers. All transaction fees are consolidated for better efficiency. From that point on, you are servicing a known paying customer rather than spending effort selling your wares. Each transaction that starts from a known person rather than an unknown user means the friction of that transaction can be much lower. The user can simply click "read this article (1 credit)" while logged in. Then the article becomes accessible to them forever. They can read it as long as they are logged in. As time goes on, you can increase the cost of credits to meet your needs, but outstanding credits are always honored, and purchased articles are always accessible in the user's "library".
mabub24 9y ago
How common, if at all, were you contacted by patrons willing to fund your newspaper or news organization? Do any news organizations operate off of endowments, or trusts, like colleges? (I guess that leads to another question, are there national news organizations that are non-profits as well?)
amelius 9y ago
That's the model used by Flattr [1]. They started years ago. Not sure why adoption is taking so long. > Flattr is a browser add-on that intelligently measures your interaction with content on the websites you visit, and then automatically distributes the right amount of funds to those sites you engage with the most. [1] https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/
- magic_beans 9y ago
  How on earth could flattr remain neutral? Who's to say they wouldn't give more weight to the New York Times if the NYT gave them a commission?
  - amelius 9y ago
    Well if they were not neutral, they would basically lose their business in the long run. It's like we trust Google not to sell our data to third parties directly (only indirectly).
- djhworld 9y ago
  I have some tabs in my browser open that remain there for months (poor tab hygiene), how does it account for that?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
satya71 9y ago
I fear that payments based on total number of access or usage would still encourage pandering to the base instincts as with advertising supported model. Payments need to be based on quality of work. The system should ensure that Alex Jones doesn't make much and ProPublica does well.
- jawns 9y ago
  Bear in mind that under the hood, how revenues are distributed in a "cable subscription" model can be as simple or as complex as you want. For instance, let's say you get 10 major publishers on board, and each of them has 25 regional properties. So that's subscriptions to 250 news sites total. Maybe a third of the total revenue gets split evenly among those 10 publishers, and another third gets split based on page views / engagement. Then one-sixth gets distributed based on Pulitzers or other quality-type metrics, and one-six gets distributed based on number of new subscribers brought in by the publisher. Then the publisher can decide how it wants to allocate that revenue. It might employ a similar system to decide how to distribute it to each of its properties. Then the editor can employ a similar system to decide how to allocate the budget to clickbait vs. substantive reporting.
codazoda 9y ago
How about time based micro payments? If I only read the first paragraph or two, I only pay a few cents. If I continue reading, I pay more. Articles, then, would have to be written to pull the reader into the piece and keep her there. Just a thought I've had. Not sure how well it would work in practice.
zackmorris 9y ago
I agree with your analysis. The current (and biggest IMHO) problem with journalism in the US is that it's coupled with advertising and so inevitably has an element of corporate propaganda. The main way to combat that is to have the industry as a whole receive funding from a central source so that advertisers can't dictate what is acceptable to each reporting agency. This is why networks like PBS (which is largely publicly funded) and FSTV/LinkTV (which are funded by donations) have more investigative journalism and documentaries than networks like CNN or Fox News. I'd also like to see something like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine brought back for all media. So to receive funding from the central pool, some percentage of articles would have to be in the public good. That's a subjective thing to try to quantify, but, it could start with metrics like what percentage of articles have been verified as accurate or retracted - resulting in some kind of journalistic standard rating. I'm not a journalist, but I've been thinking about the problem of micropayments for things like open source software for a long time as well. There may be a solution that would work well for both specialties, as they seem to be getting left behind by purely free market forces.
- jawns 9y ago
  If you're worried about propaganda and bias, getting the majority of funding from a central source sounds like a really bad way to go. Look at all the state-funded media in other countries. Guess how critical of the government they are? While it's true that advertisers may exert some pressure on publishers (and corporate consolidation has made this worse), it's far better to have hundreds of advertisers, any single one of whom you can freely tick off, than to have a single large benefactor whom you can't. Even if the benefactor is largely benevolent and hands-off, it's not something you should bank on.
  - jfoutz 9y ago
    You're right. Newshour is notorious for heavily biased poorly researched 'news'. What little i've seen of the BBC is pretty shameful as well. We're fortunate in the western world to have a free press that delivers such deep, thoughtful, even handed and well researched news. Can you imagine how horrible the situation in puerto rico would be today without that coverage? I'd say the U.S.'s deft handling of Iraq and Afghanistan are direct consequences of the quality of our news.
mindcrime 9y ago
Former news editor here. I have spent a loooong time thinking about how to help my beloved news industry find a payment model that works. I've become convinced that a "cable subscription" model has more promise than a micropayments model. That's a good point, and I started to mention that earlier myself. But not having any experience in the news industry, my first thought was that publishers might not want that kind of model. My thinking was that some publishers might look at it as effectively "revenue sharing" (and I guess it would actually be so in many ways) and having some outlets subsidize others. Under the cable subscription model, you pay a fixed monthly fee for access to a large number of "channels," and in return you can access those channels as much as you want. Under the hood, that subscription fee can be doled out to each channel based on how much it's accessed, or divided equally, or by some other method in between. But to the end user, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet, and they just don't need to think about it. Part of the fee they're paying is for content itself and part of it is for the convenience of not having to regulate usage. I could see this working as long as there aren't too many such services, or we're back to just a variation on the first problem. Much like I subscribe to multiple streaming providers (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.) I could see paying for maybe 3 or 4 such services, if the content quality justifies it. Something that might work is something like what Prime does... you pay your base Prime fee, you get a bunch of free stuff, and then you can add on "add-ons" that are, relatively speaking, fairly inexpensive. Amazon has suckered me into about 7 or 8 "add ons" to my Prime account, including HBO, Showtime, Shudder, and several more. Since each is fairly cheap in isolation, it's been easy to click the "add this" button. Now if I sat down and did the math to see how much I'm actually paying Amazon a month, I might start looking to cut some, but up to this point, I haven't...

by jawns 9y ago

tpeo 9y ago

Why not both?

test6554 9y ago

I think you make some good points, but couldn't someone just buy 20 or 50 article credits from you in a single transaction and then choose which articles they want to use their credits on (no time limit and no counting credits toward articles they don't specifically say they want to use a credit for).

jawns 9y ago
That's the way most micropayment systems currently work. No, it doesn't solve the problem, because really all you're doing is exchanging dollars for credits. You still have to decide, every time, whether you want to spend a certain number of credits to view a certain piece of content.
- test6554 9y ago
  Users who purchased the credits go from unknown prospects to customers. All transaction fees are consolidated for better efficiency. From that point on, you are servicing a known paying customer rather than spending effort selling your wares. Each transaction that starts from a known person rather than an unknown user means the friction of that transaction can be much lower. The user can simply click "read this article (1 credit)" while logged in. Then the article becomes accessible to them forever. They can read it as long as they are logged in. As time goes on, you can increase the cost of credits to meet your needs, but outstanding credits are always honored, and purchased articles are always accessible in the user's "library".

mabub24 9y ago

How common, if at all, were you contacted by patrons willing to fund your newspaper or news organization? Do any news organizations operate off of endowments, or trusts, like colleges? (I guess that leads to another question, are there national news organizations that are non-profits as well?)

amelius 9y ago

That's the model used by Flattr [1]. They started years ago. Not sure why adoption is taking so long. > Flattr is a browser add-on that intelligently measures your interaction with content on the websites you visit, and then automatically distributes the right amount of funds to those sites you engage with the most. [1] https://flattr.com/ https://flattr.com/

magic_beans 9y ago
How on earth could flattr remain neutral? Who's to say they wouldn't give more weight to the New York Times if the NYT gave them a commission?
- amelius 9y ago
  Well if they were not neutral, they would basically lose their business in the long run. It's like we trust Google not to sell our data to third parties directly (only indirectly).
djhworld 9y ago
I have some tabs in my browser open that remain there for months (poor tab hygiene), how does it account for that?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

satya71 9y ago

I fear that payments based on total number of access or usage would still encourage pandering to the base instincts as with advertising supported model. Payments need to be based on quality of work. The system should ensure that Alex Jones doesn't make much and ProPublica does well.

jawns 9y ago
Bear in mind that under the hood, how revenues are distributed in a "cable subscription" model can be as simple or as complex as you want. For instance, let's say you get 10 major publishers on board, and each of them has 25 regional properties. So that's subscriptions to 250 news sites total. Maybe a third of the total revenue gets split evenly among those 10 publishers, and another third gets split based on page views / engagement. Then one-sixth gets distributed based on Pulitzers or other quality-type metrics, and one-six gets distributed based on number of new subscribers brought in by the publisher. Then the publisher can decide how it wants to allocate that revenue. It might employ a similar system to decide how to distribute it to each of its properties. Then the editor can employ a similar system to decide how to allocate the budget to clickbait vs. substantive reporting.

codazoda 9y ago

How about time based micro payments? If I only read the first paragraph or two, I only pay a few cents. If I continue reading, I pay more. Articles, then, would have to be written to pull the reader into the piece and keep her there. Just a thought I've had. Not sure how well it would work in practice.

zackmorris 9y ago

I agree with your analysis. The current (and biggest IMHO) problem with journalism in the US is that it's coupled with advertising and so inevitably has an element of corporate propaganda. The main way to combat that is to have the industry as a whole receive funding from a central source so that advertisers can't dictate what is acceptable to each reporting agency. This is why networks like PBS (which is largely publicly funded) and FSTV/LinkTV (which are funded by donations) have more investigative journalism and documentaries than networks like CNN or Fox News. I'd also like to see something like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine brought back for all media. So to receive funding from the central pool, some percentage of articles would have to be in the public good. That's a subjective thing to try to quantify, but, it could start with metrics like what percentage of articles have been verified as accurate or retracted - resulting in some kind of journalistic standard rating. I'm not a journalist, but I've been thinking about the problem of micropayments for things like open source software for a long time as well. There may be a solution that would work well for both specialties, as they seem to be getting left behind by purely free market forces.

jawns 9y ago
If you're worried about propaganda and bias, getting the majority of funding from a central source sounds like a really bad way to go. Look at all the state-funded media in other countries. Guess how critical of the government they are? While it's true that advertisers may exert some pressure on publishers (and corporate consolidation has made this worse), it's far better to have hundreds of advertisers, any single one of whom you can freely tick off, than to have a single large benefactor whom you can't. Even if the benefactor is largely benevolent and hands-off, it's not something you should bank on.
- jfoutz 9y ago
  You're right. Newshour is notorious for heavily biased poorly researched 'news'. What little i've seen of the BBC is pretty shameful as well. We're fortunate in the western world to have a free press that delivers such deep, thoughtful, even handed and well researched news. Can you imagine how horrible the situation in puerto rico would be today without that coverage? I'd say the U.S.'s deft handling of Iraq and Afghanistan are direct consequences of the quality of our news.

mindcrime 9y ago

Former news editor here. I have spent a loooong time thinking about how to help my beloved news industry find a payment model that works. I've become convinced that a "cable subscription" model has more promise than a micropayments model. That's a good point, and I started to mention that earlier myself. But not having any experience in the news industry, my first thought was that publishers might not want that kind of model. My thinking was that some publishers might look at it as effectively "revenue sharing" (and I guess it would actually be so in many ways) and having some outlets subsidize others. Under the cable subscription model, you pay a fixed monthly fee for access to a large number of "channels," and in return you can access those channels as much as you want. Under the hood, that subscription fee can be doled out to each channel based on how much it's accessed, or divided equally, or by some other method in between. But to the end user, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet, and they just don't need to think about it. Part of the fee they're paying is for content itself and part of it is for the convenience of not having to regulate usage. I could see this working as long as there aren't too many such services, or we're back to just a variation on the first problem. Much like I subscribe to multiple streaming providers (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.) I could see paying for maybe 3 or 4 such services, if the content quality justifies it. Something that might work is something like what Prime does... you pay your base Prime fee, you get a bunch of free stuff, and then you can add on "add-ons" that are, relatively speaking, fairly inexpensive. Amazon has suckered me into about 7 or 8 "add ons" to my Prime account, including HBO, Showtime, Shudder, and several more. Since each is fairly cheap in isolation, it's been easy to click the "add this" button. Now if I sat down and did the math to see how much I'm actually paying Amazon a month, I might start looking to cut some, but up to this point, I haven't...