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This is a detailed response that my off-the-cuff idea doesn't really deserve, haha :sweat_smile: I'll try and give more shape to what I had in mind with my res

This is a detailed response that my off-the-cuff idea doesn't really deserve, haha :sweat_smile: I'll try and give more shape to what I had in mind with my responses. > mandating that an ISP must track every single website someone visits is a huge privacy problem that people like me would never support I would also never advocate or support this, and I'm firmly in favor of an anonymous web. I think that's a separate issue though, and for this purpose I'm comfortable hand-waving and saying, "well hits would be anonymous with some way of distinguishing unique traffic", which is currently accomplished by existing online advertising tech. Sure it's got problems (can you trust it etc.) but that's again a broader discussion. > First, the math gets really weird. I fully admit to spending 3 minutes on the math. My general idea is that every content provider should get some baseline, and that popular content providers should get more. Whatever formula achieves those goals with the least perverse incentives is fine by me. > people are spending more time online and they're spending more of it on Netflix I agree this is disconcerting from a content-provider point of view, but I would argue a couple points: - There's still a ceiling: 24 hours a day * number of total internet users. The Netflix guy was saying their main competitor is sleep. I think these incentives are unhealthy, and I think we should entertain things like a ceiling, or an additional weighting (subsidy) for educational or civic content -- that a lot of Netflix content would certainly fall under by the way -- but at some point we reach peak saturation, so I don't think this is a huge concern. - You didn't explicitly state this, but I agree that Netflix is harder on an ISP than your average news site. I'm also fine with a weight for bandwidth or latency requirements, but one that's also progressive to avoid ladder-kicking (a video startup with 100 users shouldn't pay the same bandwidth penalty as Netflix with 3456789876567898 users). > So... what's a site visit? This is a fair question, and my unsatisfactory answer is "ehh, I don't really know". I don't think that spending an hour on nytimes.com, reading 10 articles, and generating 11 site hits is that different from spending two hours on washingtonpost.com, reading 8 articles, and generating 2 site hits because they've built an SPA (have they? I don't know it's an example). Which is to say I'm fine with a fuzzy but open algorithm for this. Mindful of gaming blah blah etc. > Ignoring problems like that (and I think there are more that we could go into) what exactly is your goal? You're totally right that there are plenty of challenges. I'm not about to write papers or form an advocacy group or something. My goal is to give a very rough outline of a system whereby we can resume compensating content providers for their work. I think the (commercial content) web should function more or less like Spotify, and while I agree that you create incentives for vapid musical garbage or clickbait this way, I also think that's not different than any other content regime -- be it cable, Netflix, "real" newspapers vs. gossip magazines, and so on. I think "improving" (whatever we think that means) content quality is a stretch goal. I just want a path from here to Spotify for web content providers, and I think turning ISPs into Spotify is the way to do it.

danShumway 8y ago
Note that one important thing with Spotify is that musicians can choose whether or not they're available on it. We can't adopt the same model for ISPs unless we're comfortable with different portions of the web being available via different ISPs, which IMO would be a net negative. So whatever pricing model exists has to be a completely universal standard. ISPs can't decide not to pay it, and websites can't negotiate with ISPs for higher profit models. Well, OK, if a model like that exists, then sure, we can just all adopt it. But, the existence of a universal way to value content online and to measure engagement is not a problem that can be just glossed over. People like me would argue that formula probably isn't even possible to create. Brave is trying to create something like this with its attention token. I think they're incredibly naive, but they do have the huge advantage that they are only one company and you can decide whether or not you want to engage with them. Building it into the browser is... eh, problematic-ish. But it's a far cry from legislating it. Other people who disagree with Brave can iterate on their model, or go off and do something completely different. It's kind of like the Open Source philosophy. I'm allowed to do stupid things because it's easy for you to repurpose my work and then ignore me. ;) But when it's a standard, then I can't be stupid anymore. Then it needs to be right the first time. So in theory, if there exists a standard that everyone can agree on, I guess we could put that at the ISP level? But that feels like putting the cart before the horse to me.

danShumway 8y ago

Note that one important thing with Spotify is that musicians can choose whether or not they're available on it. We can't adopt the same model for ISPs unless we're comfortable with different portions of the web being available via different ISPs, which IMO would be a net negative. So whatever pricing model exists has to be a completely universal standard. ISPs can't decide not to pay it, and websites can't negotiate with ISPs for higher profit models. Well, OK, if a model like that exists, then sure, we can just all adopt it. But, the existence of a universal way to value content online and to measure engagement is not a problem that can be just glossed over. People like me would argue that formula probably isn't even possible to create. Brave is trying to create something like this with its attention token. I think they're incredibly naive, but they do have the huge advantage that they are only one company and you can decide whether or not you want to engage with them. Building it into the browser is... eh, problematic-ish. But it's a far cry from legislating it. Other people who disagree with Brave can iterate on their model, or go off and do something completely different. It's kind of like the Open Source philosophy. I'm allowed to do stupid things because it's easy for you to repurpose my work and then ignore me. ;) But when it's a standard, then I can't be stupid anymore. Then it needs to be right the first time. So in theory, if there exists a standard that everyone can agree on, I guess we could put that at the ISP level? But that feels like putting the cart before the horse to me.