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I don’t want to pay for all the meals I eat, a large number of them are terrible... So I don’t go back. But you have to pay for what you eat.
by factotvm 7y ago
I don’t want to pay for all the meals I eat, a large number of them are terrible... So I don’t go back. But you have to pay for what you eat.
- pixl97 7y agoNa, I go in and buy a cooked fish then split it among thousands like a digital Jesus.
- mirimir 7y agoOh. I did read your comment before posting mine, and laughed. But just now I see that you suggested the same approach. How embarrassing.
- mirimir 7y agoWith the monthly digital subscription model, you end up paying for all you could possibly ever eat. Most of which you could never eat. Unless you automated the "eating", and resold what you didn't need. Which is disgusting, and in the case of online media, almost certainly illegal. But that is an interesting idea. Buy digital subscriptions to every media outlet that you'd ever want to read, and resell page views, using some sort of proxy setup. And yeah, illegal as hell.
- pessimizer 7y agoA lot of articles don't nourish me, they make me stupider. I wouldn't pay for a poisoned meal.
- the_trapper 7y agoTo continue this analogy. When I go to a restaurant and order a steak I don't get told by the waiter that I should really be eating vegan gluten free instead. What really bothers me the most about modern "news" is that a lot of it is really just biased political commentary and editorials masquerading as news.
- ehnto 7y agoOr just as insidious, thinly veiled advertisements.
- asark 7y agoBiased political commentary's better than armchair political campaign strategy commentary and horserace-style campaign coverage. At least that's about something that might matter. Looking at you, NPR.
- tmcronn 7y agoIt's no secret that many news articles these days are simply paid advertisements. Generally, I avoid the Big N mainstream "news providers" and stick to some combo of HN, twitter and reddit just to name a few.
- mcphage 7y ago> What really bothers me the most about modern "news" Wait until you learn about the origin of the term "yellow journalism".
- factotvm 7y agoI know of no restaurants that would charge you if you got food poisoning. But saying that when you ordered a colossal burger it went straight to your waistline isn't a good excuse not to pay. Don't go in if you don't want to pay.
- MRD85 7y agoI doesn't physically cost any practical amount of money to read an article, a tiny amount of processing power and data transfer. A physical meal costs orders of magnitude more. I understand why we should pay for articles but if you enforce payment then you'll see a flood of poorly written click bait and a race to the bottom.
- factotvm 7y agoIm not suggesting that it will work (to pay per article as we’re describing). But the idea that you should get something for free because you don’t like it isn’t how most things work. Caveat emptor. Conversely, people said it didn’t cost any practical amount of money to listen to music, yet Spotify thrives.
- pixl97 7y agoSpotify thrives because it is more convenient than piracy.
- factotvm 7y agoAnd what is more convenient than an ad blocker?
- mdorazio 7y agoFWIW, "I didn't like it" returns culture has been growing in the US for a while. If you've ever run an Amazon seller account, you'll have gotten plenty of returns from customers for no reason other than that they didn't like the thing they bought or it "didn't meet expectations". The Costco returns line is also packed with people doing this. Point is, the mindset of not paying for something because you didn't like it is quickly making its way into the physical goods world as well, so it's not as simple as shooting down this digital goods mindset entirely.
- xur17 7y agoWhat about payment with a refund option? Obviously this could be abused (and likely would be), but I'd think most people would only use the refund option if the article was truly terrible / clickbait.