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A company called Blendle tried this in the Netherlands. It didn’t work. Turns out you do not want to have to think after every headline and teaser whether you w

by mtts 5y ago

A company called Blendle tried this in the Netherlands. It didn’t work. Turns out you do not want to have to think after every headline and teaser whether you want to pay to read the full article.

notatoad 5y ago
The beauty of blendle was that you didn't have to think after every headline whether to pay to read the full article. They prominently had a refund option at the end of every article, so you could decide after you read the article whether it was worth the money or not. What killed blendle was the lack of newspapers willing to sign on, and the lack of integration for the few newspapers that actually did - if I was presented with a micropayment option instead of a $10/no paywall when I clicked a link to an article on Twitter, Facebook, or hacker news, it might work. But blendle payment was only an option if you found the article through the blendle website, and their website sucked.
- phreeza 5y ago
  Even with the refund it caused mental load I didn't like.
- mtts 5y ago
  Why would a newspaper send money to Blendle for a someone clicking a link directly to their own site?
  - detaro 5y ago
    to make money from the transaction?
  - notatoad 5y ago
    if they want to offer me a first-party micropayment i would also be open to that. but my point is i'm not going to buy a $10-15/mo subscription to some regional newspaper in the middle of nowhere just because i clicked a link on twitter or hacker news to the one article they publish this decade that might interest me. i would be willing to pay to read an article, but newspapers are leaving money on the table by only offering a monthly subscription option which is obviously unsuitable for social media traffic.
rchaud 5y ago
Makes perfect sense. I remember going to an amusement park or fair with my family and being given a small amount of money or tokens to spend. I'd enjoy myself, but I would be thinking about how to stretch out the tokens I had to maximize my experience. Few will have the patience for that when you're an adult. And especially when we're talking about pennies per article, for potentially a lot of articles.

by mtts 5y ago

A company called Blendle tried this in the Netherlands. It didn’t work. Turns out you do not want to have to think after every headline and teaser whether you want to pay to read the full article.

notatoad 5y ago

The beauty of blendle was that you didn't have to think after every headline whether to pay to read the full article. They prominently had a refund option at the end of every article, so you could decide after you read the article whether it was worth the money or not. What killed blendle was the lack of newspapers willing to sign on, and the lack of integration for the few newspapers that actually did - if I was presented with a micropayment option instead of a $10/no paywall when I clicked a link to an article on Twitter, Facebook, or hacker news, it might work. But blendle payment was only an option if you found the article through the blendle website, and their website sucked.

phreeza 5y ago
Even with the refund it caused mental load I didn't like.
mtts 5y ago
Why would a newspaper send money to Blendle for a someone clicking a link directly to their own site?
- detaro 5y ago
  to make money from the transaction?
- notatoad 5y ago
  if they want to offer me a first-party micropayment i would also be open to that. but my point is i'm not going to buy a $10-15/mo subscription to some regional newspaper in the middle of nowhere just because i clicked a link on twitter or hacker news to the one article they publish this decade that might interest me. i would be willing to pay to read an article, but newspapers are leaving money on the table by only offering a monthly subscription option which is obviously unsuitable for social media traffic.

rchaud 5y ago

Makes perfect sense. I remember going to an amusement park or fair with my family and being given a small amount of money or tokens to spend. I'd enjoy myself, but I would be thinking about how to stretch out the tokens I had to maximize my experience. Few will have the patience for that when you're an adult. And especially when we're talking about pennies per article, for potentially a lot of articles.