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Low key this can be opportunity for micropayments; if website knows your interests it can offer you to unlock some of its content for something like $0.20. I ha

Low key this can be opportunity for micropayments; if website knows your interests it can offer you to unlock some of its content for something like $0.20. I had similar idea like this but not for web advertising but for micropayments and content unlocking.

acdha 5y ago
My fear is that very few people are actually willing to make micropayments, and publishers will continue to build their decision around ad sales. It'd be nice if there was a very easy micropayment option but if it didn't see substantial adoption I'm not sure many sites would consider it.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  I was thinking something like for example if my interests are Economics and I stumble upon paywalled article which is economic in nature website can say "This article matches your interest of Economics would you like to unlock it for $0.20?". I was aiming at paywalls because from my personal experience I bump into so many articles from variety of different websites that are behind paywalls that it is not feasible from consumer point of view to subscribe to dozens of publications when I read their articles every now and then and not all of them. So throwing a few cents(let's say from $0.05 to $0.20) for accessing an article wouldn't bother me. It would be something like PPV(pey per view) model. But now when I stumble upon an article which is behind paywall I can either choose to leave it or to view de facto pirated version on archive.is or on some other mirroring service.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Isn't this what Web3 is trying to introduce with integrated cryptowallets?
  - acdha 5y ago
    The problem is that it's really the other way around: what's being sold as web3 is a rebranding attempt to shed the bad reputation which cryptocurrencies developed and find new buyers. There are a number of hard problems in this space which are even harder to solve when your primary question is “how can I find someone to buy these otherwise worthless hashes?” rather than “what is a good solution for the user?”. In addition to the business model question about whether enough people would actually pay directly to make it worth building and participating in the system, there are also serious challenges around how to prevent blockchain privacy issues from turning it into a great tracking system, scaling the number of transactions the system is capable of up by many orders of magnitude, and dealing with various avenues for abuse.
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    Yea that was one of the intentions of Bitcoin.
canadianfella 5y ago
SahAssar 5y ago
> if website knows your interests it can offer you to unlock some of its content for something like $0.20 Why would a website need to know my interests for me to be able to pay for content?
- mrkramer 5y ago
  It is a UX trade-off; it's easier for the consumers to receive offers based on their preferences than it would be for them to seek out actively content that is interesting to them. My idea was when you are casually and randomly surfing the web you can receive offers to unlock some paywalled or premium content that would be appealing to you and otherwise locked and never accessed. The same concept is similar to advertising and particularly targeted advertising; why would advertisers spend millions and billions when consumers already know what they are interested in? It's not that easy because consumers experience Opportunity cost and Information asymmetry meaning they are simply not aware of everything that is available to them and when they are they do not quite know which product or service is better than the other and they have to choose atm which one to buy and which one they are not going to buy.
  - SahAssar 5y ago
    > My idea was when you are casually and randomly surfing the web you can receive offers to unlock some paywalled or premium content that would be appealing to you and otherwise locked and never accessed. I don't get the scenario, if I got linked a particular article then you already know what article I want to unlock. If I landed on the frontpage of the site then showing snippets/headlines/previews will guide me to what article I want to unlock. What is the scenario where there is no signal on what a visitor wants to read but that visitor would still be willing to pay for it?
    - mrkramer 5y ago
      The thing is now the only way to access that linked paywalled article is to subscribe to the publication, there in no way to pay to read only that particular article.
rchaud 5y ago
How exactly? The barrier to micropayments is friction. People don't want to have to put in a CC number or sign into Paypal to read a website. At the same time, publishers don't want to nickel and dime users, because the transaction costs of a $0.20 article aren't worth it. Google's changes don't affect either of these issues. The changes are purely about how audiences are targeted for Google ad products.

acdha 5y ago

My fear is that very few people are actually willing to make micropayments, and publishers will continue to build their decision around ad sales. It'd be nice if there was a very easy micropayment option but if it didn't see substantial adoption I'm not sure many sites would consider it.

mrkramer 5y ago
I was thinking something like for example if my interests are Economics and I stumble upon paywalled article which is economic in nature website can say "This article matches your interest of Economics would you like to unlock it for $0.20?". I was aiming at paywalls because from my personal experience I bump into so many articles from variety of different websites that are behind paywalls that it is not feasible from consumer point of view to subscribe to dozens of publications when I read their articles every now and then and not all of them. So throwing a few cents(let's say from $0.05 to $0.20) for accessing an article wouldn't bother me. It would be something like PPV(pey per view) model. But now when I stumble upon an article which is behind paywall I can either choose to leave it or to view de facto pirated version on archive.is or on some other mirroring service.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Isn't this what Web3 is trying to introduce with integrated cryptowallets?
- acdha 5y ago
  The problem is that it's really the other way around: what's being sold as web3 is a rebranding attempt to shed the bad reputation which cryptocurrencies developed and find new buyers. There are a number of hard problems in this space which are even harder to solve when your primary question is “how can I find someone to buy these otherwise worthless hashes?” rather than “what is a good solution for the user?”. In addition to the business model question about whether enough people would actually pay directly to make it worth building and participating in the system, there are also serious challenges around how to prevent blockchain privacy issues from turning it into a great tracking system, scaling the number of transactions the system is capable of up by many orders of magnitude, and dealing with various avenues for abuse.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  Yea that was one of the intentions of Bitcoin.

canadianfella 5y ago

SahAssar 5y ago

> if website knows your interests it can offer you to unlock some of its content for something like $0.20 Why would a website need to know my interests for me to be able to pay for content?

mrkramer 5y ago
It is a UX trade-off; it's easier for the consumers to receive offers based on their preferences than it would be for them to seek out actively content that is interesting to them. My idea was when you are casually and randomly surfing the web you can receive offers to unlock some paywalled or premium content that would be appealing to you and otherwise locked and never accessed. The same concept is similar to advertising and particularly targeted advertising; why would advertisers spend millions and billions when consumers already know what they are interested in? It's not that easy because consumers experience Opportunity cost and Information asymmetry meaning they are simply not aware of everything that is available to them and when they are they do not quite know which product or service is better than the other and they have to choose atm which one to buy and which one they are not going to buy.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  > My idea was when you are casually and randomly surfing the web you can receive offers to unlock some paywalled or premium content that would be appealing to you and otherwise locked and never accessed. I don't get the scenario, if I got linked a particular article then you already know what article I want to unlock. If I landed on the frontpage of the site then showing snippets/headlines/previews will guide me to what article I want to unlock. What is the scenario where there is no signal on what a visitor wants to read but that visitor would still be willing to pay for it?
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    The thing is now the only way to access that linked paywalled article is to subscribe to the publication, there in no way to pay to read only that particular article.

rchaud 5y ago

How exactly? The barrier to micropayments is friction. People don't want to have to put in a CC number or sign into Paypal to read a website. At the same time, publishers don't want to nickel and dime users, because the transaction costs of a $0.20 article aren't worth it. Google's changes don't affect either of these issues. The changes are purely about how audiences are targeted for Google ad products.