4 ms·

If you hate the ad-driven web, bypassing paywalls seems wildly backwards. Do we want to make sites attempting to do something other than SEO-spam harder to fin

If you hate the ad-driven web, bypassing paywalls seems wildly backwards. Do we want to make sites attempting to do something other than SEO-spam harder to find in search?

javajosh 5y ago
I agree with this, but I think it's a step in the right direction. To wit, imagine a service like this, but it costs $20/mo, and it breaks all paywalls for you but allocates that $20 to the pay-walled things you read that month, piecemeal. It would save you a great deal of friction, far fewer accounts to maintain, and reduce your dependency on any single news-source. And of course authors stand to gain - as long as they are okay accepting a variable allocation for each consumption (which they almost certainly are).
- aaomidi 5y ago
  Google tried this. It didn't work.
  - specialist 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion's_share https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion's_share Perhaps if Google didn't treat every other party as a source of wealth to plunder, by hook or by crook, but rather shared the spoils with the very content generators so crucial to their own existence, out of some sense of fair play, we'd have a marginally more healthy ecosystem today. Perhaps. But I'm content to burn the whole thing down. All ad-supported business models are eventually utterly toxic. Well, at least the ones that succeed.
- mjevans 5y ago
  Can I please just have the government provide value for taxes and fund well reputable journalistic pursuits; some smaller ones locally, major ones nationally, and a trickle of funding globally (in aggregate among countries this should work out).
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    The primary purpose of journalism is to hold public officials to account. They can't do that while dependent on public officials for their paycheck. Think about what you're asking. You want the government to take your money and give it to media outlets of their choosing? Just give your own money to the media outlets of your choosing.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > The primary purpose of journalism is to hold public officials to account. No, that's a benefit journalist enterprises sell. The primary purpose of journalism (at least, in a capitalist society), is, as for any other industry, to capture and deliver value to the capitalist class.
      - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        So if I understand you correctly, a guy with a weekly newsletter covering the local political beat who charges a $10/month subscription fee and uses it entirely to pay his own salary is doing so for the purpose of delivering value to the capitalist class. Is he the capitalist class, this person making say $40,000/year? Are his customers meant to be? Do they become the capitalist class when there are two of them writing the newsletter and they split the money?
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > So if I understand you correctly, a guy with a weekly newsletter covering the local political beat who charges a $10/month subscription fee and uses it entirely to pay his own salary is doing so for the purpose of delivering value to the capitalist class. No, I said that the primary purpose of the industry was one thing, not the primary purpose of a particular one man operation that is inherently made marginal by the structure of the economy, and is not the typical of the industry as a whole.
        AnthonyMouse 5y ago
tharne 5y ago
> If you hate the ad-driven web, bypassing paywalls seems wildly backwards. I don't think that's totally fair. I would love to be able to pay for a single day of the NY Times or Wall Street Journal, the same way I can buy a copy of the print edition on a given day. But, it's all or nothing with the paywalls - I have to buy a full annual subscription just so I can read half a dozen articles one or two days a week. I don't think most people are opposed to paying for content - look at kindle sales. But that doesn't mean most people want to commit to an annual subscription that runs in the 100's of dollars.
- perryizgr8 5y ago
  I don't know. I won't pay for a single day or a single article from NYT or WSJ. If it is freely available I might read it. I honestly have no solution for their problem. It's a bad position to be in. Their content is just not valuable enough to pay for. At least for me. I pay for books and ebooks all the time, so I'm not opposed to paying for reading material. It's just that I value books much higher than news or opinion pieces.

If you hate the ad-driven web, bypassing paywalls seems wildly backwards. Do we want to make sites attempting to do something other than SEO-spam harder to find in search?

javajosh 5y ago

I agree with this, but I think it's a step in the right direction. To wit, imagine a service like this, but it costs $20/mo, and it breaks all paywalls for you but allocates that $20 to the pay-walled things you read that month, piecemeal. It would save you a great deal of friction, far fewer accounts to maintain, and reduce your dependency on any single news-source. And of course authors stand to gain - as long as they are okay accepting a variable allocation for each consumption (which they almost certainly are).

aaomidi 5y ago
Google tried this. It didn't work.
- specialist 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion's_share https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion's_share Perhaps if Google didn't treat every other party as a source of wealth to plunder, by hook or by crook, but rather shared the spoils with the very content generators so crucial to their own existence, out of some sense of fair play, we'd have a marginally more healthy ecosystem today. Perhaps. But I'm content to burn the whole thing down. All ad-supported business models are eventually utterly toxic. Well, at least the ones that succeed.
mjevans 5y ago
Can I please just have the government provide value for taxes and fund well reputable journalistic pursuits; some smaller ones locally, major ones nationally, and a trickle of funding globally (in aggregate among countries this should work out).
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  The primary purpose of journalism is to hold public officials to account. They can't do that while dependent on public officials for their paycheck. Think about what you're asking. You want the government to take your money and give it to media outlets of their choosing? Just give your own money to the media outlets of your choosing.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The primary purpose of journalism is to hold public officials to account. No, that's a benefit journalist enterprises sell. The primary purpose of journalism (at least, in a capitalist society), is, as for any other industry, to capture and deliver value to the capitalist class.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      So if I understand you correctly, a guy with a weekly newsletter covering the local political beat who charges a $10/month subscription fee and uses it entirely to pay his own salary is doing so for the purpose of delivering value to the capitalist class. Is he the capitalist class, this person making say $40,000/year? Are his customers meant to be? Do they become the capitalist class when there are two of them writing the newsletter and they split the money?
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > So if I understand you correctly, a guy with a weekly newsletter covering the local political beat who charges a $10/month subscription fee and uses it entirely to pay his own salary is doing so for the purpose of delivering value to the capitalist class. No, I said that the primary purpose of the industry was one thing, not the primary purpose of a particular one man operation that is inherently made marginal by the structure of the economy, and is not the typical of the industry as a whole.
        AnthonyMouse 5y ago

tharne 5y ago

> If you hate the ad-driven web, bypassing paywalls seems wildly backwards. I don't think that's totally fair. I would love to be able to pay for a single day of the NY Times or Wall Street Journal, the same way I can buy a copy of the print edition on a given day. But, it's all or nothing with the paywalls - I have to buy a full annual subscription just so I can read half a dozen articles one or two days a week. I don't think most people are opposed to paying for content - look at kindle sales. But that doesn't mean most people want to commit to an annual subscription that runs in the 100's of dollars.

perryizgr8 5y ago
I don't know. I won't pay for a single day or a single article from NYT or WSJ. If it is freely available I might read it. I honestly have no solution for their problem. It's a bad position to be in. Their content is just not valuable enough to pay for. At least for me. I pay for books and ebooks all the time, so I'm not opposed to paying for reading material. It's just that I value books much higher than news or opinion pieces.