4 ms·

Nobody will pay four-figures for digital news access that still has ads.

CamperBob2 5y ago
That's a negotiating point, not a dealbreaker. The important thing is to offer both options. What would keep this plan from working is if there were a lot of major holdouts that insist on keeping their own paywalls and subscription model. Can't account for that level of stupidity, but the market will eventually eliminate it. Apple News in its current state is a step in the right direction, they just need to bring it to its logical conclusion.
otterley 5y ago
I'm not sure most people would pay 4 figures, or even 3, for access to quality journalism - even if it didn't have ads. I remember when the Wall Street Journal came out on the Internet in 1997 - it was completely paywalled (no free articles at all), and the early pricing was scorned by critics and the public, even if it wasn't astronomical ($50/year for non-print subscribers, $29/year for print subscribers).
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  What we know doesn't work are thousands of individual paywalls and associated subscriptions. Can you imagine journalism continuing on this path for another 20 years? I feel quite strongly that syndication is the only possible solution, if we're going to compensate journalists fairly. One subscription, no user-hostile gatekeepers or paywalls, no artificial barriers to either publication or exploration. Apart from that, it's no longer 1997, and people are used to paying for stuff online. Frequently they pay a LOT for stuff online. There is nothing radical about this.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    Centralization has several serious problems. How do you determine who gets paid? If it's by impressions, you have all the clickbait problems as with advertising. What happens when the central gatekeeper decides they've had enough of anyone criticizing their interests and starts booting people out who do? Or journalists self-censor for fear of that? What do we do about privacy? Having a big database of everything everyone reads is bad. Tying it to payment info and therefore identity is unacceptable. We do not make lists for future fascists or communists. In theory it's possible to address this with cryptography and zero knowledge proofs, but we all know it won't be in a centralized system, because they want to track and control everything you read. Meanwhile the real problem with subscription fees is people read different sources in different amounts. If you read one religiously, you pay the $5/month. But it should be possible to get the articles a la carte for a low price, e.g. $0.10 each, for the publications you don't read all the time. So the thing we really need here is an anonymous payments system with low transaction fees. The blockchain people keep trying to do this, and let them if they can, but how about this. A payment processor that uses the cryptography and the zero knowledge proofs. They know who you are, you pay them, you get a secret which allows you to spend the money. Now you can use the secret to pay for articles or anything else, and the payment processor debits your account and credits the seller's, but they can't tell who you paid, only that you paid someone and someone paid them. This would be highly useful in general, but especially here. This might require some constraints like not supporting chargebacks, or maybe the cryptographers can figure it out. But if you can make an anonymous $0.10 transaction with no transaction fee, that's a solution.

That's a negotiating point, not a dealbreaker. The important thing is to offer both options. What would keep this plan from working is if there were a lot of major holdouts that insist on keeping their own paywalls and subscription model. Can't account for that level of stupidity, but the market will eventually eliminate it. Apple News in its current state is a step in the right direction, they just need to bring it to its logical conclusion.

otterley 5y ago

I'm not sure most people would pay 4 figures, or even 3, for access to quality journalism - even if it didn't have ads. I remember when the Wall Street Journal came out on the Internet in 1997 - it was completely paywalled (no free articles at all), and the early pricing was scorned by critics and the public, even if it wasn't astronomical ($50/year for non-print subscribers, $29/year for print subscribers).

CamperBob2 5y ago
What we know doesn't work are thousands of individual paywalls and associated subscriptions. Can you imagine journalism continuing on this path for another 20 years? I feel quite strongly that syndication is the only possible solution, if we're going to compensate journalists fairly. One subscription, no user-hostile gatekeepers or paywalls, no artificial barriers to either publication or exploration. Apart from that, it's no longer 1997, and people are used to paying for stuff online. Frequently they pay a LOT for stuff online. There is nothing radical about this.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  Centralization has several serious problems. How do you determine who gets paid? If it's by impressions, you have all the clickbait problems as with advertising. What happens when the central gatekeeper decides they've had enough of anyone criticizing their interests and starts booting people out who do? Or journalists self-censor for fear of that? What do we do about privacy? Having a big database of everything everyone reads is bad. Tying it to payment info and therefore identity is unacceptable. We do not make lists for future fascists or communists. In theory it's possible to address this with cryptography and zero knowledge proofs, but we all know it won't be in a centralized system, because they want to track and control everything you read. Meanwhile the real problem with subscription fees is people read different sources in different amounts. If you read one religiously, you pay the $5/month. But it should be possible to get the articles a la carte for a low price, e.g. $0.10 each, for the publications you don't read all the time. So the thing we really need here is an anonymous payments system with low transaction fees. The blockchain people keep trying to do this, and let them if they can, but how about this. A payment processor that uses the cryptography and the zero knowledge proofs. They know who you are, you pay them, you get a secret which allows you to spend the money. Now you can use the secret to pay for articles or anything else, and the payment processor debits your account and credits the seller's, but they can't tell who you paid, only that you paid someone and someone paid them. This would be highly useful in general, but especially here. This might require some constraints like not supporting chargebacks, or maybe the cryptographers can figure it out. But if you can make an anonymous $0.10 transaction with no transaction fee, that's a solution.