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I'm a bit confused here. I never said the click would be after reading the article. You would need to pay to read. Edit: Ah, I did say > see an article on hn

I'm a bit confused here. I never said the click would be after reading the article. You would need to pay to read. Edit: Ah, I did say > see an article on hn or wherever, follow the link and read it and pay for it That wasn't supposed to be a chronological sequence of events, but I see I accidentally implied that. Apologies for the confusion.

munificent 3y ago
> You would need to pay to read. Now you're talking about a paywall. Many news organizations are going in that direction but with subscriptions. Doing it where you pay for each article is also psychologically hard. Since you are actually spending some money, the choice requires some mental effort. But since you haven't read the article, it's a choice whose value is very hard to estimate. Choices where: 1. The value is hard to predict. 2. The cost is low. 3. The perceived maximum value is also likely low. Are also sort of a worst case for the heuristics our brains have evolved to apply. It's difficult to get our brains to even put the mental effort into making the choice whether or not to buy the article.
- omnicognate 3y ago
  A paywall is around an entire site. You have to pay for the whole thing or not at all, and you have you do it separately for every site. Subscriptions to the NYT, WSJ, Economist and the FT would cost a fortune, and I would read a minute fraction of the content. As a result I don't have subscriptions for any of them, and none of them get a penny from me. With a common system, paid with a single click per article, I and many others would happily rack up significant tallies reading individual articles across all these publications. It's a win/win. I don't buy the argument that people wouldn't be bothered. A popup with a balance, cost for the article and yes/no button would be far less mental effort than I already spend finding how to refuse consent on tracking popups, and about the same effort as required for those that simply click the button to grant consent. If that were too much to expect people to do nobody would be reading any articles in the EU at present.
  - munificent 3y ago
    > Subscriptions to the NYT, WSJ, Economist and the FT would cost a fortune, and I would read a minute fraction of the content. As a result I don't have subscriptions for any of them, and none of them get a penny from me. I would question whether that is actually the economically rational choice. Even if you read only a fraction of the content, the value you receive from the fraction you do read may still justify the cost. You probably only watch a fraction of all videos on Netflix yet still don't mind paying for it. Also, there is a positive value in supporting a journalistic institution because you also derive benefit from other people reading their articles because it means you get to live in a better-informed world. Either way... > With a common system, paid with a single click per article, I and many others would happily rack up significant tallies reading individual articles across all these publications. It's a win/win. Now you're talking micropayments[0]. People have also been trying those startups since the 90s. They have basically all failed. There is Twitch Bits, I guess, but I don't know how often that's used or whether I'd call the kinds of content that Twitch's structure incentivizes to be a good thing. Not all problems can be solved with technology. Or, at least, with technology that only works if you assume that humans are rationally economical spherical actors in a vacuum. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment

munificent 3y ago

> You would need to pay to read. Now you're talking about a paywall. Many news organizations are going in that direction but with subscriptions. Doing it where you pay for each article is also psychologically hard. Since you are actually spending some money, the choice requires some mental effort. But since you haven't read the article, it's a choice whose value is very hard to estimate. Choices where: 1. The value is hard to predict. 2. The cost is low. 3. The perceived maximum value is also likely low. Are also sort of a worst case for the heuristics our brains have evolved to apply. It's difficult to get our brains to even put the mental effort into making the choice whether or not to buy the article.

omnicognate 3y ago
A paywall is around an entire site. You have to pay for the whole thing or not at all, and you have you do it separately for every site. Subscriptions to the NYT, WSJ, Economist and the FT would cost a fortune, and I would read a minute fraction of the content. As a result I don't have subscriptions for any of them, and none of them get a penny from me. With a common system, paid with a single click per article, I and many others would happily rack up significant tallies reading individual articles across all these publications. It's a win/win. I don't buy the argument that people wouldn't be bothered. A popup with a balance, cost for the article and yes/no button would be far less mental effort than I already spend finding how to refuse consent on tracking popups, and about the same effort as required for those that simply click the button to grant consent. If that were too much to expect people to do nobody would be reading any articles in the EU at present.
- munificent 3y ago
  > Subscriptions to the NYT, WSJ, Economist and the FT would cost a fortune, and I would read a minute fraction of the content. As a result I don't have subscriptions for any of them, and none of them get a penny from me. I would question whether that is actually the economically rational choice. Even if you read only a fraction of the content, the value you receive from the fraction you do read may still justify the cost. You probably only watch a fraction of all videos on Netflix yet still don't mind paying for it. Also, there is a positive value in supporting a journalistic institution because you also derive benefit from other people reading their articles because it means you get to live in a better-informed world. Either way... > With a common system, paid with a single click per article, I and many others would happily rack up significant tallies reading individual articles across all these publications. It's a win/win. Now you're talking micropayments[0]. People have also been trying those startups since the 90s. They have basically all failed. There is Twitch Bits, I guess, but I don't know how often that's used or whether I'd call the kinds of content that Twitch's structure incentivizes to be a good thing. Not all problems can be solved with technology. Or, at least, with technology that only works if you assume that humans are rationally economical spherical actors in a vacuum. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment