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A personal take is that ad-based businesses exist because there’s no secure widespread reliable approach for micropayments (yet?). The mean value of adverts on

by mft_ 2y ago

A personal take is that ad-based businesses exist because there’s no secure widespread reliable approach for micropayments (yet?). The mean value of adverts on a page is in the order of a tiny fraction of a cent per reader, which is presumably enough for the businesses that continue to exist online. If it was possible to pay this amount directly instead, and have an ad-free experience, I suspect many would do so, as the cumulative amount would usually be negligible. Yet so far, no-one’s figured it out. (I should mention, there are very strong reasons why it’s difficult to figure out currently, but AIUI these are rooted in the current setup of global payments and risk management by credit card companies.)

BlueTemplar 2y ago
Flattr 2.0 (and Brave ?) got pretty close.
carlosjobim 2y ago
Is there anything that indicates that customers want micropayments? Music and video streaming services are syndicating content from millions of creators into single subscription services. Why is it so impossible to make mega conglomerates for textual content? Why is nobody doing this? Right now, creators are forced to make YouTube videos, because that's their most viable path to getting paid for their work. Why does it have to be this way, when a lot of what they do would be better as text instead of as a talking head?
- mft_ 2y ago
  Interesting question. I guess the truth is that the large subscription 'streaming' services (Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, etc.) are effectively micropayment systems, just not quite as transparent and/or direct as the concept I'd envisioned. As to why there's no 'Spotify for newspapers/magazines/blogs', I don't know. We're definitely not the first to consider the question. Maybe the economics (too few customers?) doesn't make sense? Maybe there's resistance to it amongst socially- and politically-connected owners and journalists who like their position in society? Maybe because it would presumably require centralisation (in terms of where and how it was consumed, akin to using the Spotify app to listen to music) and ultimately commoditisation of the media? Maybe the modern drift away from reading and longer-form media makes it unattractive, leading to a quality drift to the bottom?
subswithads 2y ago
I reject that idea, simply because companies will then offer microservice access and STILL put ads on them. Sure, youtube and spotify will disable them for you. But for every one of those we have a netflix and its dark side cohort.
- mft_ 2y ago
  Fair point, as seen with Netflix and Amazon Prime video.

by mft_ 2y ago

BlueTemplar 2y ago

Flattr 2.0 (and Brave ?) got pretty close.

carlosjobim 2y ago

Is there anything that indicates that customers want micropayments? Music and video streaming services are syndicating content from millions of creators into single subscription services. Why is it so impossible to make mega conglomerates for textual content? Why is nobody doing this? Right now, creators are forced to make YouTube videos, because that's their most viable path to getting paid for their work. Why does it have to be this way, when a lot of what they do would be better as text instead of as a talking head?

mft_ 2y ago
Interesting question. I guess the truth is that the large subscription 'streaming' services (Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, etc.) are effectively micropayment systems, just not quite as transparent and/or direct as the concept I'd envisioned. As to why there's no 'Spotify for newspapers/magazines/blogs', I don't know. We're definitely not the first to consider the question. Maybe the economics (too few customers?) doesn't make sense? Maybe there's resistance to it amongst socially- and politically-connected owners and journalists who like their position in society? Maybe because it would presumably require centralisation (in terms of where and how it was consumed, akin to using the Spotify app to listen to music) and ultimately commoditisation of the media? Maybe the modern drift away from reading and longer-form media makes it unattractive, leading to a quality drift to the bottom?

subswithads 2y ago

I reject that idea, simply because companies will then offer microservice access and STILL put ads on them. Sure, youtube and spotify will disable them for you. But for every one of those we have a netflix and its dark side cohort.

mft_ 2y ago
Fair point, as seen with Netflix and Amazon Prime video.