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> Users will pay for services that they love. Reddit, the lively recommendation and discussion community, sells Reddit Gold subscriptions that give users specia

by tikhonj 12y ago

> Users will pay for services that they love. Reddit, the lively recommendation and discussion community, sells Reddit Gold subscriptions that give users special privileges and the ability to turn off ads. Users do pay for those services, but not very much and not very often. There are simply too many obstacles in the way, both technological and psychological. To make it practical will require both social change and a much easier way to make small transactions. Not because it's difficult in any absolute sense, but because even the slightest practical barrier is enough to make people reconsider. The most successful payment models now seem to be app stores and in-app purchases, which are certainly marked by convenience. You just give your credit card details once and then you can buy things with no hassle. A model like this for web content is the minimum for moving off of advertising! More generally, though, this change is not something we can achieve unilaterally. We'd have to convince everyone else to go along with it, to choose paid services over free. Not an easy proposition at the best of times and, given the nature of the internet, not something we can force. (Fundamentally, this is actually a good thing because it means the internet can't easily be controlled, which is also why the emergence of gigantic, largely self-contained web properties like Facebook is decidedly troubling.)

kbatten 12y ago
I've bought reddit gold several times and it was incredibly easy. What specific obstacles are you talking about?
- tikhonj 12y ago
  Sure, but that's because you're already used to and invested in Reddit. Initially, you had to sign up with your credit card, fill out an annoying form and go through a few intimidating screens. That's exactly the sort of obstacle I'm talking about: it's certainly manageable but also certainly enough to turn you away unless you really care about something. This is particularly relevant since one of the main reasons we're worried about the ad model at all is because it threatens the internet's decentralized nature. Replacing this with a model where you only make payments inside a few centralized organizations would not address this core issue. That process won't scale to a whole bunch of random, disparate sites especially if you're not heavily invested into them. If you come across a cool blog post and want to tip a bit of money, you'll have to go through the same process, which is just not worth it. And that's before getting into transaction costs! There have been various services that tried to fix them, but none so far that are convenient and ubiquitous enough to change things. And we really need change: this is, to a large extent, a social problem more than anything. The most important piece for moving away from ads is to make small payment expected and, for lack of a better phrase, socially accepted. We already have this for small physical goods: it's easy to imagine buying a piece of gum or a magazine at a random newspaper stand. But a similarly small purchase online is both less convenient and less accepted, so it ends up being much less likely. That's the core problem.
  - kbatten 12y ago
    I don't see this as any different than buying something from amazon though, which anyone can do. Micropayments are a problem, but as long as you buy a few dollars worth of reddit gold it is more akin to buying a gift card than a micropayment. The psychological issues are valid, but I'm not seeing technological issues in this specific case.
    - Swizec 12y ago
      That's the whole point. The psychological issues, not the technical issues. As much as us geeks would love it to be, this is not a technical problem. This is a social/marketing problem.
    - HeyImAlex 12y ago
      But you go to amazon because you want to buy something, not because you're feeling benevolent, so the expectation of needing to jump through the hoop is there and the necessity of doing it is real. Plus, once you've gone through sign up once you never need to again. Some site I've never been to before asks pretty please for 40 cents and I'm not about to go find my wallet (probably in my room across the house) grab my credit card and enter a ton of personal information into some strange form who's security I don't really trust, especially when I know the credit card processor is probably keeping 30c + 3%. PayPal and similar help but then... I have to use paypal. If only I could just directly send the money (like bitcoin, from me to some address) with a token that the site provided me attached. Pretty sure a lot of people are working in this area to make it happen. I really think app-store ease of transactions with the open web will change things up for the better.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > That's exactly the sort of obstacle I'm talking about: it's certainly manageable but also certainly enough to turn you away unless you really care about something. http://lesswrong.com/lw/f1/beware_trivial_inconveniences/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/f1/beware_trivial_inconveniences/ Think about this for a second. The human longing for freedom of information is a terrible and wonderful thing. It delineates a pivotal difference between mental emancipation and slavery. It has launched protests, rebellions, and revolutions. Thousands have devoted their lives to it, thousands of others have even died for it. And it can be stopped dead in its tracks by requiring people to search for "how to set up proxy" before viewing their anti-government website.
shmerl 12y ago
> Users will pay for services that they love. >> Users do pay for those services, but not very much and not very often. I'd say users are more readily paying for services which provide them something that others don't. For example if they value privacy they are more likely to use a service which doesn't monetize their personal information. That can be as service which charges a monthly fee, or it can be a free service which functions through decentralization.
mbesto 12y ago
> There are simply too many obstacles in the way, both technological and psychological. To make it practical will require both social change and a much easier way to make small transactions. Not because it's difficult in any absolute sense, but because even the slightest practical barrier is enough to make people reconsider. This is basically why Dogecoin became so successful. The pyschological factors were basically eliminated ($0.0001 tip to someone because they wrote a thoughtful response and takes me 2 seconds to type in "dogetip /u/username"...no big deal) but the technology factors are still high for non-techies. I think this is the sweet spot for cryptocoins...I imagine a future where 1,000,000 YouTube views is adless because 500,000 of those people tipped $0.0001 each.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  People barely click the "like" button or upvote/downvote, let alone donate.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    So very true. In general the number of 'Likes' relative to views on Youtube is about 1%.
    - nfoz 12y ago
      You can't like a video on Youtube without being logged into a Youtube/Google+ account.
      - anigbrowl 12y ago
        So? I don't think that's evidence that another 49% are desperate to dispense tips but can't do so because they haven't signed up for a free account.
    - baddox 12y ago
      1% isn't that bad though, considering the minuscule cost of serving one video or one web page. Conversion rates for online ads are at least an order of magnitude lower than that.
freehunter 12y ago
Also: People might pay for reddit, but reddit without content is nothing. And I might pay $5 for reddit, then someone links me to a site I've never seen before. Now I have to pay $5 to that site in order to view what everyone else is viewing. And the next link down is another $5. And there might be 10 unique links on the front page at one time. Sure, I could get by well enough to only pay Reddit and Imgur, but how much of Imgur's content is ripped from another site (and if their money is directly on the line, the other sites might actually put a stop to that)? If I can't link a site to someone and have them see it without having to convince them that it's worth it to pay, the entire Internet breaks down. Facebook is now worthless. Reddit is worthless. Hell, even HN is worthless. Small sites would never convince anyone to pay for their content, since they are unknown. Everyone would subscribe to CNN, Fox News, and Wikipedia, and that's it. That is the entirety of the Internet with a for-pay model.
- danellis 12y ago
  I think you're missing the micro part of micropayments. The idea is for each individual charge to be so small that it's not really a consideration.

by tikhonj 12y ago

kbatten 12y ago

I've bought reddit gold several times and it was incredibly easy. What specific obstacles are you talking about?

tikhonj 12y ago
Sure, but that's because you're already used to and invested in Reddit. Initially, you had to sign up with your credit card, fill out an annoying form and go through a few intimidating screens. That's exactly the sort of obstacle I'm talking about: it's certainly manageable but also certainly enough to turn you away unless you really care about something. This is particularly relevant since one of the main reasons we're worried about the ad model at all is because it threatens the internet's decentralized nature. Replacing this with a model where you only make payments inside a few centralized organizations would not address this core issue. That process won't scale to a whole bunch of random, disparate sites especially if you're not heavily invested into them. If you come across a cool blog post and want to tip a bit of money, you'll have to go through the same process, which is just not worth it. And that's before getting into transaction costs! There have been various services that tried to fix them, but none so far that are convenient and ubiquitous enough to change things. And we really need change: this is, to a large extent, a social problem more than anything. The most important piece for moving away from ads is to make small payment expected and, for lack of a better phrase, socially accepted. We already have this for small physical goods: it's easy to imagine buying a piece of gum or a magazine at a random newspaper stand. But a similarly small purchase online is both less convenient and less accepted, so it ends up being much less likely. That's the core problem.
- kbatten 12y ago
  I don't see this as any different than buying something from amazon though, which anyone can do. Micropayments are a problem, but as long as you buy a few dollars worth of reddit gold it is more akin to buying a gift card than a micropayment. The psychological issues are valid, but I'm not seeing technological issues in this specific case.
  - Swizec 12y ago
    That's the whole point. The psychological issues, not the technical issues. As much as us geeks would love it to be, this is not a technical problem. This is a social/marketing problem.
  - HeyImAlex 12y ago
    But you go to amazon because you want to buy something, not because you're feeling benevolent, so the expectation of needing to jump through the hoop is there and the necessity of doing it is real. Plus, once you've gone through sign up once you never need to again. Some site I've never been to before asks pretty please for 40 cents and I'm not about to go find my wallet (probably in my room across the house) grab my credit card and enter a ton of personal information into some strange form who's security I don't really trust, especially when I know the credit card processor is probably keeping 30c + 3%. PayPal and similar help but then... I have to use paypal. If only I could just directly send the money (like bitcoin, from me to some address) with a token that the site provided me attached. Pretty sure a lot of people are working in this area to make it happen. I really think app-store ease of transactions with the open web will change things up for the better.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > That's exactly the sort of obstacle I'm talking about: it's certainly manageable but also certainly enough to turn you away unless you really care about something. http://lesswrong.com/lw/f1/beware_trivial_inconveniences/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/f1/beware_trivial_inconveniences/ Think about this for a second. The human longing for freedom of information is a terrible and wonderful thing. It delineates a pivotal difference between mental emancipation and slavery. It has launched protests, rebellions, and revolutions. Thousands have devoted their lives to it, thousands of others have even died for it. And it can be stopped dead in its tracks by requiring people to search for "how to set up proxy" before viewing their anti-government website.

shmerl 12y ago

> Users will pay for services that they love. >> Users do pay for those services, but not very much and not very often. I'd say users are more readily paying for services which provide them something that others don't. For example if they value privacy they are more likely to use a service which doesn't monetize their personal information. That can be as service which charges a monthly fee, or it can be a free service which functions through decentralization.

mbesto 12y ago

> There are simply too many obstacles in the way, both technological and psychological. To make it practical will require both social change and a much easier way to make small transactions. Not because it's difficult in any absolute sense, but because even the slightest practical barrier is enough to make people reconsider. This is basically why Dogecoin became so successful. The pyschological factors were basically eliminated ($0.0001 tip to someone because they wrote a thoughtful response and takes me 2 seconds to type in "dogetip /u/username"...no big deal) but the technology factors are still high for non-techies. I think this is the sweet spot for cryptocoins...I imagine a future where 1,000,000 YouTube views is adless because 500,000 of those people tipped $0.0001 each.

sillysaurus3 12y ago
People barely click the "like" button or upvote/downvote, let alone donate.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  So very true. In general the number of 'Likes' relative to views on Youtube is about 1%.
  - nfoz 12y ago
    You can't like a video on Youtube without being logged into a Youtube/Google+ account.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      So? I don't think that's evidence that another 49% are desperate to dispense tips but can't do so because they haven't signed up for a free account.
  - baddox 12y ago
    1% isn't that bad though, considering the minuscule cost of serving one video or one web page. Conversion rates for online ads are at least an order of magnitude lower than that.

freehunter 12y ago

Also: People might pay for reddit, but reddit without content is nothing. And I might pay $5 for reddit, then someone links me to a site I've never seen before. Now I have to pay $5 to that site in order to view what everyone else is viewing. And the next link down is another $5. And there might be 10 unique links on the front page at one time. Sure, I could get by well enough to only pay Reddit and Imgur, but how much of Imgur's content is ripped from another site (and if their money is directly on the line, the other sites might actually put a stop to that)? If I can't link a site to someone and have them see it without having to convince them that it's worth it to pay, the entire Internet breaks down. Facebook is now worthless. Reddit is worthless. Hell, even HN is worthless. Small sites would never convince anyone to pay for their content, since they are unknown. Everyone would subscribe to CNN, Fox News, and Wikipedia, and that's it. That is the entirety of the Internet with a for-pay model.

danellis 12y ago
I think you're missing the micro part of micropayments. The idea is for each individual charge to be so small that it's not really a consideration.