If people aren't willing to pay, do they really love the content? I think there are few things going on: a) The content is not worth to people what it costs t

If people aren't willing to pay, do they really love the content? I think there are few things going on: a) The content is not worth to people what it costs to produce and deliver, but only worth their time if otherwise free. The trick then is to make it feel like it's free, while you tax users behind their back, which is exactly what being "ad-supported" is all about[1]. Imagine if we had free ad-supported pizza[2]. b) We need a micropayment or other solution that enables people to pay for the large variety of things they consume on the web, without the time and risk costs of entering payment info on every single site they visit. Mozilla research calculates that the advertising tax per user is $12.70/month[3]. If people could pay directly, it would be even cheaper than this, since it would eliminate most of the externalities that I describe in my first link. c) Too many people are willing to making money at the expense of doing the right thing. People who want to do the right thing can't compete with that, so we are left with an internet dominated by perverse incentives. But it is possible to turn the tide. Take GitHub for example[4]. --- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640622. Of course "free" ad-supported pizza is unlikely to happen, lucky for us, because a $22 cost-per-impression isn't viable. [3] https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/ https://air.mozilla.org/subscribe2web/ [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9195063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9195063