5 ms·

Or it says that there's an untapped opportunity for low friction, micro-transactions instead of "ads" or full-fledged purchases on unknown websites. It's clear

by pi-err 11y ago

Or it says that there's an untapped opportunity for low friction, micro-transactions instead of "ads" or full-fledged purchases on unknown websites. It's clear by now that ads are for lazy. If your plan is to monetize your site with ads, today just like 10 years ago, you lost. Edit: surprised by the negativity on her reaction for _hacker_news. She's rebuffed by the $ and time investment for a single song ("unknown website, takes time to create an account, multiply by times she wants to buy a song). As she says: > and not enough to pay to risk giving my credit card to an unknown third party. This is a UX challenge, not some morale lecture.

icebraining 11y ago
The UX challenged has been solved, though; there are multiple well known websites selling music and which allow you to bundle all songs in a single order. You just can't force the artist to use them.
- pi-err 11y ago
  Yes and no - streaming and iTunes are pretty good for most things "mainstream" music. Soundcloud though: there's no excuse for them at least not to _try_. Just like for her, ads and passive aggressive song selection are killing the experience. Then for content at large, there's pretty much everything to do. Not surprised if Stripe and ApplePay, both focused on this micro-amount market, take it all.
pjc50 11y ago
Microtransactions have a minimum mental cost to the user. This is why even the services that could track your actual consumption and bill you to the penny don't.
- verbin217 11y ago
  If micro transactions break into public awareness it might get significantly better. There could be a joint meter app like mint to track usage. You could just sort by a few things like recent cash flow and trivially manage your transactions at scale. Transactions should be tied directly to user level constructs like playing a song or a period of time in a game. These should have consistent costs so that the user can form reasonable expectations without needing to sign off on every transaction. You don't think about how much water costs every time you use the faucet but you're aware enough not to just leave it on. That's the only mental cost that's ultimately necessary.
- calineczka 11y ago
  What about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9453821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9453821 then ?
eevilspock 11y ago
I've been thinking about an idea that would solve this for bloggers and other small-time publishers: Readers subscribe to a federation of publishers for, say, 10 or 20 dollars a month. They now get to consume as much as they want on those sites. After they read an article, they can click either a "worth it", "meh" or "garbage" button. At the end of the month, all subscription fees are distributed to each publisher proportional to their "worth it" votes. This will drive up quality. If "garbage" votes are penalized, it will discourage bad content as well as link-baiting, dishonest titles or any other gaming of traffic.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Yeah, except I want to read, say, 6 blogs, and they'll be on four different federations, so I'd have to pay $40-80/month, which I definitively won't. We're seeing the same problems with all the streaming platforms.
  - eevilspock 11y ago
    We can all handle 3 or 4 subscriptions. The dollar amount I came up with was an example. A small federation might charge $1. The invisible hand of the free market decides. The federation would fail if it charged more than the amount of good content it produced. An author could also syndicate her/his content to more than one federation. If we're not willing to pay for good content, i.e. the writer's livelihood, then we're all fucked. If you read my other comment herein[1], you'd know we're all paying anyway, even though we are fooled into thinking it is free. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9961761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9961761
    - icebraining 11y ago
      I'm willing to pay for good content. But I also live in a place where a good software developer (net) salary is €14k/year, and that's still much higher than the average national salary, so I'm wary of these subscription services. They usually end up with a single price (since geo restrictions work poorly on the web), which the invisible hand pushes up to accommodate the disposable income of wealthier places. As bad as advertisement is, it still helped subsidize my reading when I couldn't afford to pay for it, while the subscription model would create a tiered Internet for the more and less well-off.
pavel_lishin 11y ago
I swear I remember some bank or company generating single-use credit card numbers specifically for this kind of concern. Did it fizzle out due to lack of use, or improved security on the banks' part, or am I just another victim of the Mandela/Berenstain effect?
- nine_k 11y ago
  You can still buy virtual Visa cards from various vendors: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=virtual+visa+card https://duckduckgo.com/?q=virtual+visa+card
- icebraining 11y ago
  My bank still does this, and someone else said Citi does too.
- TheGrimDerp1 11y ago
  a block-chained digital currency would work pretty well...

by pi-err 11y ago

icebraining 11y ago

The UX challenged has been solved, though; there are multiple well known websites selling music and which allow you to bundle all songs in a single order. You just can't force the artist to use them.

pi-err 11y ago
Yes and no - streaming and iTunes are pretty good for most things "mainstream" music. Soundcloud though: there's no excuse for them at least not to _try_. Just like for her, ads and passive aggressive song selection are killing the experience. Then for content at large, there's pretty much everything to do. Not surprised if Stripe and ApplePay, both focused on this micro-amount market, take it all.

pjc50 11y ago

Microtransactions have a minimum mental cost to the user. This is why even the services that could track your actual consumption and bill you to the penny don't.

verbin217 11y ago
If micro transactions break into public awareness it might get significantly better. There could be a joint meter app like mint to track usage. You could just sort by a few things like recent cash flow and trivially manage your transactions at scale. Transactions should be tied directly to user level constructs like playing a song or a period of time in a game. These should have consistent costs so that the user can form reasonable expectations without needing to sign off on every transaction. You don't think about how much water costs every time you use the faucet but you're aware enough not to just leave it on. That's the only mental cost that's ultimately necessary.
calineczka 11y ago
What about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9453821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9453821 then ?

eevilspock 11y ago

I've been thinking about an idea that would solve this for bloggers and other small-time publishers: Readers subscribe to a federation of publishers for, say, 10 or 20 dollars a month. They now get to consume as much as they want on those sites. After they read an article, they can click either a "worth it", "meh" or "garbage" button. At the end of the month, all subscription fees are distributed to each publisher proportional to their "worth it" votes. This will drive up quality. If "garbage" votes are penalized, it will discourage bad content as well as link-baiting, dishonest titles or any other gaming of traffic.

icebraining 11y ago
Yeah, except I want to read, say, 6 blogs, and they'll be on four different federations, so I'd have to pay $40-80/month, which I definitively won't. We're seeing the same problems with all the streaming platforms.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  We can all handle 3 or 4 subscriptions. The dollar amount I came up with was an example. A small federation might charge $1. The invisible hand of the free market decides. The federation would fail if it charged more than the amount of good content it produced. An author could also syndicate her/his content to more than one federation. If we're not willing to pay for good content, i.e. the writer's livelihood, then we're all fucked. If you read my other comment herein[1], you'd know we're all paying anyway, even though we are fooled into thinking it is free. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9961761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9961761
  - icebraining 11y ago
    I'm willing to pay for good content. But I also live in a place where a good software developer (net) salary is €14k/year, and that's still much higher than the average national salary, so I'm wary of these subscription services. They usually end up with a single price (since geo restrictions work poorly on the web), which the invisible hand pushes up to accommodate the disposable income of wealthier places. As bad as advertisement is, it still helped subsidize my reading when I couldn't afford to pay for it, while the subscription model would create a tiered Internet for the more and less well-off.

pavel_lishin 11y ago

I swear I remember some bank or company generating single-use credit card numbers specifically for this kind of concern. Did it fizzle out due to lack of use, or improved security on the banks' part, or am I just another victim of the Mandela/Berenstain effect?

nine_k 11y ago
You can still buy virtual Visa cards from various vendors: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=virtual+visa+card https://duckduckgo.com/?q=virtual+visa+card
icebraining 11y ago
My bank still does this, and someone else said Citi does too.
TheGrimDerp1 11y ago
a block-chained digital currency would work pretty well...