Comment by ucaetano
8 years ago
Nobody would pay for them.
You're not getting to the real problem: if a user can see an article with ads for free, or pay 10 cents, that user will most likely opt for the free version.
And you can't compete with free.
8 years ago
Nobody would pay for them.
You're not getting to the real problem: if a user can see an article with ads for free, or pay 10 cents, that user will most likely opt for the free version.
And you can't compete with free.
Nobody would pay for them.
I would.
if a user can see an article with ads for free, or pay 10 cents, that user will most likely opt for the free version.
There is quite a bit of content for which ads don't work, for which people are only too happy to pay. Reduce the friction for that, and the market would increase.
YouTube just slaughtered a bunch of WeedTube channels. Then, there's also GunTube. That content definitely has an audience. That audience definitely is willing to pay! Why isn't someone making something with less friction than Patreon?
> I would.
Sure, 1 user. Maybe even a million users. Well, the solution for that exists: subscriptions.
But nobody will build a system for such a small number of users.
> That content definitely has an audience. That audience definitely is willing to pay!
Sure, niche markets always exist. HBO makes money out of subscriptions, The NYT too. If you can find a niche audience that's willing to pay for your content, that makes it a viable business model for you.
But that doesn't scale across the billions of users on the internet. Particularly when you include the 1.5 billion who are not in rich countries.
Well, the solution for that exists: subscriptions.
I think it's still a bit too high in friction. I think there's yet another model possible.
Sure, niche markets always exist. HBO makes money out of subscriptions, The NYT too. If you can find a niche audience that's willing to pay for your content, that makes it a viable business model for you.
A lot of those niches aren't advertiser friendly. Subscription kind of works already. There must be something with lower friction yet.
But that doesn't scale across the billions of users on the internet. Particularly when you include the 1.5 billion who are not in rich countries.
I don't see why micropayments couldn't work on adjusted scales. We already have different prices for things depending on the market. Also, it's a problem that somewhat fixes itself, automatically. A website relevant to low-income rural people outside the 1st world won't be able to charge as much as a 1st world website, but it might well be able to charge enough to greatly benefit the operator anyways.
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It's hard to charge money for entertainment, because there's so much of it for free. The exception is content that is expensive, unique, and hard - something like a great book or a TV series, or a bundle of those.
But for content with deep value for the user - helping him advance his life(improving skills,health,finance ), and that is hard to copy, users do pay - for example for books, courses, bundles of articles, access to some communities.
But why aren't we seeing micro-payments for deep value content, at the article level ? Because legally "copying" a single article offers no barrier to competition.
But maybe articles of deep value with a lot of valuable graphical content, will both raise the barrier to competition high-enough, and bring enough value to the user, that he will be willing to pay enough.