Comment by ashdksnndck
11 days ago
I think the costs of serving digital content are so low that you don’t need to rely on oversubscription. The user can stream 24/7 and you would still make money (assuming you got the working IP payment model like YouTube does that divide up individual user revenue proportional to that user’s watch time - I think Spotify has a problem here). The only “anti abuse” you need is to enforce that the user only streams one thing at a time.
The problem with the credit system is that the user won’t like that they have to pay extra for the good stuff, the feeling of watching worse stuff to save money etc.
Given the marginal cost of distributing the good stuff is the same as the bad stuff, why make the customer feel bad about watching by adding an incremental cost? Just let it rip. If you have a lot of good stuff, customers will be willing to pay more for the bundle. Once they’re in the bundle, let them watch exactly what they want.
The "cost" I was referring to is the cost to produce the content you are paying for. Not the cost to distribute it. Of course the cost to distribute it digitally is negligible (hell, lets assume it's $0), but the cost to produce it isn't even remotely close to that.
> The only “anti abuse” you need is to enforce that the user only streams one thing at a time.
We're talking about a flat fee you pay that gives you "access to content on the internet".
Oh yeah? How does one "stream" an article? Does playing a video at 2x make it 1/2 price? what about 1000x?
Ok, ok, Lets steelman this argument and assume we come up with resonable common sense answers to all these questions. "an article counts as x minutes". "limit playback to max of 2x and figure out some reasnonable formula to pay the creator", etc
Congratulations, you've invited a credit system with extra steps. The "flat fee" is actually the fee for (602430) * 2 minutes a month. One could "Donate Minutes" left on their account at the end of the month to their favorite creator. well, instead of trading them to your favorite creator, why don't you trade them in for $$
> Given the marginal cost of distributing the good stuff is the same as the bad stuff, why make the customer feel bad about watching by adding an incremental cost? Just let it rip. If you have a lot of good stuff, customers will be willing to pay more for the bundle. Once they’re in the bundle, let them watch exactly what they want.
The model works for YouTube because of the centralized nature of YouTube. I think that model can work for other centralized systems too like cloudflare.
Hell, maybe that was cloudflare endgame all along. If a good chunk of the internet is running behind cloudflare proxies, then cloudflare could do brave's BAT idea but actually sanely with like a normal payment and subscription etc.
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