Why won’t some people pay for news?
In no particular order, issues and thoughts ...
@dredmorbius Interestingly micropayments do exist for online news, implemented in a very round-about way: Assumming they're charged by the kilobyte readers pay to view & be tracked by the ads. Which eventually makes its way back to the newssite.
@alcinnz Yeah, nah.
"Repudiation as the micropayments killer feature (Not)"
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4r683b/repudiation_as_the_micropayments_killer_feature/
NB: Ignore "repudiation" in the title for now --- that's just one of many scamsWschemes to plaster over a turd which fails to address the underlying failures.
Yes, someone can prop up a shitty fucked up micropayments fallacy for a time. It won't solve the general media issue.
Information-as-a-public-good will.
$15.40/person-month for ads-free news. ($8 with ads).
Another $6.50 buys you all-you-can-eat book access.
No tracking, no monitoring, no ads, no bullshit.
Pro-rate by HH wealth/income for equal access.
@dredmorbius @alcinnz I pay for Apple News+ for that reason.
There's also https://us.readly.com
Curiously, most newspapers seem uninterested in taking part in such ventures.
@mathew Apple, or Google, or Amazon, or Facebook taking on this role is of course one option, and one that I'm aware of.
I think it's ultimately more problematic.
The ISP-gateway relationship already exists. And there's billing built in to it.
Generally, people will receive broadband / Internet connectivity:
Through a wired residential or commercial service (cable, DSL, fibre, microwave beam, ...)
Through a mobile provider.
In some cases, satellite Internet, with Starlink likely an increasingly prevalent source.
Incidental access through some local PoP (point of presence), which itself relies on one of the above.
Other than satellite, each of these reliies on some entity with a local physical presence.
And with whom local regulators and publishers could reach agreements.
Again a key obligation I'd like to see is that 1) no good-faith publisher could be refused, 2) that no exclusive distribution arrangements where multiple connectivity providers exist be permitted, and that 3) no clients be denied content access. That is, there's a common carrier / common access obligation at the carrier, publishier, and recipient levels.