If you pay for Netflix, but you complain about writers having paywalls, you just told us an awful lot about your worldview and your values and it’s not fucking pretty.
I pay for both, but honestly what Netflix does better is they make it easy to stay signed in. I hate the way I click links on articles then get paywalled, even though I have an account.
Netflix is $10/month, plain and simple. But nobody can subscribe to dozens of publications at that price.
What they need to do is start to charge per piece, a small amount. People would pay a dollar (for instance) to read one article they're especially interested in. I don't know why this hasn't already happened tbh.
@babs_at_masto it has happened multiple times, and it’s failed. It’s costly to implement, every transaction costs credit card fees that someone has to pay that eat into the profit, and in every case, users have not adopted the tech and used it to pay for content.
Nobody’s asking readers to subscribe to every paywall. Just like viewers don’t pay for every streaming service. But if you pay for Netflix, pick one creator or news service and pay for that too. Just one.
@Barbara 🇺🇦 @Joan Westenberg the problem per-piece is the repeated entering of payment information as well as the base transaction fees that card companies charge.
But also for the list of subscriptions it's the same basic problem as streaming services too... when it's a single service that provides the vast majority of what you want, that's great... maybe if it's 2 or 3 services... but when it's 8 or 9...
And useful to note how streaming compares vs buying individual episodes/movies/songs...
@shiri @babs_at_masto exactly. Not to mention - paying per article creates perverse incentives. It means the goal for publications and writers is to publish enough individual pieces that get enough attention to drive enough people to pay a micro transaction, to fund the rest of the publication.
And I’ll tell you exactly what that leads to: clickbait sensationalism.
@shiri I think there could be a service that does this, though - a central sort of clearinghouse you might pay a monthly fee to (or get billed at the end) and then just charge against that fee or whatever.
But maybe there's just not a market for it, I don't know.
I have never had more than 1 streaming service at a time, myself! Can't imagine paying for more than one, but then I'm kind of cheap....
I really get pissed of people using ad-blockers on youtube. and complaining when youtube start blocking these. Youtube is full of enthousiast content creators whose income stream is dependent on a) you seeing ads on youtube, or b) you paying for youtube premium. And sure, a lot of that not only goes to the youtubers but also to Google, but non the less, you're not "sticking it to the man", but to people creating wonderful content for you (for free+ adds) or (for $10/month).
@timmymac @bartvdpoel you can also get individual creator’s content without ads on Patreon most of the time. But people don’t. They want it all for $10-20 a month, unlimited content, because that’s what Netflix and Spotify have trained us for.
I get what you mean, and it's worth noting I don't subscribe to Netflix and do put around $200 a month to personally support authors and other artists I enjoy. Which I'm guessing is more than most people can spend.
That all said, I think it's fair to say there's a world difference in price value for the average person between paying $10 a month to get a weekly newsletter from an Internet writer and paying $10 a month to get access to every movie or song you could ever hope to enjoy.
Matthew Loxton
in reply to JA Westenberg • • •charles
in reply to JA Westenberg • • •Barbara 🇺🇦
in reply to JA Westenberg • • •Netflix is $10/month, plain and simple. But nobody can subscribe to dozens of publications at that price.
What they need to do is start to charge per piece, a small amount. People would pay a dollar (for instance) to read one article they're especially interested in. I don't know why this hasn't already happened tbh.
JA Westenberg
in reply to Barbara 🇺🇦 • • •@babs_at_masto it has happened multiple times, and it’s failed. It’s costly to implement, every transaction costs credit card fees that someone has to pay that eat into the profit, and in every case, users have not adopted the tech and used it to pay for content.
Nobody’s asking readers to subscribe to every paywall. Just like viewers don’t pay for every streaming service. But if you pay for Netflix, pick one creator or news service and pay for that too. Just one.
Shiri Bailem likes this.
Shiri Bailem
in reply to Barbara 🇺🇦 • •@Barbara 🇺🇦 @Joan Westenberg the problem per-piece is the repeated entering of payment information as well as the base transaction fees that card companies charge.
But also for the list of subscriptions it's the same basic problem as streaming services too... when it's a single service that provides the vast majority of what you want, that's great... maybe if it's 2 or 3 services... but when it's 8 or 9...
And useful to note how streaming compares vs buying individual episodes/movies/songs...
JA Westenberg
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •@shiri @babs_at_masto exactly. Not to mention - paying per article creates perverse incentives. It means the goal for publications and writers is to publish enough individual pieces that get enough attention to drive enough people to pay a micro transaction, to fund the rest of the publication.
And I’ll tell you exactly what that leads to: clickbait sensationalism.
Barbara 🇺🇦
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •@shiri
I think there could be a service that does this, though - a central sort of clearinghouse you might pay a monthly fee to (or get billed at the end) and then just charge against that fee or whatever.
But maybe there's just not a market for it, I don't know.
I have never had more than 1 streaming service at a time, myself! Can't imagine paying for more than one, but then I'm kind of cheap....
Barbara 🇺🇦
in reply to Barbara 🇺🇦 • • •I would definitely pay for single articles, and often wish I could.
Bart Van de Poel
in reply to JA Westenberg • • •Shiri Bailem likes this.
JA Westenberg
in reply to Bart Van de Poel • • •Shiri Bailem
in reply to Bart Van de Poel • •@Bart Van de Poel @Joan Westenberg I hate that the ad companies have become so awful that ad-blockers are a security recommendation.
I remember way back when google tested out "curator" where you could pay to not see google ads and I loved it before they shut it down.
Quopas likes this.
TimmyMac
in reply to Bart Van de Poel • • •JA Westenberg
in reply to TimmyMac • • •John Brownlee
in reply to JA Westenberg • • •I get what you mean, and it's worth noting I don't subscribe to Netflix and do put around $200 a month to personally support authors and other artists I enjoy. Which I'm guessing is more than most people can spend.
That all said, I think it's fair to say there's a world difference in price value for the average person between paying $10 a month to get a weekly newsletter from an Internet writer and paying $10 a month to get access to every movie or song you could ever hope to enjoy.