Eberhard WolffIn the nineties, micropayments for each visit to some websites were discussed. Now websites sell subscriptions which I never buy. But I would pay some money to read an article. Seems like money is left on the table. So what happened to micropayments?
Matthias Schmidt@ewolff same here. Obviously, not enough people used micropayment.
@ewolff I recently learned you cannot even buy a single edition of DER SPIEGEL, the only option is a f*ing subscription.
Manuel Siebeneicher@ewolff maybe the Brave browser with it's BAT token can help. But the website needs to support this.
@msiebeneicher good point. However, that is not an option due to Brave‘s CEO, I am afraid.
@ewolff I did not know that. Thx for the eye opener.
Philippe Gerber@ewolff I loved flattr a decade ago. I set a monthly spending limit and then the money got split amongst all the things I flattr'd that month. Sadly it never took off.
Mene Michael Arndt@ewolff @phphil in my memory they got bought by ad block plus and became odd afterwards. For a while things just didn’t work, my balance was gone, and then they removed the flattr button and replaced it with some algorithm.
So maybe too niche, maybe a takeover gone wrong, maybe ABP didn’t want a good alternative to ads.
So maybe too niche, maybe a takeover gone wrong, maybe ABP didn’t want a good alternative to ads.
Heiko Rupp
André Fachat@ewolff They probably found out they can get more money for less value by subscriptions. Look at what streaming services do. How many do you have? Only the streaming services seem to go even a step further: you have to pay even though you have a subscription...!
@afachat that might be the case but I’d like to see some details because it doesn’t seem to me that this is true. So I might be missing something.
@ewolff No, I stand corrected with the extra prices. I guess it's only my gut feeling / anecdotal evidence that I recently have to pay more for what I want to see....
For example I liked Google video because of pay-to-go videos - but then more interesting stuff appeared on other services - and those force you into subscriptions.
Niklas Enns@ewolff Would you pay -before- you read it?
@nikenns Yip. I get referred to articles all over the web by Google News. It is dispappointing that I can't read them. Of course, it had to be cheap enough.
@ewolff I started blacklisting sites that give that disappointing experiences. I feel that much diverse news should be free for me but I have no rational arguments why.
@nikenns I wouldn’t mind paying but there is no way I will subscribe. I mean I can go to a kiosk and buy a copy of a magazine there - why can’t I do that online, too? There has to be an economic reason I guess.
moonglum@ewolff I‘m afraid the idea has been adopted and therefore killed by shitcoins of various sorts… 😬
@moonglum Do you mean Crypto? That doesn’t solve this problem, right? Or are you referring to something else?
@ewolff I'm referring to crypto currencies, yes. Solutions and problems are two mostly decoupled concepts 😇 Examples include the original implementation done by the Homophobe Browser (some call it "Brave") which was based on Bitcoin. But "micropayments" in general were flooded with crypto currency "solutions". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment
jeeger@ewolff timely question, flattr shut down a few months ago. I think a lot's on patreon now.
Jan Lehnardt 