I totally agree with you that going back after reading and paying then will just not happen.
I see some potential in your idea for automatic tracking of actual consumption though. This may work; one could install an app, which tracks all news and articles consumption on all major news sites, calculates the value you got from it (by counting for how long you read a piece, what you did with it etc.) and proposes a "fair" price. It adds all those prices together at the end of the week and you can pay (to some aggregator site which takes care of all payment distribution and app things) in a single lump sum.
This is still quite a hassle though. People have to install an app, register with the aggregator/payment/portal site and shell out actual money for a non-scarce good (like news/articles). You have to provide some value to them. This may be: - superior reading experience - availability of "subscriber"-only content - social/peer recognition by badges etc
I think all of this working out depends (on the business side of things) on publishers sticking together in just 1-2 portal/aggregator sites in order to keep it simple.
What do you think? Would love to see some discussion on that!
albert
· 8 months ago
Thanks. This may be possible to do for newspapers -- something that http://www.journalismonline.com should look into. But I think this model may work better when the recipients are independents (musicians, bloggers, etc) rather than large enterprises. The reason is that I suspect that voluntary "splitting of surplus" is an instinct that people would have much more if the counterparty is an individual and not a corporation.
Josh Young
· 8 months ago
"Voluntary 'splitting of surplus' is an instinct that people would have much more if the counterparty is an individual and not a corporation."
That statement seems both true and really, really important. Our moral intuitions as reciprocal altruists kick in. Sometimes I wonder about the extent to which we'll look back at the twentieth century--and the rise of the firm, as traditionally explained by Coase's theory of transaction costs--and marvel at how we sometimes lost track of pretty basic but important human instincts.
albert
· 8 months ago
I agree. In many areas disintermediation will provide a huge emotional payoff.
bradburnham
· 8 months ago
I am sure there are a lot of variations on this theme, but I first heard about the model of donate once and then have that donation split between participating web sites based on your actual use from Cynthia Typaldos of Kachingle. There is a good synopsis of the approach here http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/h...
Josh Young
· 8 months ago
"Name your price" is attractive. There are important considerations to bear in mind, however.
First, I suspect that Radiohead's success is partially the result of its novelty. The first couple data points seem like particularly weak ones for making predictions about sustainability. I realize they may be the only data points around, but they strike me as questionable enough that we should still put a lot of weight on our theoretical economic and social considerations.
Second, "name your price" is similar to tipping, and tipping is largely a social act. I think "badges" and other context-appropriate ways of recognizing donors are really important. Of course, this is exactly what Whuffie represents writ large.
Third, I worry that "name your price" models may crowd out musicians and authors' ability to sell value-added scarce goods and services alongside content they would give away. For instance, there's a deep value proposition in the trust between journalists and their readers. As I discuss in depth at <http://networkednews.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/n...>, some flavor of value-added access or interaction could build trust and therefore increase the value of the journalism to the reader.
PS. http://www.kachingle.com/ seems to be an attempt to track consumption. It's not automated, since users have to click once as they visit each site or post.
albert
· 8 months ago
I don't think there would be much or any crowding out. The other products that a writer or musician might offer are a distinct value proposition and tend to satisfy different needs.
There seems to be a link missing from your comment though. Would love to read that if you can add it.
Josh Young
· 8 months ago
The link above, though abridged, works for me on the actual tumblog, but maybe it doesn't for you after disqus emails it. In any case, here's a shortened version that disqus may not abridge: http://bit.ly/AbLgX
The worry about crowding out seems to me to apply more to writers than musicians and comes from the suspicion that a only a small portion of any writer's following will ever be willing to pay in any form at all. Writers may have some analogues to concerts and t-shirts, but they don't seem as strong. News is really an experience good--way more so than music. So a writer's ability to convey a promise that an article is worth reading is even more important--those goods, the article and the promise, are actually quite complementary, not distinct. It's all in my post. Thanks for having a read!
albert
· 8 months ago
Great read. Your tiers of stars (bronze, silver, gold) is another mechanism for achieving voluntary price discrimination. In general, using virtual goods as a monetization mechanism for news is interesting.
Suzanne Lainson
· 8 months ago
I am very intrigued with the concept of "tipping" as a way to support music because I have seen it work. Often a musician who plays for tips will get more income than charging a cover charge. But there are several elements to the process which aren't usually discussed when people talk about a "pay-what-you-want" model.
(1) The people who leave the tips need to have direct acknowledgment from the artists. The whole point of tipping artists is to show your appreciation to them and have them KNOW that you are showing your appreciation. You are saying to them, "I like you." But that gesture is lost if they don't know the tip was from you.
(2) To have public awareness of your tip. At a lot of shows, you will see "the big tipper." He will wave a $50 bill around a bit so that the artist and the other people in the audience see the big tip. There are, of course, anonymous tippers, but that is less common. Being a big tipper is a status symbol. So there have to be mechanisms to display that.
(3) Public pressure. If you want a pay-what-you-want model, it's good for people to see others paying and for people to see who DOESN'T pay. Imagine going to church and not leaving anything in the collection plate. Or going to a restaurant and not leaving a tip. You'll look like a cheapskate. So you have to incorporate some peer pressure into the pay-what-you-want model.
albert
· 8 months ago
Thanks for the great comment! I believe that the model I describe and folks like Kachingle are trying to implement can and should address all of the points you raise to some degree. #2 can be achieved by having different levels of displayable badges or even allowing folks to show the actual dollar amounts. The same mechanism will help with #3, especially in controlled systems where it is easier to see who is and who is not participating. #1 is a bit harder because of figuring out how to scale it, but something like access to direct SMS messages might be able to do the trick as suggested by Josh Young in his post on micropayments (linked to from his comment).
All Comments
I'm interested as to how this applies to the future of newspapers. I've been commenting on the uselessness of (current forms of) micropayments for news(papers) recently.
I totally agree with you that going back after reading and paying then will just not happen.
I see some potential in your idea for automatic tracking of actual consumption though. This may work; one could install an app, which tracks all news and articles consumption on all major news sites, calculates the value you got from it (by counting for how long you read a piece, what you did with it etc.) and proposes a "fair" price. It adds all those prices together at the end of the week and you can pay (to some aggregator site which takes care of all payment distribution and app things) in a single lump sum.
This is still quite a hassle though. People have to install an app, register with the aggregator/payment/portal site and shell out actual money for a non-scarce good (like news/articles). You have to provide some value to them. This may be:
- superior reading experience
- availability of "subscriber"-only content
- social/peer recognition by badges etc
I think all of this working out depends (on the business side of things) on publishers sticking together in just 1-2 portal/aggregator sites in order to keep it simple.
What do you think? Would love to see some discussion on that!
That statement seems both true and really, really important. Our moral intuitions as reciprocal altruists kick in. Sometimes I wonder about the extent to which we'll look back at the twentieth century--and the rise of the firm, as traditionally explained by Coase's theory of transaction costs--and marvel at how we sometimes lost track of pretty basic but important human instincts.
First, I suspect that Radiohead's success is partially the result of its novelty. The first couple data points seem like particularly weak ones for making predictions about sustainability. I realize they may be the only data points around, but they strike me as questionable enough that we should still put a lot of weight on our theoretical economic and social considerations.
Second, "name your price" is similar to tipping, and tipping is largely a social act. I think "badges" and other context-appropriate ways of recognizing donors are really important. Of course, this is exactly what Whuffie represents writ large.
Third, I worry that "name your price" models may crowd out musicians and authors' ability to sell value-added scarce goods and services alongside content they would give away. For instance, there's a deep value proposition in the trust between journalists and their readers. As I discuss in depth at <http://networkednews.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/n...>, some flavor of value-added access or interaction could build trust and therefore increase the value of the journalism to the reader.
PS. http://www.kachingle.com/ seems to be an attempt to track consumption. It's not automated, since users have to click once as they visit each site or post.
There seems to be a link missing from your comment though. Would love to read that if you can add it.
The worry about crowding out seems to me to apply more to writers than musicians and comes from the suspicion that a only a small portion of any writer's following will ever be willing to pay in any form at all. Writers may have some analogues to concerts and t-shirts, but they don't seem as strong. News is really an experience good--way more so than music. So a writer's ability to convey a promise that an article is worth reading is even more important--those goods, the article and the promise, are actually quite complementary, not distinct. It's all in my post. Thanks for having a read!
(1) The people who leave the tips need to have direct acknowledgment from the artists. The whole point of tipping artists is to show your appreciation to them and have them KNOW that you are showing your appreciation. You are saying to them, "I like you." But that gesture is lost if they don't know the tip was from you.
(2) To have public awareness of your tip. At a lot of shows, you will see "the big tipper." He will wave a $50 bill around a bit so that the artist and the other people in the audience see the big tip. There are, of course, anonymous tippers, but that is less common. Being a big tipper is a status symbol. So there have to be mechanisms to display that.
(3) Public pressure. If you want a pay-what-you-want model, it's good for people to see others paying and for people to see who DOESN'T pay. Imagine going to church and not leaving anything in the collection plate. Or going to a restaurant and not leaving a tip. You'll look like a cheapskate. So you have to incorporate some peer pressure into the pay-what-you-want model.