::scr Paying for It

[Simon Batistoni]

On 02/05/02 11:20 +0100, Simon Wistow wrote:
> Now 36 dollars isn't much but I read (counts) 45, christ, sites
> regularly although I probably 'only' read between 15 and 20
> daily.  That's 720 dollars, about 500 quid. Twice that if I subscribe to
> all of them. Now I could probably afford that and I get an awful lot of
> info for that money but it's still a lot. Plus, I can see anothe
> rproblem with it - if I can't see the content for free then how do I
> search for stuff. How do I share interesting articles with friends?

Well, perhaps this needs considering (as you were touching upon just
now in the filesystems thread) from the point of view of a real world
metaphor.

If I buy an interesting book, or a magazine with a great article,
chances are I'll tell you about it. If you're interested, chances are
I'll lend it to you. So, the article or book that was paid for once
gets shared between 2 actual people. Only one of them can physically
hold the article at any one time, but both of them experience it
whilst paying the publisher once.

This actually goes for all real-world media.

Now, the chances are you'll want your book back at some point.
Generally, from my personal point of view, I like to have my own copy
of things I've read. So I'll buy one anyway. And certainly with CDs,
if I really like the album you lent me, I'll get my own.

I'm wondering if there's any real reason, with the numbers of people
online now, that this can't work for the web. Let people sign up for
an account with you, and let them "lend" their account to other
people. Perhaps even let them generate temporary sub-logins on their
account.

So you say "hey, you'd really like this article on salon. I've given
you a sublogin. My username is "muttley", and you can use "hitherto"
and the password "excellent". It'll let you in for a couple of days.

Now, I can go and "borrow" your copy of salon. If they're really
worried, they could even code the account so that only one person, be
they account holder or borrower, can log in under the account at any
given time.

If I really like the article, and want more, chances are I'll get my
own copy of salon, rather than keep clogging up yours.

The best part of this is that it follows behaviour that people are
used to. I think the big mental block that many media outfits,
particularly the larger ones, have to get over, is that digital media
is *not* a platform they can use to squeeze more money out of us. It's
not going to work if they keep trying to clamp down on us, to extract
a few more pennies for every eyeball that scans their words, or every
ear that hears their music.

As long as some people are paying, the ones getting things for free
are just background noise. And if they're not squeezing us all the
time, we feel more amicable towards them, and we're more likely to
reward them, as you do Penny Arcade, for a job well done.


All this will mean that some sites aren't popular enough to survive,
sure. I mean, you don't buy 46 magazines a month, and you're not going
to buy 46 website subscriptions. But none of this is new either. There
are always niche publications that struggle, and niche publications
that go under. Even fairly mainstream ones - look at the Industry
Standard or Wired UK, to take some close-to-home references.

Perhaps most interesting in all this is what would happen to some
sectors of the real-world publishing industry if this were to happen.
It would make sense for many publishers to carry on with the same
charging structures, but move as virtual as possible - running a
website is waaaaaaaaaay cheaper than printing, and physically shifting
thousands of magazines.

> Micropayments are even worse ... if there were micropayments you'd be
> loathe to surf around, skip through random sites, follow links from your
> friends. If it was quick and easy to set up then every 2 bit web site
> would charge you just like personal homepages started getting banners in
> 97.

Absolutely.

> There was an idea a while back that ISPs would charge more and then give
> a percentage of that money to the RIAA and the MPAA to compensate them
> for pirated music and films. A system for recompensing servers for
> content *might* theoretically be workable but would require soem seriosu
> thought and security. 

So who gets paid? I mean, this reads more like the current system for
reimbursing authors of books based on where and when they've been
photocopied for use in schools, colleges etc. It's a very scattershot
affair, which sort of works.

But do I get a cut of the ISP tax because I have a personal homepage,
and people come and look at my photos? If not, why not? Am I any less
legitimate than another site?

As far as the RIAA and MPAA argument goes, I have to say I think
they're muddying the water. They're the worst offenders at trying to
use new technology to squeeze more money out of us, instead of looking
at ways of imporving their services to us, and making us *want* to
pay, along established lines, more frequently and willingly for
product that we actually enjoy.

-- 
they fed us on little white lies