Re: ::scr Paying for It

[Alex Robinson <scr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sublogins would be way crazy.

>> I'd do this by making the URLs of all the articles and so on contain large
>> randomish numbers (so they can't be guessed), but to only show the
>>navigation
>> menus if the viewer has a valid logon cookie.
>>
>> Then anyone can see the URL, but only registered people can *find* those
>>URLs
>> in the first place.

Hmmmmm. So you get to see the particular content you came to see but get no
information as to what else is available? This seems a little
arse-backwards. Surely you don't want all the pages to be freely available
- just enough of them to let people see what they're getting in to.

How about (using cookies or ip address or inflatable halibuts - it's not
important right now) simply limiting the number of pages per session that
can be viewed and then pulling down the shutters with a message saying that
to continue viewing actual content right now  you need to subscribe (and
have a model of subscription so that it can be as short or as long as the
punter wants - a la loot). This way searchability and openness are
maintained but in the best tradition of (annoy|cripple)ware, the user is
prodded in to doing the "right" thing if he or she wants to carry on using
it without having to restart their browser / delete their cookies etc . And
you don't need horrible urls either.