Comment by ath0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ath0 | Hacker News Reader

Jon Rosenberg (of goats.com)'s experiment with this in the early 2000s -- not bitcoin, which didn't exist yet, but micropayments in general -- was the first one I saw with hard numbers about why this will be extremely difficult. Sadly, he's taken his site offline, but short version: There's a huge difference in someone's mind between "free", and "not free"; it's seen as a change in category, not in degree. Having to commit any amount of money - even $1 - significantly reduces your audience, but once someone's gotten over the hump of willing to pay, you might as well ask them to make a larger purchase of a T-Shirt or subscription.

This sort of experiment has been repeated many times. Folks like Flattr have tried to tie this to social networks, so it's seamless; and the NYTimes model of metered paywalls (smaller publishers can use something like http://www.tinypass.com/, which Andrew Sullivan's blog uses) seems to be taking over magazine publishing. Even attempts to turn cable subscriptions a la carte aren't doing well, as Megan McArdle explains: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/why-cant...

I get why the Genesis Block would have enthusiasm for this idea. But one-pass micropayments, Bitcoin or otherwise, don't seem like the future to me.

Ten years ago you were right, but I think you are making this out to be some hard-wired component of human nature when it is largely cultural. Something has changed culturally and psychologically in the time since then. The psychological gap between paying and not paying now is narrower than it was 10 years ago. This is in large part due to developments that have taken place in the time since, especially the iTunes model. In the 90s people people were extremely cautious about purchasing things online. In the beginning it didn't happen at all, but Amazon and the development of e-commerce broke that barrier. People began to think nothing of giving out their credit card information and home addresses to purchase things that will ultimately be shipped to their homes. Then, paying for all-digital premium content became the norm, especially because of iTunes. iTunes completely normalized the concept of a small payment for quick and easy access to content. People think nothing of purchasing an app or a song in two seconds on iTunes, because psychologically $1.00 doesn't mean a whole lot to them and easily fits within their recreational budget and it is exceedingly convenient.

I think the next form of content to fall into this model will be written content. First major newspapers had to stop giving away their content for free (they already have as you point out). People have shown that they are willing to pay for this formerly free content. Now comes the part where they start charging for a la carte access to articles. I've already seen this on some magazines - GQ? Time perhaps? I forget - and I must admit I've clicked through a few times, and I don't have a lot of disposable income. I might simply irresponsible but on the other hand I'm probably not alone.

Did they charge before access? I would honestly expect such systems to fail, forever, for the same reason free iOS apps with in-app purchases are vastly more profitable than paid apps. There's no chance to build trust if you charge up-front, and why would I pay if I have zero trust? It's easier to leave and look elsewhere, leading to tons of results are useless, and it seems reasonable to assume the site that's charging for access is just as likely to be useless.

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