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Comment by soneca | Hacker News Reader

I've being trying to make this a HN hit for a long time now, and I will try again as it is related to the topic.

The "name-your-price" web comic The Private Eye: http://panelsyndicate.com/ is a great story on a future world where online anonymity became impossible, then people went for real world anonymity, all of us wearing masks and pseudonyms. It is really interesting and entertaining to follow.

I have no connection of any kind with the authors, just a fan of their work. And I really thought HN crowd would love it. But I submitted it a few times and not a single upvote. Ever. Hope to find them some love now.

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I'm guessing it's because the only thing I see when I follow that link is the long list of "buy now" buttons. No teaser for the comic, nothing to let me gauge the comics worth... just a poorly designed webpage that only seems to want to part me and my money.

I closed the website after about 3 seconds, and wouldn't even have commented except for your seemingly genuine puzzlement at why someone wouldn't want to read it.

You name your price, so just pay nothing for the first one, then if you like it, buy the second.

It requires thought for the customer to realize they can do that, and thought equals friction in a transaction, it costs you customers.

You could get the same effect without the friction just by offering the first issue free and then putting the "Buy Now" buttons on the following issues. That lets you put the word "FREE" next to one issue, which will indicate to people that it's safe to click on if they're uncommitted. No thought on their part required, which should translate to more downloads.

Well, I was (genuinely puzzled).

What you are saying make sense, but that's the thing when you are an author trying to bootstrap in the publishing business. You don't get everything right at first. So I forgive the poor landing page because they are very good on what they do best. I am guessing that if this experiment become profitable, for a next series they might improve the marketing skills or hire someone.

The book "The Quantum Thief" had an interesting take on this. In one of the communities in the book reality was mediated through strict and fine-grained privacy controls (iirc at a cognitive level, all run somehow by the state.) You could agree to forget a conversation after having it, you could blur your face and mask your voice, that sort of thing.

Recommended reading, if a little difficult at times.

Reminds me of my favorite webcomic Opplopolis http://www.opplopolis.com both in the sales model and the theme, except that Opplopolis is free-to-read online with a higher-quality paid download option, and it takes a while before the ubiquitous surveillance theme emerges. Even when it does it's still very covert and mysterious e.g. http://www.opplopolis.com/issues/9/15

Very cool, though.

Tangential, but one frustration with the "name your price" model (depending on how it's presented) is that I have to pay up-front, without knowing what the value (ie, equality) is.

I'll feel obnoxious if I pay $1, but on the other hand, I don't know if it's worth $5. Or, maybe it's phenomenal, in which case I'd be happy to pay $20 for it.

That said, this looks interesting; I've bookmarked it for later, and will probably end up paying for it at some reasonable price.

I'd suggest you pay 0, read the first issue, and then pay for the following ones if you enjoyed the comic.

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