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Comment by dmschulman | Hacker News Reader

Here's a radical idea: pay for the services you love to use.

The author mentions she pays for an NYTimes subscription presumably because she gets a lot of value from their content. I pony up the same for a handful of websites and services that I choose to support. It's certainly not a democracy but there is some logic to "voting with your wallet".

I hate ads as much as the next person but one thing I hate even more is a great service or product going the way of the dodo because there's no viable way to make something free forever.

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"Here's a radical idea: pay for the services you love to use."

Here's another radical idea: trying to understand why people are unwilling to pay.

To me it's pretty obvious. People don't value those things they're supposed to "love" enough to pay for them. They don't actually "love" them, they're just induced necessities. If the whole Internet was turned into a pay-it-or-leave-it model, I wouldn't be surprised if most people just left it.

However, it this rare to see someone considering this possibility. It's much easier to discard users as being "cheap" or "freeloaders" than to think the all-so-important content on the Internet is just an extra on people's lives.

The article does make the point that other types of monetization besides ads or paywalls should be pursued.

Often those other types of monetization boil down to someone else paying for it in one way or another.

Or you pay for it yourself but without the decision to specifically pay for _that_ content. I guess one heavy point of friction is having to decide to pay for something and not doing it because you either think it isn't worth it or the decision itself isn't worth it.

Bundling subscriptions and sharing revenue could be a way to do it. Not sure how that can be materialized in practice, though.

Feeling value in intangible products (articles, music streaming, etc) is definitely the crux of the problem. If we can't hold it in our hands (not to mention we've grown accustom to getting all this content for free) it's quite a sales pitch to get someone to start paying for that. Finding that content valuable and feeling like you're supporting those creators is one of the few appeals I can think of to convert a free user.

I think it's important to also recognize that many of these services are just convenient alternatives to other modes of consumption (streaming Soundcloud vs playing a mix CD in your car). That being said, it's alarming to realize how the web has evolved to embrace these walled gardens and that ad-supported models will become more perversive despite the terrible user experience (and the consequences it has for open web).

| "Voting with your wallet"

Oddly enough thats exactly how our 'democracy' works... what would it be without political donations?

Back to the point though, if you want to make something free forever, buy it outright one time and its yours for the keeping... Subscription services like buying a car then going to TitleMax and giving them the title, wait for them to take your car away when you can't pay.

In a big D Democracy, you're correct. I don't consider the modern web to be a big D Democracy though.

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