Category Archives: micropayments

BuzzMachine: Bring it on, Rupert

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Jeff Jarvis: "Considering how infrequently I read Wall Street Journal articles, its threatened plans to bring on micropayments would turn out to be a much better deal for me than for the Journal. ... [The] problem here is the myth of regular readership. ... Online, we get to see what people really read - and what it’s really worth to them - and that’s a lot less than we ever thought."

Poynter Online: Romenesko: “Future of Newspapers” transcript from Charlie Rose’s show

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Robert Thomson: "the Kindle or a similar device in five years' time is going to be very, very different. And the task for editors and for publishers is to anticipate what those devices are going to be like. Because journalists historically haven't done a very good job of anticipating those social changes. Instead of being a part of their community, they've existed in a kind of splendid isolation, being self-referential and self-reverential. So -- and how are people going to access information in the future? There is still an opportunity for people who attempt to think ahead."

New York Times: You Can’t Sell News by the Slice

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Michael Kinsley: "Just a few years ago, there was no sweeter perch in American capitalism than ownership of the only newspaper in town. Now, every English-language newspaper is in direct competition with every other. Millions of Americans get their news online from The Guardian, which is published in London. This competition, and not some kind of petulance or laziness or addled philosophy, is what keeps readers from shelling out for news."

Notes from a Teacher: Paying a little

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Mark Hamilton: "[M]icropayments, at least the way they are currently being discussed, are too much based on an old way of consuming media: a local paper or two that I read, maybe a national title, maybe a couple of specialty publications. Paying a couple of pennies (or tenth of pennies) for every page I read makes sense when that’s the model. But, of course, that’s no longer the model. The media I consume varies from day to day (sometimes from hour to hour) and covers the full gamut of local, regional, national and international. "

Recovering Journalist: Welcome to the Age-Old Online News Debates

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Vin Crosbie offers an argument for micropayments: "many of my graduate students from foreign countries are amazed that we in America have never adopted the very successful microtransaction system they use in their countries. It's called their mobile phones. From Finland to the South Africa to the Far East, millions of people use their mobile phones daily to pay parking meters, buy from vending machines, and make other types of micropayments without cash. Many even purchase daily or weekly access to newspaper and magazine Web sites..."

Clay Shirky: Why Small Payments Won’t Save Publishers

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"The invocation of micropayments involves a displaced fantasy that the publishers of digital content can re-assert control over we unruly users in a media environment with low barriers to entry for competition. News that this has been tried many times in the past and has not worked is unwelcome precisely because if small payment systems won’t save existing publishers in their current form, there might not be a way to save existing publishers in their current form (an outcome generally regarded as unthinkable by existing publishers.)"

Recovering Journalist: Welcome to the Age-Old Online News Debates

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Mark Potts: "One of the chief reasons online news vets like myself get frustrated by wacky suggestions from people like [Peter Osnos and Walter Isaacson] is because, well, it's not like these ideas haven't been considered before in the online world. Ad infinitum, if not ad nauseam. What's happening is that smart traditional print guys like Osnos and Issacson are turning their brainpower, finally, toward the online world. It's pretty much all new to them, so they're having what they think are brilliantly original ideas. Except they aren't original."