<story><title>How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking</title><url>http://www.wired.com/how-wired-is-going-to-handle-ad-blocking/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ljoshua</author><text>As has been mentioned elsewhere, my exact problem with this&amp;#x2F;Forbes approach&amp;#x2F;elsewhere is that there is no way that I want to suddenly start managing several new monthly subscriptions for all these outlets.&lt;p&gt;I enjoy Wired, but the thought of adding yet another subscription to my monthly credit card statement is too great a cognitive load for me to want to make the jump. Also, if you were to subscribe to the dead tree version, you get 6 months of dead tree + digital + a &lt;i&gt;physical object&lt;/i&gt; (battery) for $5 that comparing it to $4&amp;#x2F;mo for digital only feels cheap.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t mind paying a small amount for reading the occasional article, but I don&amp;#x27;t want to manage a ton of new subscriptions.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Suggested Solution:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now micropayments have never taken off for much the same reason, but what if I funded one general &amp;quot;content publishers&amp;quot; account with the equivalent of that $3.99&amp;#x2F;mo? When I get to a paywalled&amp;#x2F;ad-block unfriendly site, I could choose to fund that particular article using a micropayment from my general fund. I would have only one subscription to manage, would feel good about contributing to content I felt was quality, and people would get paid.&lt;p&gt;Of course, this takes content publisher buy-in, but if they&amp;#x27;re already in the process of trying new things, how about it? Feels a little similar to the failed Google Contributor project, but with more direct decision making. Can someone go and build a great business out of this for me?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oneeyedpigeon</author><text>This is exactly what Readability [1] was doing, really well - from a user&amp;#x27;s perspective - but they couldn&amp;#x27;t make the business model work. They got lots of paying readers on-board, but couldn&amp;#x27;t get publishers involved.&lt;p&gt;Maybe they were just s few years too early. As you say, now that publishers are slowly awakening from their slumber, they&amp;#x27;ll be more willing to give it a go.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.readability.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.readability.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How Wired Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking</title><url>http://www.wired.com/how-wired-is-going-to-handle-ad-blocking/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ljoshua</author><text>As has been mentioned elsewhere, my exact problem with this&amp;#x2F;Forbes approach&amp;#x2F;elsewhere is that there is no way that I want to suddenly start managing several new monthly subscriptions for all these outlets.&lt;p&gt;I enjoy Wired, but the thought of adding yet another subscription to my monthly credit card statement is too great a cognitive load for me to want to make the jump. Also, if you were to subscribe to the dead tree version, you get 6 months of dead tree + digital + a &lt;i&gt;physical object&lt;/i&gt; (battery) for $5 that comparing it to $4&amp;#x2F;mo for digital only feels cheap.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t mind paying a small amount for reading the occasional article, but I don&amp;#x27;t want to manage a ton of new subscriptions.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Suggested Solution:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now micropayments have never taken off for much the same reason, but what if I funded one general &amp;quot;content publishers&amp;quot; account with the equivalent of that $3.99&amp;#x2F;mo? When I get to a paywalled&amp;#x2F;ad-block unfriendly site, I could choose to fund that particular article using a micropayment from my general fund. I would have only one subscription to manage, would feel good about contributing to content I felt was quality, and people would get paid.&lt;p&gt;Of course, this takes content publisher buy-in, but if they&amp;#x27;re already in the process of trying new things, how about it? Feels a little similar to the failed Google Contributor project, but with more direct decision making. Can someone go and build a great business out of this for me?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dexterdog</author><text>Why wouldn&amp;#x27;t you make it invisible? Do people really want to decide to pay or not pay for each page hit? You have a monthly fund which is your subscription. When you hit a site that is in the network it gets a chit against your account. At the end of the month (or whatever) your chits are counted up and providers get credited. It&amp;#x27;s really pretty simple and invisible. People get to fund what they actually use. Content creators get paid. Content providers can decide whether to paywall for out-of-network requests if they like. There is a paper trail to deal with copyright violations. I just need a huge pile of money to get people to sell it to some key players.</text></comment>