[Donzo]

This is absolutely correct.

Not only is an individual's private data nearly worthless, but they can protect it for free simply by using the Brave browser or other adblocking/tracking solutions.

People often claim that they would pay for web content if it were somehow easier or if micropayments worked better or something. I'm not sure that I believe them.

[pdkl95]

> I'm not sure that I believe them.

You don't have to take their word that people would pay. They already are paying. Millions[1] of people go out of their way[2] to pay creators monthly or per-work.

However, a lot of that "web content" needs to realize the actual value of their content might be ~$0. Advertising distorted the market; a lot of people were able to extract revenue greater than the actual "market value" of their content.

[1] https://graphtreon.com/patreon-stats

[2] While Patreon isn't very hard, having to take the extra step of vising (and maybe making an account) a 3rd party service is not a proper "micropayment" system. The goal of micropayments is to make trivial to immediately pay for something without any extra friction (perhaps a button/whatever in the browser to send a tip/donation, no need to worry about Paypal/Patreon/etc)

[buboard]

> a lot of that "web content" needs to realize the actual value of their content might be ~$0

If people are spending time on your site, you are providing value to them (excluding scams, of course). It's never 0.

> Advertising distorted the market; a lot of people were abl

It did not. The percentage of GDP that companies spend in advertising is historically the same for more than 100 years. What happened with the internet is that Google and later FB progressively sucked up ALL the profits, leaving literally scraps to publishers. And over time they are eating more and more value from publishers because all their competitors have vanished (there is currently NO competitor to adsense). Publishers are seing their ad CPMs being lower , despite the fact that online audiences are growing fast, and the shift to online ads has accelerated explosively in the past few years.

Patreon and subscriptions have their place, but they are not scalable. Users will revolt if they have to pay 30 yearly subscriptions for reading 30 articles , and are forced to pass from an spanish inquisition to unsubscribe. Subscriptions can also be bad for the quality of content: If creators try to appeal to their patrons/subscribers instead of trying to reach as wide audiences as possible, they tend to become more partisan and biased ; you get what you incentivize.

micropayments would indeed be far better especially if they were anonymous, fire-and-forget payments. crypto payments would be ideal for that but its not gonna happen because they are untaxable

[manigandham]

This is nowhere near the level of actual content consumption. Payment models have been tried endlessly for decades and none have been successful yet in gaining any serious usage.

[mishu2]

I've been happily using ad blockers for years, so every time I get to use someone else's computer I am reminded of what a horrible place the web has become.

On the other hand, I'd like to support creators as well, so I've created a web site that allows readers to make payments easily. It's like scroll, quid, patreon, etc. but I've tried to reduce friction even further by only going with a HN-style sign up form (email/pass) and charging readers only once they've reached a minimum account balance:

https://www.propup.net

My initial impression is that most people will just continue blocking ads everywhere, because it's the easiest and safest thing to do, and I'm not even sure I disagree with that approach.

Any feedback is appreciated.