[jasonlotito]

> Let's say a journalist writes an excellent article about something political of serious import. I'm fine with paying for that article to get access to it.

Ignoring the millionaire angle of just paying for salaries, we sort of already have that. It's the algorithm of whatever platform a person is on. The net result is people focusing on things that get the most eyeballs.

The problem with your vision is literally what you are saying:

> I'm fine with paying for that article

Sure. But what about the one before that? And the one after that? Articles that don't meet your standards that you would say you are fine paying for.

It's like asking to pay a programmer per line of code that goes into the actual final build.

Unit tests? Nope. Integration tests? Nada. Comments? Nope. Documentation? Are users paying for it? No? No way!

This sounds ridiculous because it is.

And you already work this way. You lump stuff people don't care about with stuff people do care about and combine them.

It's the old joke about paying by the hour vs. by the project, and how you aren't paying for the 15 minutes of work it takes an expert to do something, but for the 20 years of experience that allow them to do it in 15 minutes.

> I wonder if there is a viable business model where for each article, readers can pay to unlock it not just for themselves, but for everyone. The price would obviously have to be higher since you aren't just buying it for yourself. But perhaps the sense of "I'm helping build a better-informed world and helping broadcast my values" would encourage people to pay that higher price.

I think that could work in a way. I think it's a bit more involved than just buying an article.

Back of the comment thinking here: you see an article you like, you buy a year subscription. This signals that sometimes articles take longer to write, that the person writing that article can't write good articles if they are stressed, and that they avoid having to only ever chase trends.

Then, by having that sub, you have votes. These are effectively "tipping" with your subscription. You don't pay more; you just signal that you want this article to be free. If enough people "tip" on this article, it goes free.

Does this work? I don't know. I feel like in this case, it's low enough to be feasible but not too low as to diminish the work. I think people who claim they are willing to pay for the article will show their true colors and balk at the price. Ignoring that the article is more than just the lines of text and the time it took to type it out.