People will pay for content | Hacker News Reader

People will pay for content

gilesbowkett.blogspot.com

45 pointsfogus34 comments

Some interesting points. But I think there are some specific reasons why some ebooks succeed... And why following the same model for news/publishing won't.

I notice the author doesn't have any specific advice how music publishers or news organizations can follow the ebook model and make gazillions. PG is talking about mainstream content/media. Pointing out a few scenarios where sad saps will buy quick-fix content doesn't really help.

This is a linkbait title with a straw man argument and a little ad hominem sauce drizzled on top. But the story will get tons of upvotes and comments. Boo, internet.

What I took away from the article is that the "little guy" can make money selling content. Even though a lot of newspapers and content providers are suffering because of the internet, there are a lot of people making a lot of money selling content. So if my goal is to make a comfortable income (up to 5 figures per month), it's definitely possible to do this -- other people are doing it too.

Well, I know that the point of the article is not "Does Paul Graham Read Hacker News?" The point is more "Content is worth money," though it's argued badly.

But, if you want to know if PG reads Hacker News. Yes, he's a heavy reader and contributor:

http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=pg

He would have to be of course, since he is a moderator.

he's talking about selling information that people need to solve some problem, and pg said in footnote 1 that he's not talking about such information, so this whole objection is irrelevant.

> If the content was what they were selling, why has the price of books or music or movies always depended mostly on the format?

No matter what they tell you, all they are ever selling is convenience. Buy the ebook version of the book, you are paying for the rights to get it digitally, which may or may not offer certain conveniences. Tetris is free on the internet, but paid on the iPhone, because there is a certain convenience to getting it on your iPhone that they are offering that you're willing to pay for.

The trend, what with the internet and wikipedia, is for information to be more easily acquired. Thus the convenience is becoming harder and harder to sell.

The article has some points here and there, but the personal attack on pg was a bit of sensationalism, without which it would have been HN-worthy.

There's always a market (here, an audience) for personal attacks on the wealthy and successful. It comes with the territory.

For his part, pg is leading by example -- laughing all the way to the bank.

Can you elaborate on your last point? The only way I can see pg "laughing all the way to the bank" is through YCombinator where he has to work and commit time to develop startups. He makes no money (afaik) from HN or his articles, except where this boosts his reputation for YC and increases book sales.

I think he means "raises the question."

When a specific "incorrect" usage of a phrase becomes--and stays--way more common than the "correct" usage, it stops being "incorrect." Analogously, we can correctly use the token "assert" as an identifier in Java 1.0, but not in Java 1.5.

In general usage you may be correct, however I must say that I hold myself and my peers to a higher educational standard on HN.

' becomes--and stays--way more common than the "correct" usage '

OTOH, nearly each time there's a post with the incorrect usage, there's also a comment or two of correction.

Which begs the, er, which raises the question, how do you know when a certain usage has become more common? You can't just look at your own social circle (or HN, or whatever) and decide that's how everyone uses it.

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=%22begs+the+ques...

1.6 million

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=%22raises+the+qu...

38.9 million

for what those numbers are worth

Language does change, but empirically these things don't seem to be decided by simple majorities. "Ain't" has been very common for centuries and is still seen as a solecism.

The threshold for change seems to be when people who know the correct form opt not to use it, because it seems too fussy. I would say that's happened now with trailing prepositions and split infinitives. We aren't near that threshold yet with "begging the question" though. We may never be, because it's still needed for its original meaning.

Split infinitives were never wrong to begin with. The farcical objections to them began in the late 19th century, crested in the 20th, and have subsided in the 21st. Some modern style guides even recommend them!

I thought the same thing, but Wikipedia reports that although in Old English some verbs were formed with "to" (I didn't even know that) splitting them was never done.

It is different. You are talking about an observation made about a prior iteration of English (descriptive). I am talking about arbitrary rules created long after the development of the current iteration of English (prescriptive or, more accurately, proscriptive).

I want to blindly accept that argument but I can't. Those who choose to casually break the rules of the language need swiftly to firmly be reprimanded.

+1, sir!

The trailing preposition is different because it was always good Old English and only recently proscribed. And what did we ever ban something our ancestors were so loyal to for?

Oops. That should have been, "And why did we ever ban something our ancestors were so loyal to for?"

Ouch. The original was right. Ignore the oops. This is hilarious.

It's not quite that simple -- while "raises the question" would be correct in Giles' sentence, your essay on publishing does consist of a circular argument.

And here instead of addressing the question of whether you really read this site or remember the Parrot posts, you pick a low-hanging ad hominem. At least his attack on you directly addressed (and undermined) your argument, instead of just being a grammar nitpick.

Fallacies don't cancel each other out, even when misapplied :)

That wasn't supposed to be a conclusive rebuttal; it was a joke (the point being I do read the stuff on HN).

The author reads pg's statement that "People will pay for information they think they can make money from." and hears the negative - people /won't/ pay for information they /can't/ make money from. That setup is then used to conclude: Buy (other people's) stuff via my Amazon Affiliate link. Feh.

People will pay for content, they just don't know it. But really, what people is that? The people reading the content, or people reaching out to content readers. The current foregone conclusion is the latter, and everything-ad supported is proof of that. The same people paying for AND reading the content being one in the same is the exception. Consumer Reports, Wall Street Journal and PBS are the only three that immediately come to mind. Even ESPN, one of the larger old-and-new media platforms, last I heard few are paying them directly, most are through third parties a la cable provider Comcast.

I think there are two parts to this problem. First, there aren't any content delivery networks that currently can rival the traditional ones, not from a publisher perspective at least. Selling content through retailers is still the best way to reach a lot of customers. Second, don't underestimate the publishers need for control. That's what they do, they acquire rights to distribute things and distribute them.

So, what's the solution? Create a content distribution system that is easy(widespread, user friendly, open?) and let's the publishers control the distribution, but not necessarily by being involved. Whatever retailers, or wholesalers, should be a part of this is hard to say. But seems likely.

Geez, talk about taking a few words a little too literally and blowing it up.

I believe pg was arguing about the majority of newspapers and books that are struggling to survive with the advent of Internet.

He was looking at the empty majority of the glass. You are looking at the fraction that isn't empty(ie. parrot book that is selling). That doesn't change the fact that majority of mainstream newspapers and books are struggling to survive.

Also, you cite numbers and go all gaga over them without really telling us why the numbers are relevant or advance your argument. I don't care if Clickbank has done a billion in sales if, say, the overall industry has shrunk over time.

Probably not. Most people have better things to do.

Good question. You would think that competition and ease of entry would bring down the price of content on a particular subject down to a format level. sort of a Moore's Law of ebooks. First one in makes out good but not si good over any length of time.

to me, his observation is "people will buy stuff they don't really need." gullibility is an undying human quality that makes many businesses work. the video professor doesn't keep running infomercials for kicks. somebody's buying.

$1.4Bn divided to 100,000 users of clickbank over 10 years doesn't sound like a lot to me. If I'm doing my math correctly that's about $100 per month per average marketer.

And that's just the average - not the median.

This was originally part of a longer article, which I believe was itself posted to HN. The author merely extracted it in order to reference information in it more succinctly.

Pretty sure Paul reads Hacker news, as I've been told I'm wrong wrong wrong a couple times :)

Do you know what quality journalism is? I don't, I've never seen any. But I am willing to pay for a well researched piece about wether Barack Obama smokes in the White House.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com