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Comment by trequartista | Hacker News Reader

So far, I think Guardian has the best approach towards ad-blocking. There's a non-intrusive banner message at the bottom of the screen, which says that they know you are using adblock and asks if you would like to support them via a paid subscription.

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That's a step in the right direction. The problem I have with signing up for a subscription is two fold. First is that I don't feel like I traffic particular sites often enough to justify the price they ask. Second is that I don't want to give up the personally identifiable information they ask for (and sell off).

I'd much rather there be an anonymous mechanism for making one-time payments or tips. Maybe a metadata header that indicates a BTC address that can be picked up by a plug-in of the user's choosing?

I'd love to be able to anonymously say "Yeah! This article was sooo good, it deserves $10!" or "That article was crap. It doesn't deserve anything". But that has to be done after I've read it. In the current ad model, articles get paid based on how much they are shared, not how much people like the content.

EDIT: It's kind of like tip-sharing. If I have a good waiter, I don't want to the crappy waiter to have his share of the tip.

And I responded to the Guardian's request by subscribing. (And still blocking)

But I'm not going to do that for everything. Just the ones I think are worth paying for. You know, like I used to do for magazines. And during that time, I also read free magazines (the alternative papers that most big towns have).

Actually, that's kind of interesting. Those free alternatives are still around, and I still read them, on and offline. I haven't touched a physical magazine or newspaper in years.

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