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Comment by daxfohl | Hacker News Reader

This actually sounds like a really interesting/profitable problem to solve. I'm sure there are tons of sites that want to be pay sites, but also want articles to show up in google search results. But users don't want to get inaccessible results. Google (or whomever) needs some solution to handle non-free results intelligently. Allow users to filter out non-free results, to configure which journals they do have subscriptions to, etc. Even an easy way to make micropayments.

If Steve Jobs was still alive, I'd bet Apple would be working on a competing search engine with some of these features.

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I agree. Advertising is not a great business model on its own, particularly with the proliferation of adblockers. If there was a way to get people supporting more paid content then IMO the quality of content could also improve. But who knows how all this will go in the end. There's always been a lot of high quality free content on the Internet as well, just because people are willing to share their knowledge with each other.

krschultz's comment is really relevant as well.[1] In a complete system, search should actually know about what you subscribe to already, and not penalise those results for you.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14492870

> search should actually know about what you subscribe to already

I don't want search services to know what I subscribe to. That's private information.

Again, Steve Jobs. Under Steve Jobs, I think Apple would figure out a way to make the user experience terrific, without the end game of "Apple hordes every piece of your existence" like Google.

Steve Jobs reinvented PCs, reinvented mobile. I think "the next Steve Jobs" could do the same thing for search. I'm less and less certain of Google's monopoly on that space going forward. It's still built around Web 1.0 tech, has hacks into Web 2.0, but there's a Web 3.0 it's not ready for.

That is a step that tends towards a walled-in closed Internet...

It's probably inevitable. TV was free airwaves for so long. Now it's cable subscriptions. (And there's still advertising). Internet is already controlled by your ISP, so I have a hard time seeing that being "open" for much longer. Browsers, content providers, etc will all be regulated / commercialized / sandboxed.

Free zero-revenue startup idea: there'll be an IP-over-ham-radio or something to preserve "internet classic". (Largest use will be bitcoin-for-pornography).

I wish I could just subscribe to news like I subscribe to Hulu. I'd happily pay $15/month ($22 ad-free) and then the papers I get access to can figure a fair way to divy it up.

There's got to be a startup idea in there somewhere.

I'd happily pay, but not a flat fee. I'd maintain an account with some third party, with ~$50 balance. Browsing ad-driven sites, the agent would bid whatever it took to get all ad slots, with a limit of $0.10 or whatever. Over that, I'd get a quote, and could accept or decline. Browsing paywalled sites, I'd just get the quote.

So the company that needs this is google? I doubt they care whether WSJ paywall results are missing or not. Content in many industries is a commodity and plentiful

If the future involves a domino effect where major content providers start falling WSJ's lead, then yes, it's an indication that the current model isn't working and Google needs to either evolve or be replaced.

thats a big if. of course if that happens then yes you are right but its not likely at all.

put this in perspective: there are millions of sites out there. theres just 1 major search engine. Yeah I think i know who has leverage here.

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