There really should be a micropayments setup on the internet that's not advertising based. Let these models pay a nickel to read the article, covered by the multi trillion dollar AI blank check.
Also, this works pretty poorly for scrapers because people would just set up massive junk farms to collect micropayments from crawlers, and then either the amounts would be too small for real creators to get anything or anything requiring them just wouldn't get accessed. The latter is probably what a lot of the media companies want, but then if the AI companies aren't paying and the normal users aren't paying, who is?
I do worry about their whitepaper recommending it for a CBDC[2] (linked from [3]) which points out the state can implement negative interest rates, and that its architecture requires the issuer to get involved even in "spot your friend a $20"-level use cases. Since the issuer would presumably be required to KYC everyone, that also creates a big surveillance problem.
[1]: https://www.taler.net/en/index.html
[2]: https://www.snb.ch/public/asset/de/www-snb-ch/publications/r...
A pay wall at the news site would just bankrupt the internet archive, and a pay wall at the internet archive will kill most public interest in the service.
People would equally reject Netflix, if Netflix fooated the idea of replacing the subscription model with pay-per-view micropayments.
> ...nobody proposes an alternative solution
Such is the human condition - some problems simply have no satisfactory solutions.
You sure about that?
Something like over half of Netflix viewers believe their subscription isn't justified by how much they watch or else they aren't sure of it. Less than half believe the subscription cost is justified.
Whether a PPV model would actually be cheaper for the first half is a good question, but it is possible. Certainly, in my case, I do not watch $20 worth of content on Netflix a month. I would gladly take PPV.
You know it's not going to be reasonable because Netflix management wants to show continued profit growth, ad infinitum.
Streaming micropayments will likely include dynamic pricing, timed availability, $0.99 pilots and $20 season finales, doubled pricing when you choose the ad-free option, , "membership fees" that are a subscription in disguise, among other terrible (for the consumer) tactics.
The pricing model is just one small component of the picture, and it cannot fix systemic problems with the studio model, consolidation, chasing infinite growth, and IP law.
I would never watch 6 movies in a month, and the selection with Netflix sucks by comparison to what is available when renting.
The subscription services are only a good deal if you binge them
Why does it work like that anyway? Every time I open a page on some sites, their vexing box shows up to waste my time. Five minutes later I want a different page on the same site and it does the same thing. They can't do it once and cache the result?