Recently, Wired announced they would start blocking people using an ad blocker. You either have to turn off the ad blocker or buy a subscription at $1 a week. They are neither the first nor will they be the last.
I want to compensate authors, I really do - there is a reason I pay for Spotify - but a subscription for every site that comes up on Hacker News now and then? That is unmanageable. Right now, I just won't read Wired anymore, which is okay. Wired, however, loses a potential customer since I am willing to consider alternative compensation methods.
To solve this problem, not just for Wired but for every site ever, I present an example project for people who want to run an Ad Blocker while still compensating authors.
This way you will only pay as much as website owners claim.
To make it a simple subscription (instead of a variable 'pay as you go'), you would select a number of pages per month — just like mobile data you can load X pages per month. When you get close to the limit, you are notified and can choose to add more pages or just adjust your consumption.
The header is only included in the main page request, not for javascript libraries, css dependencies, or anything like that. Also only once per URL, otherwise you would pay multiple times for the same content. It is also only sent over HTTPS to prevent man in the middle attacks.
The https thing is something that might limit adoption, since most consumption websites (e.g. news) are still http-only, but we are moving to an encrypted web already. This is yet another push.
Privacy
Website owners will not see who they got money from, it's not a payment system, merely compensation for a page load. Websites may demand this header be in place, just like "turn off your ad blocker to view this content". To prevent sites from blocking subsequent page loads, every page load includes the same URL as the first one. Sites can recognize that the user is the same as before, but it still cannot see who that actually is, and it cannot link a user between different pages.
Micro-payments are no longer hot. Flattr is similar but still not widely used. What makes me think this might be something?
1. Free money.
Those URLs are free money, to be collected by whoever
can find them. What company is going to ignore it when free money is
sent to them?
2. It's simple for developers.
Developers (or site owners) install some software on their site or
server to collect the headers and get an automatic weekly payout.
3. It's simple for users.
Users get a subscription for all of the internet: no individual
Wired-like $1 a week subscriptions!
Why 1000 pages for $5?
The amount has to be close to current ad impression prices. I thought
0.5 cents per view is somewhere in the right direction and a quick
search seems to confirm that.
So I will pay for every website I visit?
Well someone had to make every page you see, right? Website owners
might choose not to charge you though, and you can see in your account
where you got charged.
As this gains traction, the whole Internet might become pay for use. This is not the desired effect. I think the default will become 'off', with only websites that demand payment triggering a pop up. More friendly websites could include a button at the bottom requesting a tiny donation in the form of AdRefund if users liked the content.
What about pooling subscriptions?
Users could cheat by pooling: one person gets a subscription,
everyone else logs in with the same account, and they together pay only
once for a page. This will be detected by the provider, it should not
be something website owners have to worry about. It could work like
Spotify: one device online at a time; it could detect extraordinarily
quick IP address changes; etc. I have not worked out the perfect
solution, but do not believe it to be a big or unsolvable problem.
You mention 'weekly payout'. Why weekly?
Well I had to come up with something right? It could be daily, it
could be "whenever you have an outstanding payout of more than $1", it
could be user-configurable.
Why not use donate buttons instead?
Donations are by definition voluntary, but besides that, going through
a whole donation process with a certain price and needing a payment
provider... that's a waste of time I don't want to go through every
time. This system would automate the whole thing, just like ads.
Why did you not build this yet? What if someone takes your idea?
More on this below. I first wanted to see whether people thought this
could work while the topic is still hot. If the feedback is okay I can
still find the time to build it. However I'm also fine with someone
else taking the idea and going with it. I just want to see the problem
solved.
1. A good way to detect paginated content and handle forwarding (you should not pay double).
2. Should there be a way to negotiate a price? (I think this is something for version 2.)
3. Actually implement any of this.
4. Does this need a business model? In theory Bitcoin(-like) systems could handle all this perfectly (just put a private key in the headers, loaded with a few cents worth of cryptocurrency). It would burden the network though... It might be simpler for a small company to run the whole thing and collect $0.50 a month from users in service fee.
I would love to learn what you think about the concept! I invite everyone to consider it seriously because I seriously want to solve this problem and finish the debate about ad blockers' ethicalness. I also invite developers to implement this. It's not patented!
I might also implement it, perhaps together with someone, but for now I am curious to see what people think of the model.