Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vincentkriek 3849 days ago
There are a lot of numbers coming out of Blendle but I would like to know what actual revenue Blendle is getting. I don't believe the micropayment method is the way to go and I see more value in payed subscription model. I think a lot of the numbers they publish include people in free trials or people buying one or two articles and that's it.

Blendle's got a lot of hype behind it, I wonder if it's really taking of.
2 comments
thetmkay 3849 days ago
I spent a week or two looking into and evaluating micro payments for news, and I share your concerns.

The line I hear out of Blendle though is that it's part of an ecosystem, i.e. one avenue of payment options. I can imagine a one-off paywall working for some content, but I doubt it will be the dominant method of choice.

Newspapers are only half entertainment, but the entertainment industry pivoted from per-product to aggregated subscription in the age of the Internet. Of course Blendle itself is a platform, tweaking its business model should be within scope.

link
lucaspiller 3849 days ago
I wanted to watch some videos on GDC the other day - I'm not a game developer and don't intent to be, just a developer who is interested in how those things work. They provide some free videos, and then for others you need a subscription, which starts at $500/year.

If I was in that industry I could see the potential value paying for that gives, but as someone who just has a passing interest there is no way I'd pay for that. I'd consider maybe paying $1 or $2 to watch them (although the quality of the free videos was very hit and miss, so even that I think might be a bit high), but that's it. In the end I just found some (free) talks on YouTube about the same topic.

Personally I think talks from conferences should be released for free online. Other than headline speakers, most of the people who give talks at conferences just get paid for their travel costs and accomodation (if that). The real value in going to a conference is for the networking, so people will still pay to go - I'd like to see the knowledge shared released for everyone to benefit.

link