People have tried lots of other stuff in the last 10-15 years, it was not sustainable (micro-transactions never took off, subscription-based newspapers are the exception rather than the norm etc). I'm personally fine with newspapers like the LA Times collecting and selling my personal data as long as I can read articles for "free" on their website, I think it's a pretty fair deal.
Part of the reason for the failure of those other models is their need to compete with an exploitative ad driven model. When you remove the lowest common denominator, you make it is easier for the market to accomplish something better.
If payment is optional then you are only likely to hand over money out of principle, or your own personal values.
I don’t think it’s as simple as finding the same news elsewhere for free though, or accepting this level of data collection, or subscribing to every site with micro transactions.
I would pay to use HN if the articles I clicked through to (or upvoted, or engaged with in the comments) got a piece of the pie. I’d pay a fair amount because I get a lot of value out of the aggregation and community HN offers. There’s no obvious allegiance to a particular perspective on life so one day I can enjoy a spiritual read and another I can learn about baking bread. I’m not only challenged, my curiosity is being piqued. It may be that HN works this way because there is no direct profit motive in HN itself except to point budding startups to Y Combinator.
I’m unlikely to pay an individual publication (say, The Guardian) because such publications have a specific editorial viewpoint, and more often than not it’s going to be the point of view that supports my own. My money is wasted on an echo chamber that makes me mad about the state of the world.
Neither am I likely to pay a publication that I persistently disagree with because our values are incompatible. I might read them if they have something profound to say but I’m not going to commit to them for that.
So maybe there’s something in a co-operative effort where the community collectively funds the content it engages with. But rather than it being an individual thing like with Patreon or individual subscriptions, it’s a pool you contribute to in order to participate further in the community.
I have never, ever, ever seen a single reputable source to support this claim. As far as I can tell, this is just something that people blindly repeat to justify their exploitative business models.
On the other hand, there's quite a lot of evidence of successful businesses operating on a subscription model because they provide a good value proposition. Which leads me to conclude that your claim is simply false.
I've never felt exploited by advertisers. Nor do most other people, otherwise they would keep their internet usage to a minimum when what we see is the exact opposite.
Please stop attacking services and sites that hundreds of millions or billions of people find useful because of your own over the top histrionics.
Most users on the internet are completely incapable of understanding what tracking even means. Those users, therefor, can not consent to that tracking in an informed way.
There are more histrionics in this reply than the person you’re responding to.
The parent makes an excellent point: it’s easy to argue the other models (micro transactions, subscriptions, paywalls) failed because they were in competition with an industry that has safely operated with little to no regulation for a decade or two.
The ad industry in this situation has an insane advantage because it can make money from end-users without them even being aware that they are involved in a transaction. They don’t have to see a banner ad in order for dozens or hundreds of other businesses to learn about them.
There is no explicit contract between the website and the user in the way that there is when you agree to pay the business money in exchange for the value it offers.
So GDPR levels the playing field by removing that advantage. If an advertiser or another business runs above board they don’t have a problem. More to the point, if they can convince a user to opt in, then they have a serious value proposition to the user too.
Advertising itself is an easy and almost fallacious target. People know about adverts so they use Adblock. People have no idea what a business will do with all of the data that reaches their servers without any JS required.
> i.e. "It's easier for horses to compete with cars if you set the speed limit everywhere to 5 miles per hour."
I think that elides pretty important aspects from the equation. In reality, it's more like: "It's easier for Bill-brand horses to compete with John-brand horses; if you ban the steroids, amphetamines, and cruel practices John uses to get his results."
I might be exaggerating, but you can say the same thing about environment protection laws, anti-slavery laws, worker protection laws etc. They made some businesses unsustainable too.