[gwbas1c]

> You can pay publishers directly already by buying subscriptions

But that's not how most of us access news. We look at sources like Twitter, Hacker News, Facebook, Google News for links to articles.

Subscribing to a single website doesn't work in this model.

[tootie]

Who is "we"? I look at aggregators but I also subscribe at the source for publications I value.

[rch]

It's difficult to find valuable sources though. I'm currently spending over $100 a month on subscriptions, and and I still feel like my sources are biased and myopic.

[mikojan]

Why wouldn't it work? You simply subscribe to a publisher you are valuing.

[erik_seaberg]

How many different publishers did I visit once or twice this week? Probably a lot, but I’m not sure which, or how much all of them would cost.

Subscription-only articles suffer from the opposite of the network effect. If I pick 1/n publishers to subscribe to, and you pick 1/n, the odds I can read something you tried to share are only 1/n^2. It might help if there were wire services for major topics I care about.

[gwbas1c]

If I subscribed to every publisher I valued, I'd pay more than I pay for Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, and Disney+ combined!

I think if the music industry can come out with a 1-subscription-fits-most model, I'm sure the journalism industry can figure out how to evenly distribute a modest $5-15 subscription fee.

[chaorace]

It's quite the feat to convince someone to pay for something they already get for free, particularly in the digital space... Aha! The answer has been right under our noses the entire time: we need to sell online media subscriptions as NFTs!