[aresant]

I never get this attitude.

Without mechanisms for publishers to monetize visitors, publisher quality deteriorates or becomes untenable for independents.

In a world where nobody wants to pay for content, this is a minimally disruptive, novel way to pass revenue directly into the hands of publishers that are working hard to create content.

[Retric]

I would much rather pay a few cents than watch an Ad on Hulu. It got so bad I simply stopped watching Hulu all together. Now yet another start up has tacked the hard monetization problem by crating even more annoying advertizing. And you don't see anything wrong with this picture?

PS: Advertizing is basically a zero sum game. It's a multi billion dollar industry, but most people spend most of what they make and better advertizing does not change that fact.

[blake8086]

A lot of people "would rather pay a few cents than...", but who "would rather create an account, verify their email address, get out their credit card, enter their payment information, and confirm a $0.05 payment than..."?

Maybe the best form of protest would be to come up with a one-click way to pay a few cents for something. As far as I know, Flattr is about the only thing in that space.

[fauigerzigerk]

I agree that there is a problem to solve. But I'm not sure if this approach does anything other than shift some advertising money around. Does it really change the equation or the size of the pie? I don't think so. Whether or not it's minimally disruptive depends on how it is used - like all advertising.

It's perfectly OK for a startup to do advertising stuff, but I agree with jrkelly that this is not what the world needs engineers for. It's just a way to make some money and I wish them luck with that.