[ahepp]

This is a bit tangential, but I actually think charging money to participate in certain online discussions is a really good idea.

For instance, I think it would be awesome if everyone sending an email to my main account had to send me $1. If what they are sending me isn't worth $1 to them, why should I get a buzz on my phone? Spam would be solved instantly.

I certainly don't think that every corner of the internet should be pay-to-play, and I generally don't think that the fees should be substantial to users participating in good faith. But I've got about five emails in the past two days from an airline bugging me to upgrade my seat. It costs me time and attention to weed through my inbox.

I'm sure this principle could be applied to sites like HN or reddit to raise the bar and put even just a little bit of skin in the game.

[pacifika]

Your friends and family are going to pay you for every email? Every online purchase would be several dollars more expensive. Transactional email providers would go bankrupt.

[quectophoton]

No worries, we'll make plans to make it easy to pay. And it will be just cents So you just subscribe to your plan, send emails without worries because it's just cents, and at the end of the month you get a bill. Even cheaper than Migadu.

We can call it "Simple Mailing Subscription". Or "SMS" for short.

[bensecure]

I've thought about doing this where the money is escrowed, and the recipient can optionally take it if they think the email is spam or otherwise unsavoury. You of course wouldn't take money from friends or family. Email marketing that you never asked for you would of course accept their money. Random spam phishing emails you would readily take the fee from.

[anonymous_sorry]

The thing to notice about this system is that only people who send more emails than they receive lose out. It would end spam at a stroke.

And it doesn't matter if online purchases are more expensive, because you get that money back through email receipt fees.

Tougher challenges are the traditional ones with micropayments. Transaction costs. And maybe tax implications. And the differential incentive based on wealth. People struggling for cash would still try and minimise their outgoing communication, which is probably a bad thing for a healthy society.

[foobarchu]

While I don't think this idea is a good one, that problem is easily solved with whitelisting. Everyone gets to pick a set of senders who can communicate with them freely, or up to a cap.

[Beijinger]

Excellent Idea. But why email? Just use a webform that charges 1 USD via paypal to contact you. Trust me, I wont!

[quectophoton]

On one hand, I would like to see it happen. But on the other hand I just don't think it would work that well.

As someone from Europe, the first thing that comes to mind is that PCI compliance isn't even required by law in USA, is it?