[sofixa]

There was something similar with Coil.com, based on the Web Monetisation API. Basically you paid $5/month, and it was shared on a pro-rata basis between on content you consumed that supported the API. Coil themselves had content lists on their website to discover, but the goal was for the monetisation to happen organically.

It failed.

[Dylan16807]

Most companies fail. But I think something like that could work.

It's what Google Contributor should have been. Not the bizarre v1 where your money tried to outbid ads, or the pay-per-view v2 that also only supported a handful of websites.

[p_l]

Google Contributor was dead on arrival by the usual issue of launching ... too small.

It could never get a following because the initial set of providers and customers would be always too limited to gain proper usage numbers which in turn would prevent it from being expanded.

[Dylan16807]

v1 was very wide reaching but worked in a dumb way.

v2 had a pathetic reach and worked in a mediocre way.

Youtube premium does basically the right thing, so it would be nice if google talked to google about how they made it happen.

[p_l]

I recall even the initial implementation being so geographically limited that it limited it chances of actually getting anywhere.

[kalleboo]

There was also flattr by brokep (one of the Pirate Bay guys), which basically gave you a like button to put on your blog, and your monthly payment was split between all your likes.