[rgavuliak]

Let's look at the economics, back when I was working in the paywall industry you had roughly 10% of users reading more than 5 articles on an average medium.

Let's say that you could get 2 % of these people to pay you $10 per month. With a readership of 1M that would mean you'd get (1000000 * 0.1 * 0.02) * 10 * 12 = $240k per year.

Now let's move that over to blendle, let's say that the average reader reads 1.2 articles per month (since most people only look at 1 article). Let's be super generous here - with a much larger conversion rate - 10 % of everyone buying 1 article per month month on average comes up to a comparable amount 100000 * 12 * 0.23 = $276k per month. And we're being generous here, remember - blendle abandoned this model so it almost certainly isn't equal to the metered model I used in my estimation above even if more users are willing to pay.

Now if you bring down the payment to whatever you're proposing you get to $27.6k or even 2.76k per YEAR. The napkin math is clear that this isn't feasible.

Interestingly enough you'd pay less as a "heavy reader" if you read 10 articles per month (which is a super small % of users on an average medium) with blendle (10 * 0.23 = $2.3) than with a subscription costing $10. But making the users count articles likely isn't great psychology as compared to buy and read everything you want. Which likely is perceived as a higher value offer.

[selfhoster11]

I mean, you can run numbers all you want. All I'm reporting is an anecdotal n=1 experience, and the psychological barrier I'm reporting was strong enough to make me quit, where I was totally fine with paying prices that aren't calibrated to the disposable income of a lower-middle class American worker.

And probably would have consumed far more, because the volume would make up for it. That's my whole point. As someone who voraciously reads online stuff, I'd far prefer to pay 25x 2.3 cent than 2x 23 cents. Maybe I'm an outlier, but so I'd expect most article readers who care about truthfulness of the material to be.

[rgavuliak]

My point was that your preferences don't make for a good business model when it comes to micropayments.

What I am telling you that based on online readership patterns, people that read 25 and more articles per month don't make up for enough of a base to be worth monetizing at 2.3 cents per article. These are hard facts.

In this case the market evolution is the proof that micropayments are not feasible. Not one company succeeded running them, but you have plenty of news companies using subscriptions that scaled the approach and made significant revenues. These are lessons learned across hundreds of news sites. With all due respect, your opinion is just that - anecdotal.