Google says adding more AI to its search engine will rejuvenate the internet. Others predict an apocalypse for websites. One thing is clear: this era of online history is closing.
Unpopular opinion: The missing business model for websites is killing the web. If there was a platform that would distribute a monthly fee to the websites we visit, the web would be much better.
50% could be allocated through traffic, 50% by choice. I could pay 20€ a month for example. Some would go to lemmy, some to my local newspaper, some to my favorite YouTube channels, authors or bloggers.
If enough people did this, investigative journalism would be funded, product testers wouldn’t be reliant on sponsoring and hobbyists could gain serious funding without selling out.
All it would take would be a platform that handles the payment and supplies a tracking pixel. Websites could join and become part of it. At the moment, every single publisher has their own payment solution. If I want to read one local article from Houston today and one from Tokyo tomorrow, I won’t join two payment plans. I want them to be paid automatically, like when I play a song on Spotify or watch a video on YouTube. Just a decent amount of money instead of paying mostly middlemen.
I would love a if there was a standard websites would use to receive donations. An integrated browser addon that track what you visit and gives you a review before distributing funds after each month would be great. It should accumulate money to avoid transaction fees for tiny amounts.
Unpopular opinion: The missing business model for websites is killing the web. If there was a platform that would distribute a monthly fee to the websites we visit, the web would be much better.
50% could be allocated through traffic, 50% by choice. I could pay 20€ a month for example. Some would go to lemmy, some to my local newspaper, some to my favorite YouTube channels, authors or bloggers.
If enough people did this, investigative journalism would be funded, product testers wouldn’t be reliant on sponsoring and hobbyists could gain serious funding without selling out.
Sounds like you want to nationalise the internet and all its services. :P
If only we could pay for a worthwhile internet via taxes.
All it would take would be a platform that handles the payment and supplies a tracking pixel. Websites could join and become part of it. At the moment, every single publisher has their own payment solution. If I want to read one local article from Houston today and one from Tokyo tomorrow, I won’t join two payment plans. I want them to be paid automatically, like when I play a song on Spotify or watch a video on YouTube. Just a decent amount of money instead of paying mostly middlemen.
This sounds exactly like what Brave is/was supposed to be/could have been.
I would love a if there was a standard websites would use to receive donations. An integrated browser addon that track what you visit and gives you a review before distributing funds after each month would be great. It should accumulate money to avoid transaction fees for tiny amounts.
May I introduce you to https://webmonetization.org/ ?