News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by abdullahkhalids on Friday October 12, 2018 @12:57AM (#18199318)
I will wait till we get a micro-transaction system built directly into the browser (same system for every browser) that allows me to pay 1 cent per news article - maybe 5 cent for a super duper long essay. I am poor but I am willing to pay as much as 5 dollars a month.

My personal information is not for sale or distribution and I refuse to allow any computations on my computer that enable someone to gather it.

Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by reaperducer on Friday October 12, 2018 @01:53AM (#18199549)
I am poor but I am willing to pay as much as 5 dollars a month.

So subscribe to your local newspaper. One of my subscriptions is $25/6 months of Sunday delivery and you get free unlimited online access. That's $4.16/month — below your stated budget.

If more people put their money where their mouths are, then we could break the media of their third-party ad serving addiction.

Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by abdullahkhalids on Friday October 12, 2018 @02:02AM (#18199572)
I do get one print newspaper at home. But I want to consume a wide variety of news sources, and a wide variety of news sources want me to consume their news, so I don't think there is anything wrong with demanding that I pay per article from any source.
Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by a_f on Friday October 12, 2018 @04:56AM (#18200167)
I wonder if you could create a service like Netflix or Spotify for Newspaper articles? Where the newspaper/journal get a fee for publishing through the service and the users get ad free access to the articles. This would only be successful if you could get almost all publications in though.
Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by chappi42 on Friday October 12, 2018 @03:08AM (#18199821)
Exactly! A subscription would enforce me to one provider only. With micropayment it's my choice when and where I read.
Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by UncleMeat on Friday October 12, 2018 @11:14AM (#18201955)
That's already existed. In many iterations. Even specifically for newspaper websites.

Why aren't you already using one of the many options?

Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by abdullahkhalids on Friday October 12, 2018 @12:19PM (#18202455)
1. Not built into the browser. Requires logging into yet more websites to get only a handful of newspaper websites.

2. They still track you. See, for instance, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18202382

3. Prices still too high. I don't a single story on https://www.washingtonpost.com/ that I would pay more than 2cents for.

Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by dagw on Friday October 12, 2018 @04:36AM (#18200093)
Sounds like you might like blendle.com. Although article prices are an order of magintude more that what you're hoping for.
Re:Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefo... by abdullahkhalids on Friday October 12, 2018 @12:08PM (#18202382)
https://blendle.com/privacy.html

> Blendle shows you articles your friends and more or lesser known fellow country-folk recommend, and can propose additional articles and subscriptions you might be interested in

> Finally, Blendle uses tracking cookies to keep track of the articles you've read, and to suggest articles you might enjoy.

> When using social plug-ins, third-party cookies are placed on your computer. These cookies can be designed to optimize your user experience, but they might also be tracking cookies. The latter are used to track your browsing habits across multiple websites and build a profile of these browsing habits of yours.

> Blendle may also use information collected through the use of Blendle to engage in “look-alike marketing,” which enables us to reach out to an audience, well, similar to you. We may use third parties to help perform or facilitate such marketing on our behalf.

So you pay them money and they still need your information. And you need to browse articles through their interface instead of naturally through the actual newspaper website. Actually worse than the status quo.