Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by wussboy on Monday December 28, 2020 @05:07PM
(#25563812)
Paying according to which articles people click on has already failed as a model for determining truth and relevancy. We need to think of “one weird trick” that will have the same “stunning” effect but without the incentive to appeal to humanity’s baser instincts.
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Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by nillium on Monday December 28, 2020 @09:10PM
(#25565889)
FWIW, we are working on this. Almost all of the issues listed in this thread can be traced back to the way aggregators and social networks end up monetizing (or not monetizing) news. We're trying something a little different:
https://blog.nillium.com/were-not-an-aggregator/
Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by eitland on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @08:07AM
(#25569391)
Tried to join the waiting list but it requires a zip code (and no country) so I guess it is US specific?
Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by nillium on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @08:53AM
(#25569702)
Apologies -- For now, yes, we are US specific. This requires a lot of individual connections and deals with newsrooms and reporters, so we had to start somewhere.
Hopefully we can expand in the near future
Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by wussboy on Friday January 01, 2021 @01:55PM
(#25605629)
Can you explain your business model more clearly? Including how you intend to compete with current news outlets, and with the human tendency to not really care about things that should be important to them? The web site was not clear.
Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by roye on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @01:49AM
(#25567412)
how do you compare with substack?
Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by nillium on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @08:54AM
(#25569719)
Substack can work for reporters who already have a following -- but we are trying to help those in local markets and earlier in their careers.
From a user perspective, we're looking to give a holistic view of what's happening around you, regardless of which trusted journalist is posting.
Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by mgkimsal on Monday December 28, 2020 @05:41PM
(#25564121)
I didn't think the goal was "truth and relevancy" but... just to apportion payment for the services used (reading articles).
Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by ip26 on Monday December 28, 2020 @10:59PM
(#25566573)
I think the point is while you start with a platform for "news", if you apportion payment for services used, you get clickbait, i.e. something fundamentally different than "news".
Re:Ask HN: What are you surprised isn’t being worked on more?
by joe_the_user on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @12:06AM
(#25566931)
One alternative is pay directly for total access according to the quality of news source. NYTimes, Washington Post etc just automatically get a lot and go downward.
The aggregator is 100% the judge of quality but start with access to the highest quality sources and go downward. So everything is editorially decided except how many actually subscribe but since it's access to the best quality, it would be a desirable thing to subscribe to.