National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff writers

Re:National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff wri... by rcme on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:24PM (#36515957)

This has been tried multiple times. Micropayments just don’t work well. People don’t want to create an account, break out their CC, and enter their info just for a 5c transaction. You also can’t even profitably charge a CC 5c, so you need to charge something like $5. Unlike music, most people can envision consuming $5 worth of news media unless they already have a strong preference for a publication like the NYT or WSJ.

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Re:National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff wri... by shaunkoh on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:33PM (#36516002)

Could payments not be aggregated?

Eg, consumers incur those credit card charges by topping up an online wallet. They “pay” 5 cents from that wallet itself. The news website only receives payment when the aggregated total paid to it hits a certain amount.

General epayment wallets are already widely (Grab in Singapore for instance), even with auto top up. There just isn’t one for news.

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Re:National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff wri... by rcme on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:39PM (#36516036)

That solves the problem of profitably charging the card (maybe) but it doesn’t solve the issue of convincing people to sign up and pay for something that costs 5c.

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