News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff wri... by barbariangrunge on Thursday June 29, 2023 @12:34AM (#36516321)
I wanted to build that once. The "cable" of the internet. One subscription, hundreds of websites, plus opportunities for each site to cross promote a little, via deals on ads or a quota of free ads within the network maybe. Plus heavy curation, to make sure every site in the network is high quality.

But it's 99% b2b networking and sales, trying to get websites on board and then negotiating contracts, and it sounded pretty unpleasant for a technical person to pursue.

I don't know why there aren't dozens of these. I guess everybody wants to fully own the platform, and aggregation is unappealing to them. But there's a lot of money just waiting for whoever does it, and it should benefit writers a fair bit too--they'll actually be able to get paid under this scheme

Re:National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff wri... by yuuuuuuuu on Thursday June 29, 2023 @02:18AM (#36517002)
> I guess everybody wants to fully own the platform,

But this is not about distribution platform. It's about the payment platform. They can all distribute in any way they like, as long as there is only one payment aggrgator.

Re:National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff wri... by stevenwliao on Thursday June 29, 2023 @03:52AM (#36517638)
Every newspaper already has a payment platform. The only value add is distribution.
Re:National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff wri... by yuuuuuuuu on Friday June 30, 2023 @01:41AM (#36530946)
Yes, each their own. But I want to pay once and then read WP, NYT, WSJ etc online without being bothered with more and more separate subscriptions.

Which all this thread is about. You have read the other messages, right?