"Premium" service won't work (was: Question for Clay and others)

[James Hong]

I doubt anyone is really making much money with those paypal buttons.
Certainly not enough to sustain a real business. Generally speaking, from
what I've read and from my own experience on HOTorNOT, those paypal buttons
are good for only a one-time hit, and much fewer people are willing to
actually pay (despite SAYING that they would pay). I think that has pay for
content has generally been a disappointment for people because when they
poll users, people generally say "yea, i'd pay", but when the time comes to
actually pony up, the users balk. Maybe they figure everyone else will pay,
and so they don't have to..

james

---
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert S. Thau" <rst@ai.mit.edu>
To: "Clay Shirky" <clay@shirky.com>
Cc: "Robert S. Thau" <rst@ai.mit.edu>; "Russell Turpin"
<deafbox@hotmail.com>; <fork@xent.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: "Premium" service won't work (was: Question for Clay and
others)


> Clay Shirky writes:
>  > But RT's original contention was *about* payment channels. He was
>  > specifically asserting that per-site subscriptions created too much
>  > overhead, and I am arguing that that thesis is born out by watching
>  > the changes in the offline content industry.
>
> I know... which is why I'm still a bit puzzled about your comments
> about failing new magazines.
>
> I won't disagree, though, that some forms of aggregation have the
> potential to make life easier for everybody --- but the winners may
> not wind up being specific to publishing.  I've seen a fair number of
> web sites with "contribute to us" PayPal buttons, and at least one[1]
> which is trying to use it as a quick-n-easy subscription process for
> an email newsletter (*much* quicker than the typical subscription
> form, if you already have a PayPal account; no extra forms needed,
> since the payment notifications she gets from PayPal include a working
> email address).
>
> And of course, Microsoft would *love* for you to use Hailstorm...
>
> rst
>
> [1] MaryAnn Johansen's flickfilosopher.com, which recently grabbed
>     some attention with her hilarious adventure-game review of Tomb
>     Raider, in which the player tortures a studio executive by
>     forcing him to watch the movie.
>
>
> http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork