Two major points:
- Traditional print media has continued to decline in terms of revenue and hasn't been able to fully evolve into sustainable digital media, clickbait articles are filling the social media feeds. Catchy content with catchy titles from publishers like Buzzfeed etc continues to garner people's attention and hence pulling away from think pieces, op-eds, editorials etc.
- People are unwilling to pay for news.
Is it possible a pay per article will solve both sides of the problem? i.e. Increase the willingness of individuals to pay for good content in their POV and increase overall revenue streams for news organisations?
Here is how the crux of solution might look like:
- Articles embed a key unique to them (org, publisher, author)
- Users require a browser extension (Desktop) / app (Mobile) with unique key to user.
- Based on the amount of active time spent on the article, auto deduct a minimal amount ($0.02) on crossing a threshold (>50%)
- Users are incentivised for sharing articles, via unique trackable social media links and are fed back in terms of real currency to their accounts.
- Price incentive on a per user basis is dynamic based on current popularity of the content so early adopters have more reasons to be loyal to publisher.
What do you think?
