Frictionless Payments for Online Content
Journalists could be an endangered species as more and more newspapers and magazines lose readers to free websites on the internet. While the reach offered by a website is immense, what is disturbing is that the author / journalist is hardly ever compensated for his effort in putting together an interesting article. Many business models have been tried, including paywalls, where readers have to pay to access content and free-mium where a part of the content is free and the premium content has to be paid for, but the lure of the completely free competitor is irresistible. Once readers are accustomed to free content, it is almost impossible to wean them away towards making payments. So is the case with other intellectual property like computer software and college textbooks. Even if we ignore direct criminal acts like piracy and photocopying of books, the existence of free and open source software and websites that offer educational content have curtailed demand for paid products. Some...