17 ms·

Charging for things on the web

67 points by jcsalterego 15y ago

pedalpete 15y ago
I often struggle with this as well. It is just so much easier to give something away than charge for it, and if you want your products to be used, you try to limit the pay barrier. Dustin is absolutely right that people will pay, but you have to make it easy for them. I always look at the success of iTunes as the prime example. There is no shortage of free music (even if you don't include stealing), and yet people have happily paid to buy their music because it doesn't ask very much of them at all.
nicksergeant 15y ago
Mirror?
jasonfried 15y ago
Charging for things forces you to be better. That's the right kind of pressure.
notJim 15y ago
This is a topic I'm quite interested in. I've had many product/project ideas that I think have merit, and a few that I think could be a viable business, but I simply cannot get behind the idea of giving something away for free for the ad revenue. To me, when I build a product, my personal ethos (and this is personal to me, not a moral judgment by any means) is that I want to build something for my customers that they will love and pay for. If that means I have fewer customers, then so be it, but dammit I want my customers to be my customers, not my product.
michaelchisari 15y ago
A somewhat off-topic rant, because the site is down, but hear me out: What I wouldn't give for a decent micropayments platform. One that would allow me to pay $0.50 a month for an ad-free social network. Facebook currently averages around $0.25 a month in ad revenue per user, so it'd double that income. Let me pay $0.25 a month to subscribe to a blog. Let me pay $1.50 a month to subscribe to the New York Times. Let me tip $0.10 for an article I like, or pay $0.75 for lifetime access to a forum. We've heard a lot about how "if you're not paying, then you are the product." Well, give me the option to pay, and never have to see an ad, or have my data mined and sold to advertisers. I would pay gladly. I looked into different ways to do this, and the tech would not be hard. It's really more of a business and legal issue than anything. But I really think it would change the web, and for the better. Sometimes, really cheap is better than free. As in beer, anyways.
- alexkay 15y ago
  Check out http://flattr.com/ http://flattr.com/
- thirdhaf 15y ago
  It seems like one of the prerequisites for a workable micropayment system is an overhaul of interbank payment processing system or establishment of a new one. I have absolutely no knowledge of the current system but I'd be shocked if the same system that manages $100k+ transactions and the risks associated with that can cost effectively process transactions in the <10c range. There was a comment on the same level as this one referring to flattr.com which seems to be one attempt at a micropayment system. Does anyone have experience with this service or failing that an idea why that comment got absolutely buried under downvotes?
  - michaelchisari 15y ago
    I have an idea on how to handle it in bulk payments, as opposed to individualized transactions. But really, this is not the kind of space where a startup could compete. You'd need someone with the legal and financial backing the size of Google to make it happen.
    - icebraining 15y ago
      Flattr does exactly that (bulk payments). It's just not well adapted for payments since you don't pay a fixed amount to each website but a fraction of a certain fixed amount divided by all the buttons you've clicked on that month.
  - alexkay 15y ago
    My comment wasn't downvoted, it was automatically deleted (as were most of my recent comments). If HN admins read this, I would be grateful if you could check why it's happening. As for the actual question, to succeed Flattr needs a significantly larger user base. I use it for an open-source project of mine and have got only a couple of flattrs so far, even though the downloads are measured in thousands.
- 15y ago
alexwolfe 15y ago
Design is really well done. Over what period of time did it take you to develop the site? I know you said 400-500 hours but was that over 3 months, 6 months, a year?
revorad 15y ago
That's really great. Over how many months, did you make that money?
mise 15y ago
Stripe is cool. There are other quick ways without much programming. Slap up a PayPal button, and connect it with E-Junkie, and you can be selling a download product today.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
My Chrome Web Store app has 4000 users, in a couple of months. The previous pay version has about 15. Charging for stuff on the web works if you have a massive reach that comes with things like being on TechCrunch. This project also benefited from being a vanity purchase.

67 points by jcsalterego 15y ago

I often struggle with this as well. It is just so much easier to give something away than charge for it, and if you want your products to be used, you try to limit the pay barrier. Dustin is absolutely right that people will pay, but you have to make it easy for them. I always look at the success of iTunes as the prime example. There is no shortage of free music (even if you don't include stealing), and yet people have happily paid to buy their music because it doesn't ask very much of them at all.

nicksergeant 15y ago

Mirror?

jasonfried 15y ago

Charging for things forces you to be better. That's the right kind of pressure.

notJim 15y ago

This is a topic I'm quite interested in. I've had many product/project ideas that I think have merit, and a few that I think could be a viable business, but I simply cannot get behind the idea of giving something away for free for the ad revenue. To me, when I build a product, my personal ethos (and this is personal to me, not a moral judgment by any means) is that I want to build something for my customers that they will love and pay for. If that means I have fewer customers, then so be it, but dammit I want my customers to be my customers, not my product.

michaelchisari 15y ago

A somewhat off-topic rant, because the site is down, but hear me out: What I wouldn't give for a decent micropayments platform. One that would allow me to pay $0.50 a month for an ad-free social network. Facebook currently averages around $0.25 a month in ad revenue per user, so it'd double that income. Let me pay $0.25 a month to subscribe to a blog. Let me pay $1.50 a month to subscribe to the New York Times. Let me tip $0.10 for an article I like, or pay $0.75 for lifetime access to a forum. We've heard a lot about how "if you're not paying, then you are the product." Well, give me the option to pay, and never have to see an ad, or have my data mined and sold to advertisers. I would pay gladly. I looked into different ways to do this, and the tech would not be hard. It's really more of a business and legal issue than anything. But I really think it would change the web, and for the better. Sometimes, really cheap is better than free. As in beer, anyways.

alexkay 15y ago
Check out http://flattr.com/ http://flattr.com/
thirdhaf 15y ago
It seems like one of the prerequisites for a workable micropayment system is an overhaul of interbank payment processing system or establishment of a new one. I have absolutely no knowledge of the current system but I'd be shocked if the same system that manages $100k+ transactions and the risks associated with that can cost effectively process transactions in the <10c range. There was a comment on the same level as this one referring to flattr.com which seems to be one attempt at a micropayment system. Does anyone have experience with this service or failing that an idea why that comment got absolutely buried under downvotes?
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  I have an idea on how to handle it in bulk payments, as opposed to individualized transactions. But really, this is not the kind of space where a startup could compete. You'd need someone with the legal and financial backing the size of Google to make it happen.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    Flattr does exactly that (bulk payments). It's just not well adapted for payments since you don't pay a fixed amount to each website but a fraction of a certain fixed amount divided by all the buttons you've clicked on that month.
- alexkay 15y ago
  My comment wasn't downvoted, it was automatically deleted (as were most of my recent comments). If HN admins read this, I would be grateful if you could check why it's happening. As for the actual question, to succeed Flattr needs a significantly larger user base. I use it for an open-source project of mine and have got only a couple of flattrs so far, even though the downloads are measured in thousands.
15y ago

alexwolfe 15y ago

Design is really well done. Over what period of time did it take you to develop the site? I know you said 400-500 hours but was that over 3 months, 6 months, a year?

revorad 15y ago

That's really great. Over how many months, did you make that money?

mise 15y ago

Stripe is cool. There are other quick ways without much programming. Slap up a PayPal button, and connect it with E-Junkie, and you can be selling a download product today.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

My Chrome Web Store app has 4000 users, in a couple of months. The previous pay version has about 15. Charging for stuff on the web works if you have a massive reach that comes with things like being on TechCrunch. This project also benefited from being a vanity purchase.