Penny Per Page Web Buisness Model

from the stuff-to-think-about dept

Cory writes to point to an interesting article at How Stuff Works about how a "penny per page" business model might work. It's worth reading, just to think about. It's not all that different from any number of micro-payment suggestions, but it does seem a bit more practical. I do have a bunch of problems with it (not all of which I have space to talk about here). They completely ignore what changes in surfing habits this might cause, and simply assume that there won't be any changes. They also incorrectly describe Napster as a site that would have benefited from this because of it's many users - but those many users were all using it's software - not viewing web pages. Then, of course, there's the basic assumption that everyone wants to charge. To be totally honest, I'm happy keeping Techdirt's public site free of charge. I really could not care less if everyone who visited the site gave me a penny. Finally, the biggest problem with the article is they don't even begin to discuss technically how this could be done, and what resources it would take to make it happen.