Website subscriptions for the masses
There’s been some talk lately in the startup world about directly charging visitors for websites people build (37signals via Hacker News, Jason Fried).
Apple has been pretty successful recently when charging for music and applications via iTunes and the App Store. Why? Because it’s just so easy to buy things, and so darn cheap… (99¢? I just found that in my neighbor’s couch.)1 The convenience of pushing a button to get a new song has trumped the experience of going to a record shop, ordering the album online, or even tracking down the song via other, even cheaper, means.
The same idea could be applied to subscription-based websites. We (and by we, I guess I broadly refer to smaller companies or teams building applications for the web) could have a centralized service for website subscriptions. Let’s call it apppay, or AppPay, or maybe Sashimi.
The service would make it simple for people to pay for and manage their website subscriptions, and, probably more importantly, condition them towards the idea of paying small amounts of money for services they like. It would also consolidate the bills into one monthly payment (like the 5¢ bill I comfortingly get each and every month from AWS).
Sure, I’d pay $2 a month for each of Bloglines, Hacker News, mint, and a really good Rails API site (no link available). And if all I had to do was push a button after mint had decided that I’d mooched enough content off them, why not?
I could then go to sashimi.com (which would itself charge $1/month) to see my current subscriptions, cancel the ones I don’t use, and find new subscription-based websites I might like.
For visitors, the service would:
- Make subscribing to a website as easy as buying an iPhone app or iTunes track
- Allow them to manage all their subscriptions (and single monthly bill) from one place
- Make it easy to find other content they might be interested in (via …if you like… or whatnot)
And for developers, it would:
- Make the billing piece of their website dirt simple
- Put them in a network of like-minded sites (sure, think Geocities’ Web Rings)
- Build the social infrastructure necessary to start charging people for stuff on the web
A tip of the hat to tipjoy, which is a recent example of a simple web payment system, but which relies on the generosity of users.
And, a side benefit, as Agustin mentioned, might be to cut down on our information overload.
It would be an ambitious project, and involve all of those legal issues that hackers generally avoid like J#, but one worth putting out there.
1 Like buying lottery tickets.
