Will pay-per-view work for news in India?

As print revenues decline and digital ad earnings remain limited, micropayments are a way to earn reader money at scale, say proponents. But it may not be.

“I predict that most sites that are not financed through traditional product sales will move to micropayments in less than two years. Users should be willing to pay, say, one cent per Web page in return for getting quality content and an optimal user experience with less intrusive ads.”

The quote is from an essay by Jakob Nielsen, one of the early web UX and usability experts. Published in January 1998, about eight months before Google, the company, came into being.

The idea for paying for news, or any other content, in bits and pieces online is not new by …

Author

Pranav S.

Pranav is a co-founder at The Morning Context and leads our edit team. He has previously worked as a writer and editor at The Ken and Mint, where he worked on business news from tech to banking to deals. At The Morning Context, he helps manage editorial operations, edits and commissions long-form stories, and writes at the intersections of technology, business and finance.

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