> The problem is, payment is hard.

Ehhh, it's not hard, it's just centralized, with the associated problems of a few entities having an oligopoly. I can have Stripe and/or Patreon integrated with a site in a few hours of work. PayPal isn't hard to integrate either, they just suck. (I have no experience with Ko-Fi).

> Micropayments are still ridiculously expensive

So don't do micropayments. Payments in the range of $5-$10 are less expensive, and it makes you more dependent on loyal fans rather than generous drive-bys. It's harder to get loyal fans--you have to produce quality content--but when you get them it's a more stable source of income. And from the perspective of content consumers, that's exactly what I want: higher quality content. Larger payments also means your account doesn't get used as often by hackers testing out credit card numbers they bought off the darkweb.

> - PayPal has been known to randomly close down accounts and hold your money hostage for months and years, especially if you're dealing with "morally grey" content (e.g. if you write about sex or anything related to crime)

Yeah, that's a real problem, and one of the reasons we need legally-mandated payment-neutrality if we're going to give so much power to credit card companies.

You'll rarely hear me say anything positive about cryptocurrency, but this is a rare exception: cryptocurrency is a viable workaround for content creators that need a workaround (which isn't most content creators). But to be clear, I'm not talking about crypto-bro flavor of the week: USDC is pretty ideal for this, or the two popular zk-Snark/ring signature privacy coins[1] if privacy is desirable. Variable value is a problem, not a feature, so I don't see a reason to accept that unless you have a need for privacy: paying with Bitcoin is dumb.

> - Why is Joe Random Blogger now blasting my email address with newsletters?

> - Uh, I did not consent Joe Random Blogger to suddenly draw in 20$ a month instead of 5$

Again, these tend to be problems with lower-quality content. If you're trying to build a loyal fanbase you do that by providing quality content, not by spamming or stealing.

[1] I'm not naming these coins by name because that tends to get flagged.

> Ehhh, it's not hard, it's just centralized, with the associated problems of a few entities having an oligopoly.

It's hard to pull it off without relying on the oligopoly entities. Like, I can publish my SEPA banking information on my blog, but that would just invite scammers. And it's not real-time which means I have to manually process payments.

And that's just dealing with the payment itself and not solving the problem of accounting and taxes. It's a difference if I go to my tax preparer and hand him twelve advertising revenue bills or if I'm handing him a wad of receipts by individual people.

> Payments in the range of $5-$10 are less expensive

They are, but good luck getting people used to free content to pay that range. Even 99.9% of Onlyfxns models rarely make a single subscriber above that. Cheap mass content is what the market wants (no matter if in porn or blogs), you got to fulfill a very specific niche if you want to lure in some whales.

> You'll rarely hear me say anything positive about cryptocurrency, but this is a rare exception

Cryptocurrencies bring in their own host of problems:

- people will automatically discard your opinion simply because you offer crypto - the NFT and shitcoin crazes as well as the environmental issues crypto has (e-waste, CO2 footprint, ...) have burnt so many people that offering crypto acceptance these days outside of anonymity context (e.g. VPNs, piracy) is just as negative on your brand as paying for Twitter Blue is (which is why Musk decided to not show any more if an account is legacy-verified or Twitter Blue subscriber).

- can't do KYC any more so you have a harder time doing taxes (may be more of an European problem, given the IRS seems to even allow you to enter crime proceedings - if I would do that on my taxes here in Germany, I'd get the cops knocking on my door)

- your whole infrastructure will now be targeted by sometimes highly sophisticated attackers going after your coins

> Again, these tend to be problems with lower-quality content. If you're trying to build a loyal fanbase you do that by providing quality content, not by spamming or stealing.

As a user, all I have at a moment is to look how the content currently is. I have no recourse when the author decides to sell out, similarly to what happened to MANY Chrome extensions that suddenly went and embedded malware (e.g. [1]), or when they / their database get inevitably hacked.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/4/22266798/chrome-blocks-the...

> It's hard to pull it off without relying on the oligopoly entities.

Right--as I said, that's a problem, and I'd actually say it's hard enough to be effectively impossible.

Then again, I'm not sure how this is an objection to donation-based monetization of content creation as opposed to ads, given the average content creator isn't running their own ad network.

> It's a difference if I go to my tax preparer and hand him twelve advertising revenue bills or if I'm handing him a wad of receipts by individual people.

I'm not sure I understand this. It's not a wad of receipts, it's a single spreadsheet of receipts with a total at the bottom if you've set it up at all reasonably. I'm not convinced this is a real problem.

> They are, but good luck getting people used to free content to pay that range. Even 99.9% of Onlyfxns models rarely make a single subscriber above that. Cheap mass content is what the market wants (no matter if in porn or blogs), you got to fulfill a very specific niche if you want to lure in some whales.

I'm not sure where you're getting your data here. I had a Substack and was able to get a number of $100/year or $10/month subscribers within only a few posts, by providing well-thought-out educational content for an audience with disposable income. A commitment to posting weekly ended up being stressful so I ditched the Substack, refunded where it made sense, and am slowly working toward publishing it as a book. This is probably a less-profitable route, but it's more conducive to my mental health.

I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not that hard.

> people will automatically discard your opinion simply because you offer crypto

The sorts of content which I would recommend using crypto for as a workaround for centralized payment processors tends to not be reputation based. If you're writing a blog about permaculture, sure, people might discard your opinion because you accept crypto, but you also probably aren't likely to have your blog payments canceled. If you're writing a smut blog that might have credit card processing revoked nobody was reading it because they cared about your opinion.

> - the NFT and shitcoin crazes as well as the environmental issues crypto has (e-waste, CO2 footprint, ...) have burnt so many people that offering crypto acceptance these days outside of anonymity context (e.g. VPNs, piracy) is just as negative on your brand as paying for Twitter Blue is (which is why Musk decided to not show any more if an account is legacy-verified or Twitter Blue subscriber).

If you respond to what is actually in my post, you'll note that privacy is exactly the context I was suggesting cryptocurrency for.

> - can't do KYC any more so you have a harder time doing taxes (may be more of an European problem, given the IRS seems to even allow you to enter crime proceedings - if I would do that on my taxes here in Germany, I'd get the cops knocking on my door)

There's nothing stopping you from doing KYC in addition to accepting USDC if accepting cryptocurrency is merely a workaround for having your payment processor canceled. Accepting anonymous payments is obviously off the table where KYC is required.

> - your whole infrastructure will now be targeted by sometimes highly sophisticated attackers going after your coins

There's very little reason to actually ever hold coins for a significant amount of time, so losses if they occur should be minimal.

"Infrastructure" in this case can be generating a memo ID to associate transactions with KYC before they are able to view the payment address, which can be the address of a paper wallet. This doesn't require a sophisticated knowledge of crypto.

> As a user, all I have at a moment is to look how the content currently is. I have no recourse when the author decides to sell out, similarly to what happened to MANY Chrome extensions that suddenly went and embedded malware (e.g. [1]), or when they / their database get inevitably hacked.

Sure. When you buy a book, you're worried that the author might write a bad book in the future? If so, I don't suspect your concern is shared by most content consumers.

I'm not sure the risks of running code that can auto-update itself are really relevant to content. So far I haven't heard of anyone figuring out how to go into my brain and auto-update my memory of blog posts I've read, and I'm quite happy to pay for things if I've already learned from them.

A lot of these objections are a bit odd. What's your reason for preferring ad-supported content?

> A lot of these objections are a bit odd. What's your reason for preferring ad-supported content?

I don't like ad-supported content and hate tracking with a passion. However, it's reasonable to say that, at least at the moment, advertising is

- easier (and not just technically, but also from the bureaucratic side!) to implement than donations or "real" payments, and note that some countries like Germany make a legal distinction between these when it comes to taxes, and mis-classifying income as donations comes with severe penalties

- guaranteed, predictable income for authors

- zero effort for the reader

- zero direct, financial risks for the reader

The result of this is the current, mostly ad supported crap infrastructure we currently have on the Internet.

Personally, I'd advocate for drastic banking regulation and tax code changes to make paying for online content easier so that regular people can take advantage too, without going through middlemen extracting rent everywhere:

- for clearly non-commercial content which most personal blogs/vlogs/podcasts fall into, completely exempt donations from tax and other bureaucratic (AML, KYC, invoices) requirements

- create a globally usable (!) financial network with no censorship other than what's illegal in the recipient's country, low caps on transfer fees (0.1%), real-time transfers and "deposit only" accounts, so that transferring money across countries actually gets realistic, and I can offer my bank account number without having to fear someone draining my account. SEPA gets pretty close to that, but it's not joined with the US, Australia or Asia so at the moment there is no alternative for cross-continental donations other than to rely on PayPal and friends.

You bring up a lot of real problems and good solutions, but ultimately I don't see an argument for the existence of ads in your post. If anything, advertising is one of the reasons a lot of the problems you mention exist. If it weren't so easy to monetize garbage with ads, there would be greater demand for easier payment solutions.

I'll also add, about this supposed benefit of ads:

> - zero direct, financial risks for the reader

"Direct" is doing a lot of work here. Ads absolutely are a financial risk to readers. "You can just not buy the product" puts a lot more faith in human agency than is warranted. Everyone buys goods and services they don't need, or which are worse than less-advertised alternatives, because of advertising. People are manipulable and that includes you (and me). No one is immune. Even if you never see an ad, your friends pass bad information from ads to you. Even if you aren't easily fooled by lies, advertisers have a great deal of control over what truth gets placed in front of you. You are being manipulated into spending money by ads--it's practically unavoidable in today's society--and if you aren't taking steps to protect yourself, you are being manipulated even more.

Arguably financial harm isn't even the most fundamental harm done by ads--I'd argue that the psychological harm done by ads is actually worse.

Leaving all of this aside, people just don't donate. They'll watch 100 hours of a YouTube channel and eagerly await new videos, and still not donate a cent. Donors are a very small fraction of the audience.

I get 1 donation per 14,000 visitors. Even among the people who email me with complex questions, and get detailed answers that no one else offers, only a few donate. The link is not hidden or anything; people just expect content to be free.

Just consider how much content you voluntarily consume, and how much of it you paid for.

> Leaving all of this aside, people just don't donate. They'll watch 100 hours of a YouTube channel and eagerly await new videos, and still not donate a cent. Donors are a very small fraction of the audience.

The thing you seem to not understand is that ads and donations are not compatible business models. If you are making money off ads, that is why you are not making money off donations.

The content you make to sell ads is attractive up front, with clickbaity headlines and overwrought thumbnails. If the platform you're on rewards watch/read time, you then just have to provoke some sort of addictive emotion like outrage or fear to keep people there for a bit. On platforms that don't reward watch/read time, you don't even have to do that.

The content you make to attract donations is useful, educational, or otherwise beneficial to your audience. This is incompatible with pinning people down with brain chemicals so you can ram ads down their throat.

If you interrupt your content with a NordVPN or Athletic Greens commercial, people are less likely to donate. Why would I donate to someone who is trying to manipulate me? You're not doing me a service, you're doing advertisers a service.

Every example you have given of people not donating, is easily explained by the fact that the content is ad supported.

> I get 1 donation per 14,000 visitors. Even among the people who email me with complex questions, and get detailed answers that no one else offers, only a few donate. The link is not hidden or anything; people just expect content to be free.

Alternative hypothesis: people just expect that you're already getting paid by advertisers, which by your own admission is true.

You've set up this exchange where you use your audience to sell ads. You chose to make that relationship with your audience.

It should not be surprising to you that the audience uses you as they see fit. Those are the terms you signed up for.

You are wrong on many points and right on many.

- Apple Pay, Google Pay and Stripe Link will remember your CC details - so no need to fill them in again and again. This is as smooth as can be.

- Micropayments are expensive. Forget about it. Creators need to come together under common umbrellas to get paid. That's what traditional publications were in the end. If people could put their egos aside a little, they could start making some good bundles.

- You are dead wrong on accounting. Nobody has to make formal invoices for all their subscribers.

- It's easy to accept SEPA payments and many other payment forms without credit cards through Stripe. Those germans who don't have credit cards have debit cards and they work the same.

> - Apple Pay, Google Pay and Stripe Link will remember your CC details - so no need to fill them in again and again. This is as smooth as can be.

Yes, yet another middle man, doing exactly the same as PayPal - and at least Google is known for banning people for having too many refunds or tripping some anti-fraud ML model. Not something I'd trust either as an user or as an author.

> Creators need to come together under common umbrellas to get paid. That's what traditional publications were in the end. If people could put their egos aside a little, they could start making some good bundles.

Again, middle men. Middle men that are going to censor you for whatever reason - no matter your political direction, by the way.

> You are dead wrong on accounting. Nobody has to make formal invoices for all their subscribers.

I'm German and I'd prefer to not have my donations re-classified as taxable commercial income. Our government's interpretation on what defines "gewerblich" can be pretty insane - you have to provide a full imprint with name and address on your stupid cat photo blog if you're reaching more people than your family. There have been a number of people in my Twitter feed who got into serious trouble for anything from running donation pools for their pets, beer money-style donations, and most recently Onlyfxns.

Our government is braindead when it comes to realities of digital life, and so are many others. Too many people just rely on never appearing on the government's radar.

> It's easy to accept SEPA payments and many other payment forms without credit cards through Stripe. Those germans who don't have credit cards have debit cards and they work the same.

As said in the first point, you're again at the mercy of a middle man that's hard to hold accountable. My local bank I can at least file a complaint at the banking regulator, good luck with any of the US institutions.

Yes, of course you are at the mercy of a middle man. That's been the reality since credit cards where invented. Literally every business online or offline has to accept this. The price is cheap considering what these middle men provide.

You don't have to use a US card processor, there are European options. The fact is that these processors have millions of companies using them, handling probably billions of transaction every year. They are much more reliable than European banks, who will close the bank accounts of sites and journalists writing things the banks don't agree with.

As for donations, fair enough. Why not get your donations to an account outside of Germany to escape that headache?

> Again, middle men. Middle men that are going to censor you for whatever reason - no matter your political direction, by the way.

I'm aware of the censorship concern. Still it's worth a shot to try to bundle your content with like minded, you don't necessarily need middle men for this.

All in all, something will have to change with the way online content is consumed and produced - at least if we want to take full advantage of the blessings of the information age instead of rotting at the mercy of a media oligopoly.

> You don't have to use a US card processor, there are European options.

You're still at the mercy of what the US networks deem acceptable. Even if you are German residing in Germany, have a German bank, your customer is German residing in Germany and has a German bank... say, you're a sex worker which is completely legal in Germany. And yet, you'll get booted off of anything where the US card networks are involved.

> As for donations, fair enough. Why not get your donations to an account outside of Germany to escape that headache?

Still tax evasion. Yes, I could create something like a Maltese shell company, but that is even more of an effort to set up and maintain.

Either pay the taxes your lords demand or don't pay them. You can't have it both ways. You don't need to set up a shell company, you can set up a bank account and never declare.

As for Visa/Mastercard - yes you are at their mercy. They are not perfect, but what are your options right now, realistically? Except for manual verification of payments?