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Apply HN: Scriber – Micropayment Platform for Publishers

4 points by nothingbutslide ↗ HN
URL: https://www.scriber.io/

Scriber is a micropayment platform which publishers can easily integrate with, and that offers a seamless transaction interface.

Most of us have probably been asked to either turn off our ad-blockers or sign up for a subscription when browsing various news sites. And it is a fair request, since those are currently the only sources of income for most publishers. The problem is that the ad industry has pushed the envelope so far that most people have had enough; intrusive ads that distract from the reading experience, tracks you across the web, and at worst infects you with malware, have become the industry norm. And most readers aren't willing to commit to a subscription.

We believe it's time to explore a different revenue model for online publishing, and seamless micropayments is the solution that is the most promising. The concept has been around for many years, but it's only recently that the public has become truly comfortable with it through in-app purchases using their smartphones. There are mainly two factors driving the change, the first is its "micro" nature, the price is low enough to not warrant much deliberation. The second is its ease of use, the payment system is built into the phone's OS, so most of the time you simply click "Accept" and then you're done.

We want to let publishers offer their readers the same experience.

We've created a prototype at https://www.scriber.io with an accompanying publication http://www.getexplorerr.com/. We have yet to implement an actual payment gateway. Please have a look, trying it out from both a reader's and publisher's point of view. You can log into the publisher account that is connected to the aforementioned publication here: https://www.scriber.io/publishers#demo

Please let us know what you think, any feedback is greatly appreciated!

10 comments

[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 26.6 ms ] thread
essofluffy
How are you handling the payments?
nothingbutslide
The payment gateway will probably be Stripe. They support "auth and capture", which is necessary with our plan to gather a user's micropayments into one combined monthly bill. We might also include PayPal if there is demand for it.

We've been discussing when we want to ask the users for their payment information. We want the sign up process to be as fast and painless as possible, so we might give the first article away for free, and only ask for payment information if the reader decides to buy a second article.

Once a user has saved a payment method to their profile, they won't be bothered about that aspect ever again when buying articles, we just charge them once at the end of the month for all the articles they've purchased that month.

essofluffy
So you plan to bundle all the payments into a monthly bill to avoid fees on each transaction? Doesn't this assume each user will be purchasing enough content to make the fees negligible?
nothingbutslide
It's partly to lessen the fees being paid for processing each charge, but also part convenience for the user. We actually implemented a prototype top-up system to see how the user experience would be, and everyone who tried it agreed it was fairly cumbersome so we quickly scrapped that idea. And bundling the payments makes for a cleaner card statement, although that aspect is fairly individual.

As for the volume we would have to do; Stripe for instance charges 30 cents plus 2.9% for each charge, so the first article a user buys per month pretty much covers the flat fee, after that the percentage acts the same regardless of volume.

Great feedback though! Keep up with the questions.

essofluffy
I was working on a similar service using Bitcoin so the idea was mostly centered around maintaining control of your money and negligible fees. Our main issue was lack of a market to pitch to, but this idea is definitely something that I would hope becomes a reality.
nothingbutslide
We looked into using Bitcoin as well, but it proved a bit too hard to use for the average user. We did some user testing with a few prototypes, and it was really hard to make it work as seamlessly as we want the process to be.

As for the market, luckily we're based in London which is home to many of the most reputable news outlets in the world. We're already in talks with some of them, but it is indeed a hard industry to try to disrupt.

Gys
Blendle.com is already doing this. They have many publishers on board in Europe and the US (The New York Times, The Washington Post en The Wall Street Journal).

How will you improve on that ?

nothingbutslide
Our approach is different than Blendle's and we believe that both of us can happily co-exists.

To read articles using Blendle you have to do so through their app, where they act as a curator. They offer a select number of articles that they think you will like. If you want to read an article you have to pay a small fee that is split between Blendle and the newspaper that the article originated from. Some readers really like this approach since everything is gathered in one place, and Blendle's execution is top-notch.

We believe however that many readers would like to be their own curators. Many already frequent aggregate sites - like Hacker News - to find content they think they will like. And we would like to give the publishers of that content the ability to offer it through seamless micropayments, using their own apps or websites. They will then be in control of the entire reader experience, not having to outsource it to a third party.

So we believe Blendle and Scriber can happily co-exist since we basically cater to different audiences.

6stringmerc
How would this compare/contrast with what the Featured Artists Coalition is proposing with using block-chain type approach to publishing works? They're discussing music but in digitial formats I don't see a large 'transaction' difference between music and text. For reference:

http://qz.com/620454/imogen-heap-wants-to-use-blockchain-tec...

nothingbutslide
It's an interesting take on the problem, tracking who has bought what - and for how much - through block-chains, opposed to having it stored in a database.

I think it would be a bit hard to use for your average user though with the current state of block-chains, we're working really hard to make the sign up and transactional steps as easy and painless as possible. And it would have to be managed through a platform somehow.

But we'll definitely keep an eye on how they get along with Mycelia, thanks a lot for pointing it out!