Hi! I commented on a twitter post by michael geist on a globe and mail article about funding model and approach issues and michael geist's crticisms on the approach,
My ISP is National Capital Freenet, I notice they seem to value supporting projects like this, and I noticed that the Ottawa Public Library seems to do so as well sometimes, and thought groups like these kinds might be good partners in trying to imagine and connect with their support bases in thinking about the different needs people have related to news content, and how to help it best serve the public good etc, and maybe support local community news and communities in general as well, not just funnel all the money to big corporations etc. So my twitter comments were a little unreadable, I didn't really know what I was doing with posting very well, so I put it together in a pastebin to put it all together a little more readably, the pastebin is https://pastebin.com/UwG2PKsH but I will recopy what I wrote in it here, the main connection to linux ottawa I guess would be free open source projects and software, community collaboration in development and design implementation improvement etc, -ideas for helping our local media with a funding/ subscriber model that > may work, possibly in partnership with local libraries' digital access > programs that already do some of this, get better bulk subscription prices > for users' access.... > > 1/ I haven't been using the public library very much lately, but there are > ways to use it online, including accessing some paid news media for free/ > covered by usage. > > I wonder if Canada generally, could come up with a program whereby library > users (maybe with an app?) > > 2/ could opt in to pay a small fee for 'enhanced' library news access, > whereby people can select to some extent where they prefer some of that fee > to go, which media outlets, and maybe track usage, maybe especially to help > out smaller media with some consistent income... > > 3/ maybe sort of like a library/ non-denomenational feed reader that > serves a number of media outlets, maybe people could select by their > region, what is local for them, as well as specific outlets, maybe users > could have a say in the system and the app as well- > > > 4/ if a good enough model is made that serves the community interests, the > country interests, the media interests and their financing, maybe it could > be a model/ open source software/ program that could be shared elsewhere as > well... > > 5/ the subscriber model might work best for smaller media outlets, who > maybe may not have as much access to getting big company's ad money, but > that might help the media to be more independent, maybe holding bigger > media accountable when they bend to advertisers on stories > > > 6/ they could potentially mix some flat fee for access per user with fees > per view per article and similar, or like low set fees combined with a > 'percentage' rate for transactions, the set fee helps to make sure small > transactions get a min amnt, % helps reward popular articles. > > > /7 > > a 25 cent fee as a minimum on a 1 dollar transaction is a really high > percent, but still a small fee, as long as it is set as a flat rate, not a > percentage ... > a .01% fee is a small percentage on a small transaction, but scales > quickly on larger transactions > > You can do both > > > /8 > > You can combine rates per clicks/reads, with user defined preferences > about which news they prefer and would like to support with their share of > fees; so between what people read, and what they prefer to support, it is > possible to give some weight to each of these. > > > /9 > > Some money for overall access and subscription to services at the outset > (that the library/ feedreader app helps with algorithms to get a good bulk > 'rate'; and some money per read /(per person?) per article, so you get a > minimum reliable fee, and extra for good/popular story
