advice candidate goes to: this-edition V villager
Pay after the value: credit first, a meter, a balance that can go below zero, and no subscription by default
Most purchases are bets on future value, and the bet is often lost: gym members on a flat fee of over $70 attended 4.3 times a month and paid more than $17 a visit when a $10-a-visit pass was on offer. Turn it round where you can: start the user with credit, charge for the share they actually use, let the balance go negative, and ask for payment when the value is in view. A subscription is a discount for regular use, not rent on something somebody ignores; do not reach for one by default. The condition is a very large gap between the cost of serving and what you can charge, which a static site on a CDN has in the extreme and a business with a real cost per unit does not. Make it fair by country, visible in where the money goes, and chosen at more than one level.
Decided by. Nobody yet: a candidate for Dinis to read, comment on and decide (keep, rewrite, merge, cut, article first, later, not doing it).
Note. The newsroom's meter: everyone starts with £5.00 of credit; 10p for a new article read to the end, 5p for an older one, only as far as read; the balance can go below zero and nothing is blocked. The article says there are no results yet and the review is on 6 December 2026; the gym, theatre and photo studies explain the psychology, not the newsroom's results. The reader (read/) on this site runs by the same rules.
Where it comes from
- Paying after the value Buying the future; The newsroom's version; Where it works; Fair, visible, chosen (newsroom)
- For a startup, the most important question is whether they miss it Can you charge, and can you charge at a profit?: 'do not reach for a subscription by default' (newsroom)
What it answers in the 2018 book
- Be a founder answered written, Life Patterns
Where it goes
Chapter Price it, then give it away, part Start the company (drafting); topic Be a founder (or a one-person service).
Other ideas proposed for the same chapter: The four moves after 'do they miss it': define it, price it, deliver it at a flat marginal cost, offer it free to the people who know you, Free is never free for the other side: measure the cost you place on them, then cut it, Below about five pounds the card fee is the price, so pence payments only work aggregated.
Node idea:pay-after-the-value in graph.json; see it in the graph. Source: admin/content/graph/ideas.json.