Jane Bryant Quinn—Web Content Sites Turning To Donations to Stay Afloat

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The joys of the Web are its offbeat “content” sites. You’ve almost certainly fallen in love with some of them the edgy political commentary, film reviews, gossip, recipes, math problems, animations and jokes.

But love is one thing and money quite another. So far, readers have declined to pay for the sites they like. They treat the Web as a public service whose talented thinkers, artists and writers should care only about keeping them entertained.

Where’s the payback for maintaining an interesting site? The ads you see don’t yield nearly enough to cover expenses, and ego eventually gives out, even for writers.

The question is whether users will ever finance these independent voices and, if so, how?

You’ve already made it clear that you won’t subscribe to a content site the way you subscribe to newspapers or print magazines. When Slate, the political e-zine, switched from free to pay, readers shrugged and moved on to other sites. Slate soon went back to offering its content free.

In another attempt to induce readers to pay, growing numbers of Web sites ask you to give voluntarily.

You’ll find two donor systems around PayPal and the Amazon Honor System. People who have Web sites can put up icons (or “payboxes”) for one or both of these systems. You click on the paybox to make a donation.


Loss of privacy

I first saw Amazon’s Honor System when I called up the columnist Mickey Kaus (www.kausfiles.com). I found myself staring at a box headlined “Hello Jane Quinn, Support Kausfiles.com! Click to pay.”

Hmmm. I’ve never dropped my name at Kausfiles. How does Mickey know I’m here?

It’s the usual Web story. I buy books from Amazon, which plants a “cookie” (or tracker) on my computer. The cookie tells Amazon where I am. When Kaus signed up for the Honor System, he linked himself to Amazon’s system.

I could turn off the phrase “Hello Jane Quinn” through my Amazon account, but that wouldn’t change the fact that the cookie follows me around. Amazon says it doesn’t keep records of where you’ve been, but of course it could.

Kaus said his readers hate seeing their names pop up. “I’m convinced it deters contributions,” he said. “I don’t know why Amazon does it, except to show off their Orwellian capabilities.”

Still, seeing your name has a positive side. It reminds you that nothing you do on the Web should be considered private, ever. You’re always leaving spoor behind.

But back to donations.

When you click on the Amazon paybox, you get a pitch from Kaus

(“Without reader contributions, I might have to go make a living doing something else …”) plus a suggested contribution ($12). The system lets you choose anything from $1 to $50, but supporters gravitate toward what the site suggests.

You can donate with a mouse click, if you’re already an Amazon one-click customer. Otherwise, a click takes you to Amazon’s Web site, where you enter your credit card number. Donations are charged to your card. Amazon takes 15 percent plus 15 cents off the top and pays the rest to the Web site.

The site never knows who you are or how much you gave. Only Amazon knows.

PayPal generally charges less than Amazon does. It takes 2.2 percent of the donation plus 30 cents, when you give by clicking on a PayPal logo.

You have to open a free PayPal account, if you don’t have one already. Gifts can be as small as a penny (but why would you bother?) or as much as $1,000 (more, if you go through bank verification).

PayPal gives the receiving site your e-mail address plus the amount you gave, but not your credit-card number.

Web sites won’t get rich this way. Kindness has its limits, as a business plan.

What’s the next idea? Maybe micropayments say, 5 cents or 10 cents to read an article, hear a sound or see a cartoon. Maybe you’d pay these small amounts as an impulse buy. Or maybe you’d just surf to another site, looking for entertainment free.

Syndicated columnist Jane Bryant Quinn can be reached in care of the Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St., Washington D.C. 20071-9200.

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