this is my proposal for a new revenue model for information sources. it's mainly intended for wiki formats or scientific journals, and less so for breaking news. i think this is a necessary component of building financially sustainable information systems as part of a [[PIVOT TO WIKI]]. high-quality information sources are often paywalled, while bullshit is free to access. stats show that a minority pay for news, and even fewer pay to get around a paywall if they're not already subscribed to a source: > [!quote] > The vast majority of Americans (83%) say they have _not_ paid for news in the past year, according to a Pew Research Center survey...17% say they have directly paid or given money to a news source..Just 1% say they pay for access when they come across an article that requires payment. > ^[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06/24/few-americans-pay-for-news-when-they-encounter-paywalls/] this is bad, but simply removing all paywalls can't be the answer, since journalists have to eat. so how can we keep people informed, while also making sure journalists get paid, without absolutely drowning articles in advertisements? plus, how do we prevent AI bot scrapers from eating the internet? my proposal is **goals-based universal paywalls** (GUPs, or for a cuter name, guppies): instead of an individual subscription requirement, give pages a goal that once met unlocks free and open access for everyone. a note: i believe for this method to work, GUP'd content must be *fully unavailable* until the GUP is met. that means no gift links. subscribers cannot view the content while the GUP is active (that's the "universal" part). the content is not on the internet at all. ### examples of goals 1. **direct fundraising / donations** - like a GoFundMe, or a Kickstarter. the page has a goal (say, $500). all users can directly donate their preferred amount of money. 2. **votes** - subscribers vote. lots of flexibility here. 3. **vouchers** - the most technically complex, but one i like a lot. it's a combination of donations and votes. people can purchase digital vouchers and use them as a vote for GUPs. subscribers would receive a number of discounted vouchers, depending on their subscription tier, per month to allocate as they choose. 4. **subscriber goals** - the GUP is cleared when the overall site reaches a certain number of subscribers. 5. **temporary advertisements** - an ad company could pay to display ads only up until a certain number of page viewers, after which the page becomes ad-free. (i'm not a huge fan of this one but there's probably places where it works well.) to be clear, GUPs shouldn't be used everywhere. media orgs should consider multiple factors in deploying them, such as the time/effort used to produce the article, the newsiness & urgency of the topic, etc. breaking news shouldn't have them (and they would be undercut by other sources anyway). GUPs should be used to fund things like wiki pages, explainers, in-depth reporting / analysis, and other long-form writing. i think GUPs are necessary for a [[PIVOT TO WIKI]] because the value of a wiki is how its independence of the attention economy protects its info quality. but that same value works against wikis when they can't drive traffic/subscriptions with flashy headlines. [[PIVOT TO WIKI|NEW UPDATES TO THE DEMOGRAPHIC TABLES FROM THE CENSUS BUREAU FOR 2025!!! CLICK NOW!!!]] #### further reading polyhaven.com/vaults klober- sponsored ad content