Don't charge when a link is read [LWN.net]

Don't charge when a link is read

Posted Sep 29, 2005 9:16 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)
In reply to: Slashdot by komarek
Parent article: An LWN status update

You might send it to a friend and expect to pay once, but when if the friend doesn't realize the cost and forwards the link, or someone down the line puts it on a web site. That could get mighty expensive!

Don't charge when a link is read

Posted Sep 29, 2005 10:36 UTC (Thu) by dion (guest, #2764) [Link]

Well, the obvious fix is to make each link limited to something like 5 different users.

So if I forward a link to a friend of mine and then he can use that link in his own browser all he wants (set a 2 week cookie) and he can forward it to 4 other people if he wants.

The pages that they get served should state something like: "This page is is subscriber only content, but dion gave you free access, if it's any good please consider buying your own subscribtion"

Number 6 who gets the mail should get a friendly message that the content is subscriber-only, but they can get a fresh link directly from me.

Paying for the links could be as easy as subtracting a day from my subscribtion (that seems fair enough to me).

Put a forwardable link on all linkable items that I can just copy+paste into my own IM/email client.