Ladder, a self-hosted alternative to paywall-hopping sites

[beschizza]

Originally published at: Ladder, a self-hosted alternative to paywall-hopping sites | Boing Boing

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[angusm]

I wish the tech bros could put their mighty brains to coming up with a way to sustainably monetize the web that:

• rewards providers of good content and allows them to meet their costs and even make money
• doesn’t involve ubiquitous surveillance
• doesn’t load up web pages with 40MB of Javascript tracking libraries
• doesn’t make the page unreadable by stuffing ads into every piece of available space
• doesn’t incentivize clickbait to a ridiculous degree
• doesn’t force you to click 99 different buttons just to access a web page
• doesn’t force you to buy a costly subscription to every site you visit
• doesn’t deny poor people access to information
• doesn’t lock you into some proprietary ecosystem/app like Apple News
• doesn’t rely on donations (not sustainable)
• doesn’t involve crypto
• doesn’t involve AI-generated bullshit content

I would like to pay a fair price for the value that I get from the Internet, but not at the cost of the continual multi-pronged assault on my privacy and security that is today’s surveillance advertising model.

I had brief hopes for Coil and other Web Monetization projects, but the crypto aspect was always a dealbreaker for me.

[jonathanpeterso]

Agreed. I’m conflicted about paywall hoppers like this. Exposing your content to spiders so you can bring me to your site to try to sell a subscription would be fine, IF I could turn off subscription only content being returned in my search results.

The early web was a lot of goofy shit and dead links, but the modern web is like traversing the most garbage billboard laden interstate in Florida to transition between 4 different malls that all sell the same chinese made shit.