I make web stuff.(via nostrich, sasquatchmedia)
From tomorrow, the Sun Chronicle, a Massachusetts paper, will charge would-be commenters a nominal one-off fee of 99 cents. But it has to be paid by credit card, which means providing a real name and address.
And the name on the credit card will be the name that will appear on comments. So it’s goodbye to anonymity.
This is an excellent idea, and I bet it will work: there will still be plenty of comments (not as many, but enough), and they’ll be more civil, more intelligent, and better written.
I’m interested in whether or not people are willing to pull out their credit cards and go through a full-fledged transaction for 99¢; this, in my opinion, is going to be the biggest issue to overcome with this approach. Besides the task of making a payment, I really like this idea.
