act2access - A new way to pay for journalism (Round 4)
Summary
Golem.de will establish a new way of paying for an editorial online product: readers provide time and knowledge, carry out mini tasks, and earn credits which they can use to pay for ad-free access.
The solution
Among the tech-savvy target group of Golem.de, the rate of adblockers, which can’t be monetised, is very high. For three years readers had the chance to buy an ad-free subscription, but the number of subscribers is stagnating. Adblocker users can support Golem.de without paying or seeing ads by completing tasks that save time. Those who don’t complete the tasks will no longer get access to the content. Unlike other online media, Golem.de don’t want to use a simple paywall, but provide an additional, playful and innovative type of payment called ‘act2access’. At first, tasks will involve data processing and training AI algorithms. Later, they may add market research or code debugging tasks. External companies can also add tasks via an API.