Subscription A subscription is a way of bundling diverse materials together over a set period, in return for a set fee from the user. As the newspaper example demonstrates, aggregation and subscription can work together for the same bundle of assets. Subscription is more than just aggregation in time. Furthermore, producers value predictability no less than consumers, so producers are often willing to trade lower subscription prices in return for lump sum payments and more predictable revenue stream. Game theory fans will recognize subscription arrangements as an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma , where the producer's incentive to ship substandard product or the consumer's to take resources without paying is dampened by the repetition of delivery and payment.
Subscription also serves as a reputation management system.
Subsidy Subsidy is by far the most common form of pricing for the resources micropayments were meant to target. Subsidy is simply getting someone other than the audience to offset costs. Again, the newspaper example shows that subsidy can exist alongside aggregation and subscription, since the advertisers subsidize most, and in some cases all, of a newspaper's costs. Advertising subsidy is the normal form of revenue for most Web sites offering content. The biggest source of subsidy on the Net overall, however, is from the the users themselves.