摘要 |
Techniques for accumulating a collective payment for content and services from end-users include each end-user contributing to a total collective payment through one or more individual payments. A content provider receives this total collective payment. When the total collective payment is greater than or equal to a collective earning threshold, the content provider transmits the content item at a premium quality level. However, when the total collective payment is less than the collective earning threshold, the content provider transmits the content item at an impaired quality level. The content item may be transmitted at an impaired quality level in any number of ways. For instance, the content provider may reduce the size of one or more images included in the content item. Also, the content provider may increase the distortion of audio signals included in the content item. Alternatively, the content provider may even interrupt transmission of the content item to produce this impaired quality level.
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