Vox Media’s technology-focused site announced Tuesday that it was rolling out its first sitewide subscription service, putting some content behind a paywall.
I’m not sure how sustainable this model is. Especially when a reader browses via a link aggregator and therefore reads news articles on many different websites. I doubt most people want/can afford a subscription on dozens of different news outlets, as that’ll quickly add up to a triple-digit monthly bill.
Something like Flattr, but maybe non-optional, would be better. Pay a fixed monthly fee and split the payment between all sites you read articles on (maybe based on how many, or reading time or whatever).
$1-$2 month maybe: they want $7 which is close enough to a Hulu/Netflix subscription fee that you immediately realize it’s not tenable to subscribe to all the major news sites you read, so then you start needing to build a “top 5” in your head because that’s all you can reasonably budget and that’s either too much of a PITA for whatever article you’re trying to read or you realize Verge isn’t in that top 5 and move on
Even $1 is probably too much. I read articles from dozens of different sources and managing that would royally suck. Got a new credit card? Have a fun next hour of your life logging in everywhere…
No, just give me an add-on so I can pay to bypass a paywall. I don’t want an account everywhere, I just want to read your article, and I’m willing to pay a few cents to do so (way more than they’d get with ads).
That price is way too much. My wife and I use Netflix for hours each day on average. I get significantly more use out of netflix. There is no way I’m paying a website like the verge $7/month when I can get the same new for free from some YouTuber.
I would do this with one caveat: sometimes people link really garbage articles. There was one here yesterday written so poorly I feel less informed for having read it. I would like the option to take my money back for reading such a bad article.
I do want to pay for news, but I can’t subscribe to everyone, or even just “the good ones”, because I do use aggregator sites.
I also wonder if that would lead to a model of paying every website for content because if Reddit is good enough to train AI on and good enough that many people include it in their Google searches, who is to say the comments aren’t “articles”?
or reading time or whatever
Could result in badly written, overly long articles and poor UI to force people to take longer. I know you’re just spitballing, but thought I’d point out how easy it is to induce unintended consequences.
Exactly. Give me an add-on to pay to bypass paywalls for a few cents and they’ll get my money. I’m not making an account or paying a subscription, but I’m happy to leave some change in the donation box.
There was one here yesterday written so poorly I feel less informed for having read it. I would like the option to take my money back for reading such a bad article.
This is what scroll did, before they got bought by Twitter. Same for coil, who shut down, by the people behind then still seem to be working on something. See https://webmonetization.org/
Isn’t this EXACTLY how it worked before publishers started using the internet? You had to pay either a subscription, or per issue for every magazine or newspaper you wanted to read. Instead of having subscriptions to “dozens of different news outlets”, people only paid for a few. The ones that interested you most, you paid a subscription for, and if you were interested in anything else, you just bought single issues.
I’m not sure how sustainable this model is. Especially when a reader browses via a link aggregator and therefore reads news articles on many different websites. I doubt most people want/can afford a subscription on dozens of different news outlets, as that’ll quickly add up to a triple-digit monthly bill.
Something like Flattr, but maybe non-optional, would be better. Pay a fixed monthly fee and split the payment between all sites you read articles on (maybe based on how many, or reading time or whatever).
$1-$2 month maybe: they want $7 which is close enough to a Hulu/Netflix subscription fee that you immediately realize it’s not tenable to subscribe to all the major news sites you read, so then you start needing to build a “top 5” in your head because that’s all you can reasonably budget and that’s either too much of a PITA for whatever article you’re trying to read or you realize Verge isn’t in that top 5 and move on
Even $1 is probably too much. I read articles from dozens of different sources and managing that would royally suck. Got a new credit card? Have a fun next hour of your life logging in everywhere…
No, just give me an add-on so I can pay to bypass a paywall. I don’t want an account everywhere, I just want to read your article, and I’m willing to pay a few cents to do so (way more than they’d get with ads).
That price is way too much. My wife and I use Netflix for hours each day on average. I get significantly more use out of netflix. There is no way I’m paying a website like the verge $7/month when I can get the same new for free from some YouTuber.
I would do this with one caveat: sometimes people link really garbage articles. There was one here yesterday written so poorly I feel less informed for having read it. I would like the option to take my money back for reading such a bad article.
I do want to pay for news, but I can’t subscribe to everyone, or even just “the good ones”, because I do use aggregator sites.
I also wonder if that would lead to a model of paying every website for content because if Reddit is good enough to train AI on and good enough that many people include it in their Google searches, who is to say the comments aren’t “articles”?
Could result in badly written, overly long articles and poor UI to force people to take longer. I know you’re just spitballing, but thought I’d point out how easy it is to induce unintended consequences.
Exactly. Give me an add-on to pay to bypass paywalls for a few cents and they’ll get my money. I’m not making an account or paying a subscription, but I’m happy to leave some change in the donation box.
That’s hilarious.
Can you share the post?
https://lemm.ee/post/49051294
Flattr was such a good concept, it’s so disappointing it never caught on
This is what scroll did, before they got bought by Twitter. Same for coil, who shut down, by the people behind then still seem to be working on something. See https://webmonetization.org/
Isn’t this EXACTLY how it worked before publishers started using the internet? You had to pay either a subscription, or per issue for every magazine or newspaper you wanted to read. Instead of having subscriptions to “dozens of different news outlets”, people only paid for a few. The ones that interested you most, you paid a subscription for, and if you were interested in anything else, you just bought single issues.
Pretty sure that’s the model Apple News+ uses, but the price has always seemed pretty steep to me compared to other subscription services.
Here comes cable TV, but for written news.
Watch as sites allow other sites to resell their content, so users can subscribe one place to get all the news they want!
Wait 10 years.
Here cones streaming, but for written news.
Watch as sites separate, and recreate their own DTC models!
Wait 10 years.
Oops, planet is fire now.