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I am appalled that the combination of Digital + Print costs as much or less than the digital subscription alone. NYTimes, WSJ all seem to forget the basic prin

I am appalled that the combination of Digital + Print costs as much or less than the digital subscription alone. NYTimes, WSJ all seem to forget the basic principles of economics which dictate a certain amount of price elasticity is essential to bring in more customers. It seems almost punitive that digital customers pay at par with print customers when the incremental costs for the latter are relatively so minor. If NYTimes is really serious about boosting it's pure digital subscriptions, scaling back the height of the paywall is key - not to a trivial non-zero sum, but to an amount where the pure digital customer doesn't feel ripped off.

jdavis703 11y ago
The thing is the paper makes so much money from print advertising that to them it is cheaper to print and deliver papers. It's the old trope people like to recite about social media companies that "you're the product being sold to advertisers." For a variety of reasons your eyeballs are far less valuable online.
- a3n 11y ago
  Indeed. It's why local papers deliver papers to households that don't even subscribe. It ups the "readership" (which in many cases is really the "throwawayership"), and they can con ad buyers into higher prices. Similar is phone books. I used to live in an apartment building where phone books would be dropped in front of your door at least annually (maybe more, there are more than one phone book company). Residents would passive-aggressively leave them out there on the walk, and maintenance would eventually pick them up. I hadn't had a land line for years, and I got one like all the other residents. But the phone book company can then claim "readership" and sell ads. And now we block ads on the last place where ads can reach us. Ads may survive as a revenue source, but it's going to have to change in some way that most of us can't even imagine. And it's going to have to change for "our" benefit, because we've gotten very used to controlling that stream.
Qworg 11y ago
This is following the Economist's model - you create the illusion that the digital+paper is a great deal, which drives your print sales (and more advertising space).

jdavis703 11y ago

The thing is the paper makes so much money from print advertising that to them it is cheaper to print and deliver papers. It's the old trope people like to recite about social media companies that "you're the product being sold to advertisers." For a variety of reasons your eyeballs are far less valuable online.

a3n 11y ago
Indeed. It's why local papers deliver papers to households that don't even subscribe. It ups the "readership" (which in many cases is really the "throwawayership"), and they can con ad buyers into higher prices. Similar is phone books. I used to live in an apartment building where phone books would be dropped in front of your door at least annually (maybe more, there are more than one phone book company). Residents would passive-aggressively leave them out there on the walk, and maintenance would eventually pick them up. I hadn't had a land line for years, and I got one like all the other residents. But the phone book company can then claim "readership" and sell ads. And now we block ads on the last place where ads can reach us. Ads may survive as a revenue source, but it's going to have to change in some way that most of us can't even imagine. And it's going to have to change for "our" benefit, because we've gotten very used to controlling that stream.

Qworg 11y ago

This is following the Economist's model - you create the illusion that the digital+paper is a great deal, which drives your print sales (and more advertising space).