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"Positive reputation can still drive revenue, even in this day and age." Can it drive a business model, though? Again, let's turn to the case of Nautilus. We c

"Positive reputation can still drive revenue, even in this day and age." Can it drive a business model, though? Again, let's turn to the case of Nautilus. We can probably assume it has a great reputation amongst an admittedly small group of readers. But is that reputation driving subscription revenue sufficient to keep the publication in the black? To keep it growing? To keep it securely in business? Once again, I'm 100% aligned with you in my hopes and desires for the industry. But hope isn't a business model. I'd like to hope that Nautilus is a great example of how to run a content business; unfortunately, at the moment I have insufficient economic evidence to back up that claim. I agree with you that excellent products can outcompete commodified trash under certain circumstances. I'm less sure that enough people want to pay for the product at all in this case, however, be it excellent or otherwise. Whatever the case, thank you for a compelling take on this subject. I quite sincerely hope you're right.

rl3 11y ago
>I'm less sure that enough people want to pay for the product at all in this case, however, be it excellent or otherwise. In that case publications like Nautilus would probably have to be ad-supported. Hand-curated ads would go a long way towards preserving design, performance and even revenue since most ad blockers wouldn't block them. However, there's still massive benefits to outsourcing ads—namely advanced analytics, targeting, and click fraud detection right out of the box. Implementing any of those in-house is certainly non-trivial. That said, most publications—especially niche ones—are selling direct to their audience right now. There's nothing wrong with that, unless consumers prove adverse to paying for content in a subscription manner. I tend to strongly agree with you on that point. While perceived value is one issue on that front, I think a lot of it has to do with the inconvenience of signing up, paying, and logging in. App stores don't have this issue, and they offer a lot of print media content these days, though I don't think they've really solved anything yet. Film has Netflix. Music has Spotify. Print media doesn't really have an equivalent. So, it's possible that may be one angle. I know there's startups that have tried this, but none have approached the scale or success that Netflix or Spotify has.

rl3 11y ago

>I'm less sure that enough people want to pay for the product at all in this case, however, be it excellent or otherwise. In that case publications like Nautilus would probably have to be ad-supported. Hand-curated ads would go a long way towards preserving design, performance and even revenue since most ad blockers wouldn't block them. However, there's still massive benefits to outsourcing ads—namely advanced analytics, targeting, and click fraud detection right out of the box. Implementing any of those in-house is certainly non-trivial. That said, most publications—especially niche ones—are selling direct to their audience right now. There's nothing wrong with that, unless consumers prove adverse to paying for content in a subscription manner. I tend to strongly agree with you on that point. While perceived value is one issue on that front, I think a lot of it has to do with the inconvenience of signing up, paying, and logging in. App stores don't have this issue, and they offer a lot of print media content these days, though I don't think they've really solved anything yet. Film has Netflix. Music has Spotify. Print media doesn't really have an equivalent. So, it's possible that may be one angle. I know there's startups that have tried this, but none have approached the scale or success that Netflix or Spotify has.