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I'm no fan of this sort of trickery. However, while I was watching the documentary 'Spotlight', which was The Globe's 2002 expose on the Roman Catholic church,

I'm no fan of this sort of trickery. However, while I was watching the documentary 'Spotlight', which was The Globe's 2002 expose on the Roman Catholic church, it occurred to me - How are good newspapers to survive and turn a profit? Readers are unwilling to pay/subscribe and online ad revenue is falling. It's a genuine problem and I sure hope some of these newspapers survive and are still around a decade from now. The WSJ, NYT, and WaPos will, but what about some of the the others?

mgo 11y ago
They need to find a business model that isn't based around outright deception to survive. I have zero sympathy for them.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  The problem with newspapers is that if they paywall all of their articles, they won't get any viewers because nobody knows what kind of articles they write without subscribing. A lot of them have an 'X free articles per month' thing, but since I'm on three different machines, I've never hit that limit unless it was like one or two a month.
  - alphapapa 11y ago
    Two solutions: 1. Make certain articles freely available. They're not stupid--they can figure out which ones will draw people in. 2. Do it LWN-style: the current week's edition requires a subscription, after that it's free. If it's well-written, people will pay to not be a week behind.
Kesty 11y ago
As much as I understand the need for a subscription this practice should be illegal. And in some countries they actually are. There are laws in some European countries where you always have to disclose the full price and in case of reductions and offers you have to clearly show the original price.
forgetsusername 11y ago
>How are good newspapers to survive and turn a profit? They might not. It doesn't surprise me, nobody wants to read objective news anymore. They'd rather seek out and read things that confirm their biases. It's one of the paradoxes of choice; more information and we actually learn less.

mgo 11y ago

They need to find a business model that isn't based around outright deception to survive. I have zero sympathy for them.

Cthulhu_ 11y ago
The problem with newspapers is that if they paywall all of their articles, they won't get any viewers because nobody knows what kind of articles they write without subscribing. A lot of them have an 'X free articles per month' thing, but since I'm on three different machines, I've never hit that limit unless it was like one or two a month.
- alphapapa 11y ago
  Two solutions: 1. Make certain articles freely available. They're not stupid--they can figure out which ones will draw people in. 2. Do it LWN-style: the current week's edition requires a subscription, after that it's free. If it's well-written, people will pay to not be a week behind.

Kesty 11y ago

As much as I understand the need for a subscription this practice should be illegal. And in some countries they actually are. There are laws in some European countries where you always have to disclose the full price and in case of reductions and offers you have to clearly show the original price.

forgetsusername 11y ago

>How are good newspapers to survive and turn a profit? They might not. It doesn't surprise me, nobody wants to read objective news anymore. They'd rather seek out and read things that confirm their biases. It's one of the paradoxes of choice; more information and we actually learn less.