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" as a user, I would always rather pay than have my data sold to advertisers." Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit

" as a user, I would always rather pay than have my data sold to advertisers." Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. Only entities with a highly educated and conscientious readership can get away with firewalls: FT, WSJ, NYT - and not much else. Arguably, some news outfits were designed as profit making entities, and 'news' was just a vehicle to that profit. CNN is a relatively latecomer in the news world, and because they were formed primarily as a cable news channel ... they went about their business very differently that more classical print houses. One thing we don't talk about enough: 'information consumption habits'. People checked out the news every day to keep up. Now - they can read FB/Instagram and keep up with things that are possibly more important to them in their lives. So - the new social opportunity is literally grabbing 'waking hours' from regular news sites. Bloggers - good or bad - can report on events in some cases somewhat reliably - and so there are other outlets. If you live in Toronto, you used to buy the 'Toronto Star' or 'Globe and Mail'. Now you can read NYT, Guardian, Washington Post - so there's a degree of consolidation as well. Sadly, it's a mess and I hope someone can figure it out :)

coldtea 10y ago
>Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. Only entities with a highly educated and conscientious readership can get away with firewalls: FT, WSJ, NYT - and not much else. So maybe the problem is not bad news reporting, but the scarcity of highly educated and/or conscientious readership? That is, maybe we should fix the education and the citizenry -- else people won't make much out of well written news anyway, if not for anything else, because they wont be able to evaluate them...
- pdkl95 10y ago
  Sagan's warning in "The Demon-Haunted World"[1]: I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... Until the public has a "baloney detection kit"[2] (and uses it regularly), trying to convince them to follow "The Truth" instead of the latest scam or wishful thinking is a waste of time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World [2] https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/ https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-k...
Lxr 10y ago
Fair point. But as a thought experiment, why can't I go down to the supermarket and pick up free packets of rice by the same logic? I'm engaged when I'm walking around the shop and as I'm reading the packet; there's plenty of opportunity for advertising. Rice costs money to grow, quality reporting costs money to produce, what's the difference?
- euyyn 10y ago
  The difference is that the value of one instance of ad engagement (yours) is lower than the cost of a packet of rice. But the value of thousands of engagements (number of readers) is higher than the cost of producing an article. Distributing articles over the internet scales better than distributing rice packets through stores.
digi_owl 10y ago
> Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. Because i suspect what is wanted is not a subscription but "for the day" payment, much like with a physical newspaper or magazine. but most newspapers have adopted a more "blog" or TV news like approach, with new articles rolling in constantly rather than having a daily packet ala what you get with a print edition. Never mind the hassle and worry about leaked/hacked credit card data.
NumberCruncher 10y ago
>> Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. This shows that the average "information consumer" considers the so called "news" worthless. Action speaks louder than words. The average "information consumer" considers his/her own private data also worthless, otherwise would not sell it for free eg. for worthless goods.
wvh 10y ago
Now you can get the news from many different sources. That's probably a blessing if you are capable of critical thought and want to invest a minimal of effort to do some fact-checking and to get the big picture. If you can't or don't want, I'd say the situation is more grim than before when people had one or a few somewhat neutral established sources of news such as the main newspapers or evening news on television. People get to pick what to believe and enforce their own little bubbles of reality. So it might indeed come down to how educated and critical people are whether this ubiquitous news trend turns out to be an improvement or more harmful. I'd say that right now, in the West – where traditional media on the whole was at least somewhat neutral – it's not looking great. But in less democratic places where the media is state-owned, alternative sources of news might have a positive impact.
kalleboo 10y ago
I pay around $10/mo for a music subscription, $10/mo for a video subscription. I'd also be happy to pay $10/mo for a news subscription, but then I need to get more than one publication, like my all-access music subscription. The NY Times alone is $15/mo, WaPo is another $10, local news - $10, the Economist is $15/mo, the WSJ is something like $30/mo, FT also $30/mo If I were to pay my way through all the paywalls I see in a month, I'd probably be paying over $100/mo for news alone!
- Taek 10y ago
  What if it worked more like a utility? Where you have one sort of provider who pays everyone, and then bills you monthly based on usage? $0.01 per minute on YouTube, $0.05 per thousand words on NYT, etc. (Something obviously superior to advertising). I guess it's still a click bait problem at that point. But I'm sure a site like HN could ask for volumes more than what reddit could ask for. And what if something like the Bitcoin micropayment network made this possible in a decentralized way?
sergiosgc 10y ago
> Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. Because the price is too high. Ads pay $1/thousand impressions. Subscriptions go for around $10/month. Convert to the same units, and it'd be something like $10/hundred impressions, or 100x the price. The numbers are, of course, far from exact, but correct in terms of order of magnitude. Bring the price down. Use micro payments, use bundling, use yearly subscriptions. At these prices, ads are the best user proposition and there'll be no uptake from subscriptions.

coldtea 10y ago

>Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. Only entities with a highly educated and conscientious readership can get away with firewalls: FT, WSJ, NYT - and not much else. So maybe the problem is not bad news reporting, but the scarcity of highly educated and/or conscientious readership? That is, maybe we should fix the education and the citizenry -- else people won't make much out of well written news anyway, if not for anything else, because they wont be able to evaluate them...

pdkl95 10y ago
Sagan's warning in "The Demon-Haunted World"[1]: I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... Until the public has a "baloney detection kit"[2] (and uses it regularly), trying to convince them to follow "The Truth" instead of the latest scam or wishful thinking is a waste of time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World [2] https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/ https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-k...

Lxr 10y ago

Fair point. But as a thought experiment, why can't I go down to the supermarket and pick up free packets of rice by the same logic? I'm engaged when I'm walking around the shop and as I'm reading the packet; there's plenty of opportunity for advertising. Rice costs money to grow, quality reporting costs money to produce, what's the difference?

euyyn 10y ago
The difference is that the value of one instance of ad engagement (yours) is lower than the cost of a packet of rice. But the value of thousands of engagements (number of readers) is higher than the cost of producing an article. Distributing articles over the internet scales better than distributing rice packets through stores.

digi_owl 10y ago

> Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. Because i suspect what is wanted is not a subscription but "for the day" payment, much like with a physical newspaper or magazine. but most newspapers have adopted a more "blog" or TV news like approach, with new articles rolling in constantly rather than having a daily packet ala what you get with a print edition. Never mind the hassle and worry about leaked/hacked credit card data.

NumberCruncher 10y ago

>> Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. This shows that the average "information consumer" considers the so called "news" worthless. Action speaks louder than words. The average "information consumer" considers his/her own private data also worthless, otherwise would not sell it for free eg. for worthless goods.

wvh 10y ago

Now you can get the news from many different sources. That's probably a blessing if you are capable of critical thought and want to invest a minimal of effort to do some fact-checking and to get the big picture. If you can't or don't want, I'd say the situation is more grim than before when people had one or a few somewhat neutral established sources of news such as the main newspapers or evening news on television. People get to pick what to believe and enforce their own little bubbles of reality. So it might indeed come down to how educated and critical people are whether this ubiquitous news trend turns out to be an improvement or more harmful. I'd say that right now, in the West – where traditional media on the whole was at least somewhat neutral – it's not looking great. But in less democratic places where the media is state-owned, alternative sources of news might have a positive impact.

kalleboo 10y ago

I pay around $10/mo for a music subscription, $10/mo for a video subscription. I'd also be happy to pay $10/mo for a news subscription, but then I need to get more than one publication, like my all-access music subscription. The NY Times alone is $15/mo, WaPo is another $10, local news - $10, the Economist is $15/mo, the WSJ is something like $30/mo, FT also $30/mo If I were to pay my way through all the paywalls I see in a month, I'd probably be paying over $100/mo for news alone!

Taek 10y ago
What if it worked more like a utility? Where you have one sort of provider who pays everyone, and then bills you monthly based on usage? $0.01 per minute on YouTube, $0.05 per thousand words on NYT, etc. (Something obviously superior to advertising). I guess it's still a click bait problem at that point. But I'm sure a site like HN could ask for volumes more than what reddit could ask for. And what if something like the Bitcoin micropayment network made this possible in a decentralized way?

sergiosgc 10y ago

> Most people would say this. But then when it comes time to get out their credit card and buy a subscription - they don't actually follow through. Because the price is too high. Ads pay $1/thousand impressions. Subscriptions go for around $10/month. Convert to the same units, and it'd be something like $10/hundred impressions, or 100x the price. The numbers are, of course, far from exact, but correct in terms of order of magnitude. Bring the price down. Use micro payments, use bundling, use yearly subscriptions. At these prices, ads are the best user proposition and there'll be no uptake from subscriptions.