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> once upon a time we managed to pay for books, newspapers, magazines, and newsletters just fine. We can do something similar online. Even those paid-for newsp
by cosmie 9y ago
> once upon a time we managed to pay for books, newspapers, magazines, and newsletters just fine. We can do something similar online.
Even those paid-for newspapers, magazines, and newsletters had advertising in them. The subscription cost still didn't reflect the full economic value the publisher was capturing per reader. So in that sense, we still weren't fully paying for content even in those times.
And one thing with online subscriptions is that people, once subscribed, expect all other forms of compensation to disappear (ads, analytics/metadata-derived revenue, etc). So the publisher either needs the subscription to be high enough to reflect the full economic value of the reader (something that didn't even happen before) or still contain secondary revenue sources somehow or another but in a way that's subtle or hidden enough for paid subscribers to not complain about them.
- johan_larson 9y agoOh, sure, there were ads in newspapers and magazines. But I see a world of difference between even full-page static ads in newspapers and pop-up full-video ads with sound online. The latter is much more distracting. As consumers, we have lost a lot of ground on that front. To be fair, we also have access to a lot more content.