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I’m a subscriber, started at $14 a month, and now I pay about $7 a month after calling to see if they’d let me latch on to a promo rate. I don’t understand thi
by corvallis 9y ago
I’m a subscriber, started at $14 a month, and now I pay about $7 a month after calling to see if they’d let me latch on to a promo rate.
I don’t understand this hostility toward paywalls or paying for a subscription. Just a generation ago, most households paid for newspaper subscriptions, and even some magazines. I am happy to pay for the journalism from what I consider to be a high quality news source. It makes me a better-informed individual.
Many of the users of HN are attempting to monetize a service or product using a subscription model. Yet you don’t want to support a newspaper doing the same thing? Do you feel that the journalism should be free, or free to you? If so, why do you feel that entitlement?
News sources such as WSJ, NYT, Economist provide education and value to individuals and society, and people who earn enough to get a Starbucks on the way to work and go to the gym on the way home (also a subscription model) should not have this level of disdain for the idea of paying for content from a reputable newspaper.
- basseq 9y agoJust a generation ago, most households paid for newspaper subscriptions, and even some magazines. I'm forming this hypothesis on the fly, but I wonder if people had a deep-seeded notion that they were paying for the delivery (the paper, ink, on their doorstep) vs. the content. "I pay for you to bring the news to me" where today, "I come to your forum to hear what's going on." I'm also wondering if there needs to be more journalism as a public good—or a nonprofit. Not tabloids or 24-hour-newscycle hysteria, but true investigative reporting.