5 ms·

NYT is still desperate to gets ad revenue because they've chosen a subscription model that doesn't work. The same subscription model that doesn't work for a gaz

NYT is still desperate to gets ad revenue because they've chosen a subscription model that doesn't work. The same subscription model that doesn't work for a gazillion other newspapers and magazines online, precisely because it's a gazillion-subscription model. Most people are information omnivores. Few want to pay $X/month to the New York Times and $X/month to the Washington Post and $X/month to the Wall Street Journal and $X/month to each of a dozen other publications, just to read an average of less than one article per month on each of them. It's not just the expense, it's also the hassle of having to create logins and remember passwords for all of them, plus the security risk of having to trust every one of their IT departments not to leak your info. I for one would be glad to pay several times the single-publication price to have a single subscription that would work across all of them, with articles on any counting against my monthly quota. I suspect I'm far from alone, but because nobody's making that offer we all continue to use ad blockers and workarounds, while the publishers continue to be desperate. That's why they keep getting in our faces like this, and also why their product is cruddier than it used to be. If we want a strong press, we need a better subscription model.

michaelt 8y ago
I for one would be glad to pay several times the single- publication price to have a single subscription that would work across all of them Perhaps you'd like to try https://blendle.com https://blendle.com ? Although it's in beta in the US, I got an invite to join the beta within minutes of expressing an interest. Admittedly it doesn't cover every publication, but you can't expect them to when it's not even out of beta yet.
- EwanG 8y ago
  Only one I didn't see there that I read commonly is Bloomberg. But they (like NYT and so many others) can be easily worked around by using an Incognito window - use up all your "free articles", close the window, open another one, here's 10 more... Which makes me inclined to believe that, knowing it is relatively easy to work around their pay wall, they are more concerned with total eye balls than total subscriptions. As another data point, while you can read the main Bloomberg this way, you can't read their Bloomberg Terminal Online without a horrendously expensive subscription - which I suspect reflects what the true cost of news is...
SyneRyder 8y ago
> ...but because nobody's making that offer... You've just described Google Contributor [1], "An ad-removal pass for the web". You load your account up with credit, and for each article on a participating website that you view, they'll deduct an amount from your credit. You can choose which websites you want to use your credit on, and which ones you want to see ads. However, from my experience as a beta tester, no websites are signing up to participate. There were some large newspapers in Australia that signed up, but it seems they've since left the program. I guess that means those newspapers are earning much more than 4c/pageview in advertising revenue from the kind of people who would be prepared to pay to join such a program. [1] https://contributor.google.com/v/beta https://contributor.google.com/v/beta
donohoe 8y ago
No. It works. It works really well actually. But it is just one source of revenue. Likewise the subscription model for The New Yorker works and many other publications. It dorsn’t work for all, but that doesn’t means it’s ineffective.

michaelt 8y ago

I for one would be glad to pay several times the single- publication price to have a single subscription that would work across all of them Perhaps you'd like to try https://blendle.com https://blendle.com ? Although it's in beta in the US, I got an invite to join the beta within minutes of expressing an interest. Admittedly it doesn't cover every publication, but you can't expect them to when it's not even out of beta yet.

EwanG 8y ago
Only one I didn't see there that I read commonly is Bloomberg. But they (like NYT and so many others) can be easily worked around by using an Incognito window - use up all your "free articles", close the window, open another one, here's 10 more... Which makes me inclined to believe that, knowing it is relatively easy to work around their pay wall, they are more concerned with total eye balls than total subscriptions. As another data point, while you can read the main Bloomberg this way, you can't read their Bloomberg Terminal Online without a horrendously expensive subscription - which I suspect reflects what the true cost of news is...

SyneRyder 8y ago

> ...but because nobody's making that offer... You've just described Google Contributor [1], "An ad-removal pass for the web". You load your account up with credit, and for each article on a participating website that you view, they'll deduct an amount from your credit. You can choose which websites you want to use your credit on, and which ones you want to see ads. However, from my experience as a beta tester, no websites are signing up to participate. There were some large newspapers in Australia that signed up, but it seems they've since left the program. I guess that means those newspapers are earning much more than 4c/pageview in advertising revenue from the kind of people who would be prepared to pay to join such a program. [1] https://contributor.google.com/v/beta https://contributor.google.com/v/beta

donohoe 8y ago

No. It works. It works really well actually. But it is just one source of revenue. Likewise the subscription model for The New Yorker works and many other publications. It dorsn’t work for all, but that doesn’t means it’s ineffective.