4 ms·

I've kept thinking that if I could just tip a paper a dollar or so when I read something good, they'd make a lot of money out of me. But I can't.

manigandham 8y ago
They can already make plenty of money out of you from ads. Far more scalable and efficient, and 0 active work for you to do.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> they'd make a lot of money out of me No they wouldn't. Subscriptions for journalism make sense for the same reason endowed chairs in academia make sense. Advertising is almost always a better model than micropayments for the simple reason that it's (a) more reliable and (b) has fewer support costs.
dman 8y ago
But then they would have to write something good.
usr1106 8y ago
> could just tip a paper a dollar or so when I read something good, they'd make a lot of money out of me. But I can't. The Guardian has it. But they are an exception. On the other hand I tried to make a paper subscription of the Guardian [1]. Despite searching for an hour, I could find no way how to order the paper. Maybe another case of rejecting the customer willing to pay, because nobody could possibly want that service... Should have called them, but they weren't open at the moment. [1] for my daugther who wants to prepare for her English exam. Freshness of the news is less an issue than having it it in a comfortable format for studying. She hates that many of her school books are only online today. Online could have some advantages, but most implementations by school book publishers are rather poor.
- zamadatix 8y ago
  I think that's more to do with paper delivery not having enough profit margin and not so much them just making it difficult for you to give them money. They do paper deliveries in the London area and global shipments of the international weekly version but other than that they are all online like a lot of news organizations have been lately. Both of these are easy to find and subscribe to online.

manigandham 8y ago

They can already make plenty of money out of you from ads. Far more scalable and efficient, and 0 active work for you to do.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> they'd make a lot of money out of me No they wouldn't. Subscriptions for journalism make sense for the same reason endowed chairs in academia make sense. Advertising is almost always a better model than micropayments for the simple reason that it's (a) more reliable and (b) has fewer support costs.

dman 8y ago

But then they would have to write something good.

usr1106 8y ago

> could just tip a paper a dollar or so when I read something good, they'd make a lot of money out of me. But I can't. The Guardian has it. But they are an exception. On the other hand I tried to make a paper subscription of the Guardian [1]. Despite searching for an hour, I could find no way how to order the paper. Maybe another case of rejecting the customer willing to pay, because nobody could possibly want that service... Should have called them, but they weren't open at the moment. [1] for my daugther who wants to prepare for her English exam. Freshness of the news is less an issue than having it it in a comfortable format for studying. She hates that many of her school books are only online today. Online could have some advantages, but most implementations by school book publishers are rather poor.

zamadatix 8y ago
I think that's more to do with paper delivery not having enough profit margin and not so much them just making it difficult for you to give them money. They do paper deliveries in the London area and global shipments of the international weekly version but other than that they are all online like a lot of news organizations have been lately. Both of these are easy to find and subscribe to online.