19 ms·

Apple News Service Said to Feature WSJ for $10 a month, Without NYT or WP

55 points by l9k 8y ago

alg0rith 8y ago
>Netflix deliver large video streams $12.99/month >Apple News host a bunch of text and some images $10.00 Is it fair?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
bearcobra 8y ago
As a former Next Issue/Texture user I really hope they’re going to do a better job with the UX. I really loved the idea of an unlimited magazine subscription but the execution just wasn’t there.
- joegahona 8y ago
  Same. I _recently_ checked out Texture again, having tried Next Issue years ago, and I was shocked that the UX seemed to be exactly the same. No movement in years! Still takes ages to download a magazine, still incredibly clunky to navigate. The whole thing feels years behind everything else.
esun 8y ago
Former newspaper industry employee here... This is a mistake by the WSJ. They would be better served by reducing their ridiculous digital subscription fees and skipping Apple's extortionate gatekeeping "service". The newspaper industry was founded on (although nobody really understood it until the invention of the internet) being the intermediary between consumers and companies. In 2019 the business has changed to content provision. But these old line companies (and who is older line than Apple and the WSJ?) can't help but try to discover intermediary points of control. Pah.
- sneeze-slayer 8y ago
  The WSJ online costs $39 per month, but the print copy costs $43 per month. It's pretty crazy, because I would expect the physical paper to cost much more than the online version.
sdfsdfsdfsdf3 8y ago
I wonder for WSJ if you still have to call a high pressure sales line to cancel?
GeekyBear 8y ago
It's worth noting that Apple did not create the "50% revenue share" business model behind the Texture app they bought. The big names in magazine publishing who created Texture did. >New York, NY, December 8, 2009 – Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. today jointly announced that they have entered into an independent venture to develop open standards for a new digital storefront and related technology that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite media content on portable digital devices. http://allthingsd.com/20091208/nows-the-time-finally-publishers-announce-their-hulu-for-magazines-next-up-building-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20091208/nows-the-time-finally-publish... As for their revenue model. >That service, which was eventually called Texture, paid out 10 percent of its monthly revenue to its owner-operators, who divvied it up based on the usage their titles generated. And publishers who sold their stuff through the service but didn’t own a piece of Texture captured 50 percent of the revenue, also cut up by usage. https://www.recode.net/2019/2/13/18224013/apple-news-publishers-50-percent-subscription-explained-new-york-times-washington-post-texture https://www.recode.net/2019/2/13/18224013/apple-news-publish... Apparently the magazine industry and the newspaper industry have different ideas on what a equitable revenue share might be.
snazz 8y ago
I find it amusing that the NYT is reporting on its own business decisions.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  It would be criticized if it didn’t.
tptacek 8y ago
Broken record: online newspaper subscriptions are super cheap and are remarkably useful; when you can click around a newspaper site without popups, it starts to makes sense to use them as your news portal, which quickly weans you off lower-quality free sites like CNN. Like the people that get the sleep apnea devices and won't shut up about how much better their life is, I'm constantly (and noisily) surprised by how shitty the news writing and presentation I was putting up with was before I subscribed to a bunch of actual newspapers.
- winningcontinue 8y ago
  counterpoint: journalism is obsolete. At least from the standpoint of newspapers. Good writing is superfluous. The content and information that I'm really after is available in more condensed format through aggregators, reactions on discussion forums and summaries. Most people prefer not to read a long article. Just give me the TLDR, the chart, the stock price, the name, the temperature etc...
  - techntoke 8y ago
    But where is the benefit if you aren't misleading them for your own profit and ideologies? /s
- mikekij 8y ago
  I pay for WSJ, but am somehow constantly required to login again and again. It’s almost infuriating enough to make me cancel my subscription.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    If you're experiencing this on iOS, it's probably because of some anti-tracking "improvements" that Apple released with iOS 11. This feature unfortunately makes it so the WSJ subscriber cookie is forgotten very frequently. I ran into this problem with an app [1] I built, which has a partnership with the WSJ and gives free guest access to their content. When iOS 11 came out, we got lots of support emails from people wondering why they had to log in with their guest pass all the time. In my experience, it happens at least once a day. Our users put up with this because we give them free access to the WSJ, but I can't imagine putting up with this as a paying customer. 1: http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com
untog 8y ago
I'm confused why WSJ, of all publications, is jumping on board here. A look at their subscription page shows me that the cheapest option is $15 a month. This Apple News subscription product is going to be $10 a month and Apple is taking 50% of that. I get the argument that Apple News will expose you to a much larger audience, but that level of revenue cut is... significant. Why wouldn't I cancel my WSJ subscription and sign up with Apple? (an aside, but the 50% cut just seems absurd. Just reads like Apple saying "because we can", there's no way the cost of distributing an article is anywhere near the same as the cost of making it)
- mcny 8y ago
  » I'm confused why WSJ, of all publications, is jumping on board here. A look at their subscription page shows me that the cheapest option is $15 a month. This Apple News subscription product is going to be $10 a month and Apple is taking 50% of that. » I get the argument that Apple News will expose you to a much larger audience, but that level of revenue cut is... significant. Why wouldn't I cancel my WSJ subscription and sign up with Apple? You should absolutely cancel your WSJ subscription and sign up with Apple. I agree 50% cut is a little steep but I am worried Apple might not have enough clout. What's to stop WSJ from spinning off (for example) new media into a separate entity therefore allow Apple news access to only a subset of its offerings? Does Apple have enough power to call a spade a spade?
- tuna-piano 8y ago
  Maybe WSJ would only allow this on iPads and iPhones, and they think their higher paying normal users also want access on desktop devices? Maybe WSJ got something crazy like a 10 year exclusive without NYT or Washington Post in the service? Still seems crazy... Apple seems to need the WSJ more than the WSJ would need Apple for this service. WSJ is a marquee name and content producer that millions of people are willing to pay for. WSJ is profitable and seems to do just fine in print and digital distribution. While the $10 price point may be the correct one for all parties involved (a value price point expands scale without expanding cost) - the 50% cut seems wild.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 8y ago
  Worth noting that after the first year, that $15/mo turns into $40/mo (which is when I cancelled my subscription).
ohnope 8y ago
>the most recent terms that Apple is offering to publishers ask for a cut of roughly half of the subscription revenue involved in the service 50% cut? And likely no access to customer data, with content embedded in a proprietary app outside of a news paper’s control... why would publishers agree to shutting off so many avenues for future innovation and strategic independence?
- gnicholas 8y ago
  There are publishers (including the Washington Post, who are not signing on) that have decided that they have to transition from getting lots of revenue from a few people (often in one geography) to getting a little revenue from lots of people (all over the world). If this is your new strategy, Apple's offering might make sense.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  Apple News does provide analytics, just not user-profile derived data. It’s more general than that, but is available across categories like loyalty metrics, vague demographics, etc—without associating that information to specific users. But you’ll have to investigate for yourself if you’d like to know more since I don’t work or speak for them and just have some personal experience.
steven2012 8y ago
> Publishers are also concerned that they won’t have access to important data about the consumers — credit cards, email addresses and other subscriber information — as part of the deal. Why are credit card numbers important information? All they would know is what the credit card is, but it's not like they can sell the credit card or use that number to get more purchases, etc, from that number, can they?
intopieces 8y ago
Note to those not keen on paying money to Apple for this service: RBDigital lets you download lots of magazines through your local library. Mine even has The Economist. I still pay for a subscription because I like the audio, but RBDigital is great for people who like plain PDF scans of magazines and has the added benefit of being already paid for.
crazygringo 8y ago
A 50% cut seems insane. Is there context that's missing here? Because also, nothing is said about how the subscription is divvied up. Is the remaining 50% ($5/mo.) split among publishers by the % of articles read?
- joegahona 8y ago
  It’s time spent with the publisher’s content.
sqldba 8y ago
What confuses me most here is that the ethics of the WSJ, as defined by the beliefs of owner Rupert Murdoch, run counter to everything Apple professes to support. I don't know why they would support WSJ and not a more unbiased newspaper.
Traster 8y ago
I think it's so important that we move towards a model where we can subscribe to a selection of news sources for a reasonable amount. As others have pointed out, individual newspapers are as much as a netflix or spotify subscription - which may be justified. But even if everyone does move to a subscription model, it's bad for our society for everyone to have 1 source of news. It's even more unhealthy if I can't have an informed discussion about the news of the day with you because you got your news from the NYT and I got my news from Times of London and we got two entirely different sides of the story and we can't go and see each other's sources of information. That sounds to me like a terrible situation to put ourselves in. I would much rather pay $10 bucks a month and know that that revenue is distributed amongst the papers I read in proportion to how long I've spent reading each article- in exactly the same way Youtube tracks watched minutes.
- sneeze-slayer 8y ago
  Haven't newspapers always been like that? If you want to see someone else's source of information, you would have to go and buy that days copy of the paper. Newspapers seem to be the original subscription model--you only have one source of news.
- tzs 8y ago
  > It's even more unhealthy if I can't have an informed discussion about the news of the day with you because you got your news from the NYT and I got my news from Times of London and we got two entirely different sides of the story and we can't go and see each other's sources of information Probably not the best example. With the NYT and the Times of London, you might get different perspectives on a news story (as opposed to an opinion piece), but they will both be mostly correct. You should be able to have informed discussion. To make your example work, you need something more like an AlterNet reader trying to have an informed discussion with an InfoWars reader.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    Careful with that appeal to authority.

55 points by l9k 8y ago

alg0rith 8y ago

>Netflix deliver large video streams $12.99/month >Apple News host a bunch of text and some images $10.00 Is it fair?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

bearcobra 8y ago

As a former Next Issue/Texture user I really hope they’re going to do a better job with the UX. I really loved the idea of an unlimited magazine subscription but the execution just wasn’t there.

joegahona 8y ago
Same. I _recently_ checked out Texture again, having tried Next Issue years ago, and I was shocked that the UX seemed to be exactly the same. No movement in years! Still takes ages to download a magazine, still incredibly clunky to navigate. The whole thing feels years behind everything else.

esun 8y ago

Former newspaper industry employee here... This is a mistake by the WSJ. They would be better served by reducing their ridiculous digital subscription fees and skipping Apple's extortionate gatekeeping "service". The newspaper industry was founded on (although nobody really understood it until the invention of the internet) being the intermediary between consumers and companies. In 2019 the business has changed to content provision. But these old line companies (and who is older line than Apple and the WSJ?) can't help but try to discover intermediary points of control. Pah.

sneeze-slayer 8y ago
The WSJ online costs $39 per month, but the print copy costs $43 per month. It's pretty crazy, because I would expect the physical paper to cost much more than the online version.

sdfsdfsdfsdf3 8y ago

I wonder for WSJ if you still have to call a high pressure sales line to cancel?

GeekyBear 8y ago

It's worth noting that Apple did not create the "50% revenue share" business model behind the Texture app they bought. The big names in magazine publishing who created Texture did. >New York, NY, December 8, 2009 – Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. today jointly announced that they have entered into an independent venture to develop open standards for a new digital storefront and related technology that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite media content on portable digital devices. http://allthingsd.com/20091208/nows-the-time-finally-publishers-announce-their-hulu-for-magazines-next-up-building-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20091208/nows-the-time-finally-publish... As for their revenue model. >That service, which was eventually called Texture, paid out 10 percent of its monthly revenue to its owner-operators, who divvied it up based on the usage their titles generated. And publishers who sold their stuff through the service but didn’t own a piece of Texture captured 50 percent of the revenue, also cut up by usage. https://www.recode.net/2019/2/13/18224013/apple-news-publishers-50-percent-subscription-explained-new-york-times-washington-post-texture https://www.recode.net/2019/2/13/18224013/apple-news-publish... Apparently the magazine industry and the newspaper industry have different ideas on what a equitable revenue share might be.

snazz 8y ago

I find it amusing that the NYT is reporting on its own business decisions.

reaperducer 8y ago
It would be criticized if it didn’t.

tptacek 8y ago

Broken record: online newspaper subscriptions are super cheap and are remarkably useful; when you can click around a newspaper site without popups, it starts to makes sense to use them as your news portal, which quickly weans you off lower-quality free sites like CNN. Like the people that get the sleep apnea devices and won't shut up about how much better their life is, I'm constantly (and noisily) surprised by how shitty the news writing and presentation I was putting up with was before I subscribed to a bunch of actual newspapers.

winningcontinue 8y ago
counterpoint: journalism is obsolete. At least from the standpoint of newspapers. Good writing is superfluous. The content and information that I'm really after is available in more condensed format through aggregators, reactions on discussion forums and summaries. Most people prefer not to read a long article. Just give me the TLDR, the chart, the stock price, the name, the temperature etc...
- techntoke 8y ago
  But where is the benefit if you aren't misleading them for your own profit and ideologies? /s
mikekij 8y ago
I pay for WSJ, but am somehow constantly required to login again and again. It’s almost infuriating enough to make me cancel my subscription.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  If you're experiencing this on iOS, it's probably because of some anti-tracking "improvements" that Apple released with iOS 11. This feature unfortunately makes it so the WSJ subscriber cookie is forgotten very frequently. I ran into this problem with an app [1] I built, which has a partnership with the WSJ and gives free guest access to their content. When iOS 11 came out, we got lots of support emails from people wondering why they had to log in with their guest pass all the time. In my experience, it happens at least once a day. Our users put up with this because we give them free access to the WSJ, but I can't imagine putting up with this as a paying customer. 1: http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com

untog 8y ago

I'm confused why WSJ, of all publications, is jumping on board here. A look at their subscription page shows me that the cheapest option is $15 a month. This Apple News subscription product is going to be $10 a month and Apple is taking 50% of that. I get the argument that Apple News will expose you to a much larger audience, but that level of revenue cut is... significant. Why wouldn't I cancel my WSJ subscription and sign up with Apple? (an aside, but the 50% cut just seems absurd. Just reads like Apple saying "because we can", there's no way the cost of distributing an article is anywhere near the same as the cost of making it)

mcny 8y ago
» I'm confused why WSJ, of all publications, is jumping on board here. A look at their subscription page shows me that the cheapest option is $15 a month. This Apple News subscription product is going to be $10 a month and Apple is taking 50% of that. » I get the argument that Apple News will expose you to a much larger audience, but that level of revenue cut is... significant. Why wouldn't I cancel my WSJ subscription and sign up with Apple? You should absolutely cancel your WSJ subscription and sign up with Apple. I agree 50% cut is a little steep but I am worried Apple might not have enough clout. What's to stop WSJ from spinning off (for example) new media into a separate entity therefore allow Apple news access to only a subset of its offerings? Does Apple have enough power to call a spade a spade?
tuna-piano 8y ago
Maybe WSJ would only allow this on iPads and iPhones, and they think their higher paying normal users also want access on desktop devices? Maybe WSJ got something crazy like a 10 year exclusive without NYT or Washington Post in the service? Still seems crazy... Apple seems to need the WSJ more than the WSJ would need Apple for this service. WSJ is a marquee name and content producer that millions of people are willing to pay for. WSJ is profitable and seems to do just fine in print and digital distribution. While the $10 price point may be the correct one for all parties involved (a value price point expands scale without expanding cost) - the 50% cut seems wild.
6gvONxR4sf7o 8y ago
Worth noting that after the first year, that $15/mo turns into $40/mo (which is when I cancelled my subscription).

ohnope 8y ago

>the most recent terms that Apple is offering to publishers ask for a cut of roughly half of the subscription revenue involved in the service 50% cut? And likely no access to customer data, with content embedded in a proprietary app outside of a news paper’s control... why would publishers agree to shutting off so many avenues for future innovation and strategic independence?

gnicholas 8y ago
There are publishers (including the Washington Post, who are not signing on) that have decided that they have to transition from getting lots of revenue from a few people (often in one geography) to getting a little revenue from lots of people (all over the world). If this is your new strategy, Apple's offering might make sense.
52-6F-62 8y ago
Apple News does provide analytics, just not user-profile derived data. It’s more general than that, but is available across categories like loyalty metrics, vague demographics, etc—without associating that information to specific users. But you’ll have to investigate for yourself if you’d like to know more since I don’t work or speak for them and just have some personal experience.

steven2012 8y ago

> Publishers are also concerned that they won’t have access to important data about the consumers — credit cards, email addresses and other subscriber information — as part of the deal. Why are credit card numbers important information? All they would know is what the credit card is, but it's not like they can sell the credit card or use that number to get more purchases, etc, from that number, can they?

intopieces 8y ago

Note to those not keen on paying money to Apple for this service: RBDigital lets you download lots of magazines through your local library. Mine even has The Economist. I still pay for a subscription because I like the audio, but RBDigital is great for people who like plain PDF scans of magazines and has the added benefit of being already paid for.

crazygringo 8y ago

A 50% cut seems insane. Is there context that's missing here? Because also, nothing is said about how the subscription is divvied up. Is the remaining 50% ($5/mo.) split among publishers by the % of articles read?

joegahona 8y ago
It’s time spent with the publisher’s content.

sqldba 8y ago

What confuses me most here is that the ethics of the WSJ, as defined by the beliefs of owner Rupert Murdoch, run counter to everything Apple professes to support. I don't know why they would support WSJ and not a more unbiased newspaper.

Traster 8y ago

I think it's so important that we move towards a model where we can subscribe to a selection of news sources for a reasonable amount. As others have pointed out, individual newspapers are as much as a netflix or spotify subscription - which may be justified. But even if everyone does move to a subscription model, it's bad for our society for everyone to have 1 source of news. It's even more unhealthy if I can't have an informed discussion about the news of the day with you because you got your news from the NYT and I got my news from Times of London and we got two entirely different sides of the story and we can't go and see each other's sources of information. That sounds to me like a terrible situation to put ourselves in. I would much rather pay $10 bucks a month and know that that revenue is distributed amongst the papers I read in proportion to how long I've spent reading each article- in exactly the same way Youtube tracks watched minutes.

sneeze-slayer 8y ago
Haven't newspapers always been like that? If you want to see someone else's source of information, you would have to go and buy that days copy of the paper. Newspapers seem to be the original subscription model--you only have one source of news.
tzs 8y ago
> It's even more unhealthy if I can't have an informed discussion about the news of the day with you because you got your news from the NYT and I got my news from Times of London and we got two entirely different sides of the story and we can't go and see each other's sources of information Probably not the best example. With the NYT and the Times of London, you might get different perspectives on a news story (as opposed to an opinion piece), but they will both be mostly correct. You should be able to have informed discussion. To make your example work, you need something more like an AlterNet reader trying to have an informed discussion with an InfoWars reader.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Careful with that appeal to authority.