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The problem and the solution look obvious: there are many news sources, everybody wants to get paid, people don’t want to pay for all of them, yet still not con

The problem and the solution look obvious: there are many news sources, everybody wants to get paid, people don’t want to pay for all of them, yet still not content from getting the news from a single source. We have solved this problem for music and movies already, Spotify and Netflix are Silicon Valley poster children. Now we just need to build a news / text media aggregator along the same lines.

tortasaur 7y ago
I'm not convinced the problem will remain solved for music, and video certainly isn't solved. Gone are the days when everything was on Netflix; now it's fragmented, split amongst the big players in the space. I can see Spotify losing their dominance just as easily.
- atemerev 7y ago
  There are issues, but it is still more convenient than it was before Netflix and Spotify. In fact, I don’t use Spotify, I use Apple Music (as I travel a lot and live in two countries, and they are less picky about that) — the same music is still available there.
inapis 7y ago
>there are many news sources, everybody wants to get paid, people don’t want to pay for all of them, yet still not content from getting the news from a single source. Don't pay for all of them and BE CONTENT with getting news/information from a small set of outlets you want. Abundance of choice doesn't mean that you have to try out everything under the sun. This is consumer expectations being irrational after an era of free ad-sponsored internet articles. Given a median US income of 60k, most people within this group can definitely budget for 3-4 publications annually. Go lower and people can pay for 2-3 publications. Go lower and you probably don't have time for reading news and have more pressing matters in life. We are no longer primed to pay for content so even paying 10 USD a month is jarring experience for most. The problem is less of the market and more of the consumer. We went from a lack of information to information overabundance with the advent of internet, google and free articles. Now we want to read/watch/listen to everything which is physically impossible. We think we want to read a couple of articles from every other site but most of us (HN/reddit may be vocal exceptions) end up reading a decent chunk of articles from a small number of sites. I am not pulling these numbers out of thin hair. I am building a much more powerful alternative to pocket/instapaper and these trends are coming from the first set of beta users (albeit small but for which I have no reason to believe also doesn't pan out at significant numbers) from finance, tech and other industries. Even I was surprised when I ran my own set of links and saw that 95% of them were coming from a set of 5-6 publishers at best whose combined annual subscriptions were north of just 200 USD - something I'm happy to and already do pay for.
- atemerev 7y ago
  It is very inconvenient to watch over these 5-6 individual subscriptions, especially when I am not interested in 90% of their content (but the content I _am_ interested in can come from anywhere). It is not about money, it is about friction.
krageon 7y ago
> We have solved this problem for music and movies already Even in the US, arguably the golden land when it comes to the library size of the services you talk about, people are frustrated about walled gardens forming in these services. Companies producing content (or companies at all) want to "diversify", especially into things they already have some content for (as is the case for publishing companies). The next question is how to pull people to your platform and the answer is simple: make your content available nowhere else. Thus, another walled garden is born. This is the pattern you see in the wild now that streaming has become popular. This pattern does not solve the aggregation problem at all, in fact it stands exactly in the way of it working.
- atemerev 7y ago
  Paying subscription for aggregated news sources (even if there are several major aggregators) is still infinitely more convenient than managing 5-6 individual subscriptions.
  - krageon 7y ago
    If you move the goalposts, then any argument will eventually converge on the target of sounding reasonable. You started out by claiming that unifying subscriptions was "a solved problem". I responded by saying that it clearly is not, and that the intent of the industry as it is now will converge on least convenience. Whether or not 4 subscriptions are more convenient than 40 is fundamentally immaterial, as that is not what we were discussing.

tortasaur 7y ago

I'm not convinced the problem will remain solved for music, and video certainly isn't solved. Gone are the days when everything was on Netflix; now it's fragmented, split amongst the big players in the space. I can see Spotify losing their dominance just as easily.

atemerev 7y ago
There are issues, but it is still more convenient than it was before Netflix and Spotify. In fact, I don’t use Spotify, I use Apple Music (as I travel a lot and live in two countries, and they are less picky about that) — the same music is still available there.

inapis 7y ago

>there are many news sources, everybody wants to get paid, people don’t want to pay for all of them, yet still not content from getting the news from a single source. Don't pay for all of them and BE CONTENT with getting news/information from a small set of outlets you want. Abundance of choice doesn't mean that you have to try out everything under the sun. This is consumer expectations being irrational after an era of free ad-sponsored internet articles. Given a median US income of 60k, most people within this group can definitely budget for 3-4 publications annually. Go lower and people can pay for 2-3 publications. Go lower and you probably don't have time for reading news and have more pressing matters in life. We are no longer primed to pay for content so even paying 10 USD a month is jarring experience for most. The problem is less of the market and more of the consumer. We went from a lack of information to information overabundance with the advent of internet, google and free articles. Now we want to read/watch/listen to everything which is physically impossible. We think we want to read a couple of articles from every other site but most of us (HN/reddit may be vocal exceptions) end up reading a decent chunk of articles from a small number of sites. I am not pulling these numbers out of thin hair. I am building a much more powerful alternative to pocket/instapaper and these trends are coming from the first set of beta users (albeit small but for which I have no reason to believe also doesn't pan out at significant numbers) from finance, tech and other industries. Even I was surprised when I ran my own set of links and saw that 95% of them were coming from a set of 5-6 publishers at best whose combined annual subscriptions were north of just 200 USD - something I'm happy to and already do pay for.

atemerev 7y ago
It is very inconvenient to watch over these 5-6 individual subscriptions, especially when I am not interested in 90% of their content (but the content I _am_ interested in can come from anywhere). It is not about money, it is about friction.

krageon 7y ago

> We have solved this problem for music and movies already Even in the US, arguably the golden land when it comes to the library size of the services you talk about, people are frustrated about walled gardens forming in these services. Companies producing content (or companies at all) want to "diversify", especially into things they already have some content for (as is the case for publishing companies). The next question is how to pull people to your platform and the answer is simple: make your content available nowhere else. Thus, another walled garden is born. This is the pattern you see in the wild now that streaming has become popular. This pattern does not solve the aggregation problem at all, in fact it stands exactly in the way of it working.

atemerev 7y ago
Paying subscription for aggregated news sources (even if there are several major aggregators) is still infinitely more convenient than managing 5-6 individual subscriptions.
- krageon 7y ago
  If you move the goalposts, then any argument will eventually converge on the target of sounding reasonable. You started out by claiming that unifying subscriptions was "a solved problem". I responded by saying that it clearly is not, and that the intent of the industry as it is now will converge on least convenience. Whether or not 4 subscriptions are more convenient than 40 is fundamentally immaterial, as that is not what we were discussing.