4 ms·

My household still gets a physical paper (the Seattle Times), and a digital version of the same. We subscribe to the NYT and The Economist. That's about our lim

by kabdib 7y ago

My household still gets a physical paper (the Seattle Times), and a digital version of the same. We subscribe to the NYT and The Economist. That's about our limit for news subscriptions. I'm not going to fork over $10/month to each of the other potential news sites for every article they publish. I have no idea why the Podunk Press and the Suburban Picayune Times even consider that as an option for out-of-area readers. It'd be interesting to have a federated subscription model -- I'd pay an additional $X/month for all of the rest of the newspapers, and they could share that. They'll get nothing from me otherwise. Probably there is a business here (the tech to actually do it seems pretty straightforward, at first glance).

vulpes 7y ago
This is Apple's News+ in the nutshell, so federated subscription service you're envisioning would have to compete with Apple.
- andromeduck 7y ago
  My problem with apple news is that it still doesn't really resolve the gamified nature of news and the misaligned incentives between a concise but high quality and information dense content that the user wants and the click-bait, flame bait, low density, attention stealing articles news companies are incentive to write when their compensation is proportional to impressions and time engagement irrespective of the quality of that interaction. I want to be able to have a non trivial level of discretion as to which writers/groups to starve and which to support. For example, being able to pick a handful of sites or articles where my subscription/views/view-time don't count towards their bottom line. Or we could set aside 30-40% of subscription cost to distribute based on the the proportion of some active user action for like Medium's claps or some other rating. At present the economist/ft are the only publications that haven't let me down in a big way and I'm weary of supporting anything else.
- zhoujianfu 7y ago
  Looks like apple news just needs to have a few different bundles, like one that includes The NY Times, Bloomberg, and the economist..
- kabdib 7y ago
  Yup, you're right. I feel stupid now :-) edit: apparently you have to use apple devices? oh heck no, what were they thinking?
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Apple sells hardware. That's what they're thinking.
- smudgymcscmudge 7y ago
  If only there were a service like Apple News+ except for newspapers instead of lifestyle magazines.
mc32 7y ago
I wish there were simple bundles that subscribers could adjust periodically (don’t know that a balanced period might be, perhaps a week?) and allow them to pick from X number of reputable and worthwhile publications. This subscription would do minimal metrics of tracking and allow people to adjust their feed. And also go back to traditional headlines (with all the fun puns and occasional hyperbole, but much less click-bait because that turns subscribers off.

by kabdib 7y ago

vulpes 7y ago

This is Apple's News+ in the nutshell, so federated subscription service you're envisioning would have to compete with Apple.

andromeduck 7y ago
My problem with apple news is that it still doesn't really resolve the gamified nature of news and the misaligned incentives between a concise but high quality and information dense content that the user wants and the click-bait, flame bait, low density, attention stealing articles news companies are incentive to write when their compensation is proportional to impressions and time engagement irrespective of the quality of that interaction. I want to be able to have a non trivial level of discretion as to which writers/groups to starve and which to support. For example, being able to pick a handful of sites or articles where my subscription/views/view-time don't count towards their bottom line. Or we could set aside 30-40% of subscription cost to distribute based on the the proportion of some active user action for like Medium's claps or some other rating. At present the economist/ft are the only publications that haven't let me down in a big way and I'm weary of supporting anything else.
zhoujianfu 7y ago
Looks like apple news just needs to have a few different bundles, like one that includes The NY Times, Bloomberg, and the economist..
kabdib 7y ago
Yup, you're right. I feel stupid now :-) edit: apparently you have to use apple devices? oh heck no, what were they thinking?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Apple sells hardware. That's what they're thinking.
smudgymcscmudge 7y ago
If only there were a service like Apple News+ except for newspapers instead of lifestyle magazines.

mc32 7y ago

I wish there were simple bundles that subscribers could adjust periodically (don’t know that a balanced period might be, perhaps a week?) and allow them to pick from X number of reputable and worthwhile publications. This subscription would do minimal metrics of tracking and allow people to adjust their feed. And also go back to traditional headlines (with all the fun puns and occasional hyperbole, but much less click-bait because that turns subscribers off.