5 ms·

And? Newspapers still cost actual money, running $30+ a month at the newsstand. Paywalled newssites are routinely criticized for charging a fraction of that, an

And? Newspapers still cost actual money, running $30+ a month at the newsstand. Paywalled newssites are routinely criticized for charging a fraction of that, and somehow there’s still handwringing that they’re suddenly “depriving the poor of news”

notacoward 7y ago
...and therefore, subscriptions do not replace ads. "Ads are evil, buy subscriptions" is the sentiment I was responding to, but it has a subtext that exclusion is OK. It's not OK when you're talking about it as an essential pillar of democracy. The entire voting populace needs access to that information. Ads can give them that, patronage can give them that, government support can give them that, subscriptions can't.
- msbarnett 7y ago
  > "Ads are evil, buy subscriptions" is the sentiment I was responding to Neither the word “ad” nor “advertisement” nor any synonym appears in the post you responded to? What the post you responded to says is “If you get your news for free, you might well be the product“, which isn’t the same thing. If you read free news, monetizing you is all the income the organization is ever going to get. If, on the other hand, the organization is supported by a robust mix of sales and advertising, it is always going to have both the financial incentive and the financial wherewithal to resist advertisers’ demands to erode the editorial firewall. It’s only with the undermining of subscription revenue that we’ve seen the corrosiveness of being too dependent on advertising destroy editorial credibility. > Ads can give them that, patronage can give them that, government support can give them that, subscriptions can't. This is plainly contradicted by the fact that newspapers, which were a paid product sold at retail and by subscription and not routinely given away for free, were the primary mechanism by which the populace of the western world received news for over a century.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    > This is plainly contradicted No, it's not. Only 14 minutes elapsed between me pointing out that ads made it possible and you pretending that never happened. Is that a new gaslighting record? > It’s only with the undermining of subscription revenue That's the world we live in, and will live in for the foreseeable future, so my original questions still stand untouched by your diversions.
    - msbarnett 7y ago
      > Only 14 minutes elapsed between me pointing out that ads made it possible and you pretending that never happened. I’m not “pretending it didn’t happen” Literally what I wrote is “If, on the other hand, the organization is supported by a robust mix of sales and advertising”. It’s you who has constructed a ridiculous false dichotomy in which people who are calling for a return of subscriptions must somehow oppose the presence of advertising to supplement sales, an argument neither I nor the person you originally responded to made. The history here is quite clear: Sales allowed organizations to sell advertising space while also maintaining enough editorial independence to please subscribers and deliver high quality journalism. “Free news”, solely supported by advertising, is a toxic mess where editorial firewalls are routinely nonexistent.

notacoward 7y ago

...and therefore, subscriptions do not replace ads. "Ads are evil, buy subscriptions" is the sentiment I was responding to, but it has a subtext that exclusion is OK. It's not OK when you're talking about it as an essential pillar of democracy. The entire voting populace needs access to that information. Ads can give them that, patronage can give them that, government support can give them that, subscriptions can't.

msbarnett 7y ago
> "Ads are evil, buy subscriptions" is the sentiment I was responding to Neither the word “ad” nor “advertisement” nor any synonym appears in the post you responded to? What the post you responded to says is “If you get your news for free, you might well be the product“, which isn’t the same thing. If you read free news, monetizing you is all the income the organization is ever going to get. If, on the other hand, the organization is supported by a robust mix of sales and advertising, it is always going to have both the financial incentive and the financial wherewithal to resist advertisers’ demands to erode the editorial firewall. It’s only with the undermining of subscription revenue that we’ve seen the corrosiveness of being too dependent on advertising destroy editorial credibility. > Ads can give them that, patronage can give them that, government support can give them that, subscriptions can't. This is plainly contradicted by the fact that newspapers, which were a paid product sold at retail and by subscription and not routinely given away for free, were the primary mechanism by which the populace of the western world received news for over a century.
- notacoward 7y ago
  > This is plainly contradicted No, it's not. Only 14 minutes elapsed between me pointing out that ads made it possible and you pretending that never happened. Is that a new gaslighting record? > It’s only with the undermining of subscription revenue That's the world we live in, and will live in for the foreseeable future, so my original questions still stand untouched by your diversions.
  - msbarnett 7y ago
    > Only 14 minutes elapsed between me pointing out that ads made it possible and you pretending that never happened. I’m not “pretending it didn’t happen” Literally what I wrote is “If, on the other hand, the organization is supported by a robust mix of sales and advertising”. It’s you who has constructed a ridiculous false dichotomy in which people who are calling for a return of subscriptions must somehow oppose the presence of advertising to supplement sales, an argument neither I nor the person you originally responded to made. The history here is quite clear: Sales allowed organizations to sell advertising space while also maintaining enough editorial independence to please subscribers and deliver high quality journalism. “Free news”, solely supported by advertising, is a toxic mess where editorial firewalls are routinely nonexistent.