3 ms·

the way blendle works (worked? i heard it was shutting down) is to charge you when you click the link, and the at the bottom of the article offer you a one-clic

the way blendle works (worked? i heard it was shutting down) is to charge you when you click the link, and the at the bottom of the article offer you a one-click refund if you didn't like it. it seemed like a great way to do it, but ultimately i found i never used their site because it was slow and confusing to navigate.

isolli 6y ago
It would be a shame if it closed. But I entirely agree with you: searching for content is very limited! There should be a proper search function, by keyword, with the ability to filter by publication. For instance I once read part 1 of a very interesting investigation, but I could never find part 2 in Blendle (even though I could easily find it on the web). Also, a way to copy-paste a URL in the app and thus pay for an article one has already found is a must-have, in my opinion.
flas9sd 6y ago
blendle (NL) was aquired by a french publisher very recently. I'm not intimate with the numbers, but the founder wrote in dutch on medium.com about their model multiple times. The Webapp interface to browse the daily crop of Newspapers is actually pretty great, I use it on a handheld. The problem with pay-per-article is the overhead in thinking about "do I want to read this?", but from a consumer perspective it's likely that you spend the same amount on articles of multiple publications than a subscription to one of them, but you're constantly made aware of the costs, as with a subscription, it's a remote thought.
- ansible 6y ago
  I didn't find the decision to pay-to-read an article on Blendle all that burdensome. My issues with Blendle were mostly with how it was implemented in practice. 1. Time lag. Someone links a NYT article on Reddit. Ooops! can't read it yet. Have to wait for the print edition to come out, and then it is up on Blendle. 2. Linking. See above. I can't just go to a NYT (or other site), and click on a "pay with Blendle" icon. I could have lived with the above limitations, but discovery was also poor. 3. No digital index. For magazines and newspapers, you look at a low-resolution scan of the printed version. Then you can click on an article to get a summary pop-up to pay for it. I don't want to browse a digital analogue of a paper magazine! Show me a complete list of the articles with the summaries in a scrollable list, and let me pick from them to purchase access. These limitations are all no doubt part of the licensing deal with the publishers, but it is so annoying. As a consumer, I am just not going to spend $1000 USD per year on a bunch of different newspaper and magazine subscriptions. I have a lower amount I'm willing to spend in total. But I am willing to spend.

isolli 6y ago

It would be a shame if it closed. But I entirely agree with you: searching for content is very limited! There should be a proper search function, by keyword, with the ability to filter by publication. For instance I once read part 1 of a very interesting investigation, but I could never find part 2 in Blendle (even though I could easily find it on the web). Also, a way to copy-paste a URL in the app and thus pay for an article one has already found is a must-have, in my opinion.

flas9sd 6y ago

blendle (NL) was aquired by a french publisher very recently. I'm not intimate with the numbers, but the founder wrote in dutch on medium.com about their model multiple times. The Webapp interface to browse the daily crop of Newspapers is actually pretty great, I use it on a handheld. The problem with pay-per-article is the overhead in thinking about "do I want to read this?", but from a consumer perspective it's likely that you spend the same amount on articles of multiple publications than a subscription to one of them, but you're constantly made aware of the costs, as with a subscription, it's a remote thought.

ansible 6y ago
I didn't find the decision to pay-to-read an article on Blendle all that burdensome. My issues with Blendle were mostly with how it was implemented in practice. 1. Time lag. Someone links a NYT article on Reddit. Ooops! can't read it yet. Have to wait for the print edition to come out, and then it is up on Blendle. 2. Linking. See above. I can't just go to a NYT (or other site), and click on a "pay with Blendle" icon. I could have lived with the above limitations, but discovery was also poor. 3. No digital index. For magazines and newspapers, you look at a low-resolution scan of the printed version. Then you can click on an article to get a summary pop-up to pay for it. I don't want to browse a digital analogue of a paper magazine! Show me a complete list of the articles with the summaries in a scrollable list, and let me pick from them to purchase access. These limitations are all no doubt part of the licensing deal with the publishers, but it is so annoying. As a consumer, I am just not going to spend $1000 USD per year on a bunch of different newspaper and magazine subscriptions. I have a lower amount I'm willing to spend in total. But I am willing to spend.