5 ms·

If it were printed newspaper I could go and get one for a few bucks. Digital has nothing to offer of that kind. As the other poster wrote, how else would you ex

If it were printed newspaper I could go and get one for a few bucks. Digital has nothing to offer of that kind. As the other poster wrote, how else would you expand your readership?

Waterfall 6y ago
Word of mouth; the best advertising there is.
boplicity 6y ago
> As the other poster wrote, how else would you expand your readership? By creating a valuable product, finding potential costumers, and offering the product for sale. Why would it be different than any other business? It would be ridiculous to expect every SaaS business to offer their services for "a few bucks", and yet, for some reason, people think it is egregious that publishers don't do this. Bizarre. Though, I do have the say the newspaper industry caused this; for years, when the internet was still new, most newspapers gave away their best content. That was a huge mistake; it lead people to significantly devalue news.
- hobofan 6y ago
  How do you expect people to go from "not customer" to "loyal customer" without going to through the intermediate step of "occasional reader"? > By creating a valuable product, finding potential costumers > Our websites, as they're designed, are probably a little annoying to people who are not our loyal readership. That's by design; > again, NOT our occasional readers As I read it, you are expecting a occasional visitor to stick with your bad-UX site and stick with it despite that, until they at some point came to the site so often that they have learned to endure the bad UX?
  - x0x0 6y ago
    I expect via the well-known method of signing up for a trial subscription.
- corty 6y ago
  Articles are more of a product that is sold, and less of a service. There is no close interaction required like in a real service business. A service customer has to interact with the service provider and therefore a longer-term ongoing relationship is beneficial to both. But even then, a low-individuality service can be one-off and is expected to be. Think e.g. of a car wash. Or renting VMs in the cloud. So I don't think newspapers, selling their totally unindividualized, standardized and prepackaged good (can't even pick just the sports section) is anything like a "service" or comparable to most SaaS. However, they continue behaving like it saleswise, alienating their readership
- x0x0 6y ago
  Also, everyone in here is (oddly?) discounting the fact that making it easy to consume individual articles at some presumably-low price would inevitably reduce the number of monthly subscribers. Some subs would save money; some subs would think they would save money.
jimkleiber 6y ago
Hmm, what if they offered a one-week or one-month access pass that didn't auto-renew. Would you be interested in something like that?
- faeyanpiraat 6y ago
  That would be really annoying for loyal readers. Imagine this loop: Purchase 2 week pass, read bunch of articles, some time passes, wants to read new article, oh well my pass expired..
  - toyg 6y ago
    It doesn't have to be a XOR. I know of at least one minor newspaper that sells that kind of pass (1-month non-renewing sub) as well as other subscriptions: https://ilmanifesto.it/tariffe/ https://ilmanifesto.it/tariffe/ It's Italian but the table is easy enough to decipher. "Mese" is a month. "Digitale" is digital (duh). "Coupon" is a scheme where they send you vouchers to redeem the newspaper in shops, and is extremely popular among their readership. "Postale" is the classic system through the post (which can be slow in Italy, hence the voucher scheme). "Sostenitore" is basically a supporter donation. Sadly they still make less than 10% of their revenue from digital, despite a first-class website and iOS app and Android app. Their revenue from paper is fairly solid and they've now streamlined enough that they could probably survive on that, but they still do yearly donation drives.
    - goliatone 6y ago
      Thanks for the link! Would you mind recommending any radio stations with good online presence? I haven’t been lucky searching online
      - toyg 6y ago
        In Italian, for news, or both? I'm not a big listener, but when I want a shot of Italian music I do "Hey Google, Radio Italia Anni 60" - despite the name, they actually play anything Italian from any age, including the last couple of years, and they have their own app so no TuneIn shenanigans for us expats. I used to listen to Lattemiele but it's gone downhill some time ago, too much talk for my taste now. I don't really listen to Italian radio for news, just follow a few podcasts like this: https://www.spreaker.com/show/qui-un-tempo https://www.spreaker.com/show/qui-un-tempo
seanhunter 6y ago
There are a few apps (eg The economist if I recall correctly) which allow you to buy specific editions without a full subscription if you want to.

If it were printed newspaper I could go and get one for a few bucks. Digital has nothing to offer of that kind. As the other poster wrote, how else would you expand your readership?

Waterfall 6y ago

Word of mouth; the best advertising there is.

boplicity 6y ago

> As the other poster wrote, how else would you expand your readership? By creating a valuable product, finding potential costumers, and offering the product for sale. Why would it be different than any other business? It would be ridiculous to expect every SaaS business to offer their services for "a few bucks", and yet, for some reason, people think it is egregious that publishers don't do this. Bizarre. Though, I do have the say the newspaper industry caused this; for years, when the internet was still new, most newspapers gave away their best content. That was a huge mistake; it lead people to significantly devalue news.

hobofan 6y ago
How do you expect people to go from "not customer" to "loyal customer" without going to through the intermediate step of "occasional reader"? > By creating a valuable product, finding potential costumers > Our websites, as they're designed, are probably a little annoying to people who are not our loyal readership. That's by design; > again, NOT our occasional readers As I read it, you are expecting a occasional visitor to stick with your bad-UX site and stick with it despite that, until they at some point came to the site so often that they have learned to endure the bad UX?
- x0x0 6y ago
  I expect via the well-known method of signing up for a trial subscription.
corty 6y ago
Articles are more of a product that is sold, and less of a service. There is no close interaction required like in a real service business. A service customer has to interact with the service provider and therefore a longer-term ongoing relationship is beneficial to both. But even then, a low-individuality service can be one-off and is expected to be. Think e.g. of a car wash. Or renting VMs in the cloud. So I don't think newspapers, selling their totally unindividualized, standardized and prepackaged good (can't even pick just the sports section) is anything like a "service" or comparable to most SaaS. However, they continue behaving like it saleswise, alienating their readership
x0x0 6y ago
Also, everyone in here is (oddly?) discounting the fact that making it easy to consume individual articles at some presumably-low price would inevitably reduce the number of monthly subscribers. Some subs would save money; some subs would think they would save money.

jimkleiber 6y ago

Hmm, what if they offered a one-week or one-month access pass that didn't auto-renew. Would you be interested in something like that?

faeyanpiraat 6y ago
That would be really annoying for loyal readers. Imagine this loop: Purchase 2 week pass, read bunch of articles, some time passes, wants to read new article, oh well my pass expired..
- toyg 6y ago
  It doesn't have to be a XOR. I know of at least one minor newspaper that sells that kind of pass (1-month non-renewing sub) as well as other subscriptions: https://ilmanifesto.it/tariffe/ https://ilmanifesto.it/tariffe/ It's Italian but the table is easy enough to decipher. "Mese" is a month. "Digitale" is digital (duh). "Coupon" is a scheme where they send you vouchers to redeem the newspaper in shops, and is extremely popular among their readership. "Postale" is the classic system through the post (which can be slow in Italy, hence the voucher scheme). "Sostenitore" is basically a supporter donation. Sadly they still make less than 10% of their revenue from digital, despite a first-class website and iOS app and Android app. Their revenue from paper is fairly solid and they've now streamlined enough that they could probably survive on that, but they still do yearly donation drives.
  - goliatone 6y ago
    Thanks for the link! Would you mind recommending any radio stations with good online presence? I haven’t been lucky searching online
    - toyg 6y ago
      In Italian, for news, or both? I'm not a big listener, but when I want a shot of Italian music I do "Hey Google, Radio Italia Anni 60" - despite the name, they actually play anything Italian from any age, including the last couple of years, and they have their own app so no TuneIn shenanigans for us expats. I used to listen to Lattemiele but it's gone downhill some time ago, too much talk for my taste now. I don't really listen to Italian radio for news, just follow a few podcasts like this: https://www.spreaker.com/show/qui-un-tempo https://www.spreaker.com/show/qui-un-tempo

seanhunter 6y ago

There are a few apps (eg The economist if I recall correctly) which allow you to buy specific editions without a full subscription if you want to.