4 ms·

It solves the problem only partially: newspapers can't live from small payments on popular articles only, they need bundling to generate enough volume. Same th

by ako 6y ago

It solves the problem only partially: newspapers can't live from small payments on popular articles only, they need bundling to generate enough volume. Same thing can be seen with music industry: spotify doesn't pay enough per play, so artists are now told to use spotify as marketing, and make money from performances. Not sure what a newspaper performance would look like.

bigiain 6y ago
> Not sure what a newspaper performance would look like. An election? /s
- jeegsy 6y ago
  That is excellent
Nextgrid 6y ago
> newspapers can't live from small payments on popular articles only Printed newspapers were surviving just fine despite selling for a few bucks despite it being a physical piece of paper that needed to be printed & delivered on very tight schedules. The same model should be applied for the web - the price point is already proven to be affordable enough for the majority of the market, and the lack of logistics would generate higher profits.
- ako 6y ago
  Newspapers were not surviving from few bucks: they had subscriptions (bundling low value content with high value content) & advertisements (lower margins now, moved to other channels like craigslist). And logistics may have been expensive, but IT infrastructure and staff is not cheap either. A few aggregation sites have tried to bundle news from different publishers for 10$/euro per month (e.g, blendle). But as can be seen from the original prices of a subscription ($250+ / year / publication), this means a much lower revenue per publication than before. For half the price, subscribers get all the publications. This is not going to be enough for the publishers to survive.
- nl 6y ago
  Ads - especially classified ads - paid for newspapers.
- znpy 6y ago
  > Printed newspapers were surviving just fine Oh boy, that's so not the case. My previous job was still in IT but the company had a strong foothold in the news&media sector. Most newsroom are struggling and have been for at least the last ten years. Digital content has eroded newspapers' income very very much.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    > Digital content has eroded newspapers' income very very much. This is the concept I don't think people get when they say "clearly newspapers used to be sustain themselves in the past" -- the market has fundamentally changed and now newspapers and magazines aren't the only game in town competing for people's passive entertainment time.

by ako 6y ago

bigiain 6y ago

> Not sure what a newspaper performance would look like. An election? /s

jeegsy 6y ago
That is excellent

Nextgrid 6y ago

> newspapers can't live from small payments on popular articles only Printed newspapers were surviving just fine despite selling for a few bucks despite it being a physical piece of paper that needed to be printed & delivered on very tight schedules. The same model should be applied for the web - the price point is already proven to be affordable enough for the majority of the market, and the lack of logistics would generate higher profits.

ako 6y ago
Newspapers were not surviving from few bucks: they had subscriptions (bundling low value content with high value content) & advertisements (lower margins now, moved to other channels like craigslist). And logistics may have been expensive, but IT infrastructure and staff is not cheap either. A few aggregation sites have tried to bundle news from different publishers for 10$/euro per month (e.g, blendle). But as can be seen from the original prices of a subscription ($250+ / year / publication), this means a much lower revenue per publication than before. For half the price, subscribers get all the publications. This is not going to be enough for the publishers to survive.
nl 6y ago
Ads - especially classified ads - paid for newspapers.
znpy 6y ago
> Printed newspapers were surviving just fine Oh boy, that's so not the case. My previous job was still in IT but the company had a strong foothold in the news&media sector. Most newsroom are struggling and have been for at least the last ten years. Digital content has eroded newspapers' income very very much.
- Spivak 6y ago
  > Digital content has eroded newspapers' income very very much. This is the concept I don't think people get when they say "clearly newspapers used to be sustain themselves in the past" -- the market has fundamentally changed and now newspapers and magazines aren't the only game in town competing for people's passive entertainment time.