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I'm as empathetic as anyone to the loss felt here, but I genuinely have no answer to the question of how Reuters can otherwise sustain itself, if not by chargi

I'm as empathetic as anyone to the loss felt here, but I genuinely have no answer to the question of how Reuters can otherwise sustain itself, if not by charging. I'll be paying. I don't like it, but I like a world without Reuters even less.

throwawaysea 6y ago
Personally I like to support news with subscriptions. I do so across the political spectrum, both so I’ll be better informed and so we can have high quality news from each worldview, free from bad incentives, instead of noise on all sides. So far, I’m not sure that subscription models have successfully prevented bias in either left or right leaning news media, so I’m not sure it’ll help here either. But it is probably worse to not have subscriptions at all and have either an unprofitable or ads dependent news industry. We’ve already seen how activist can campaign against advertisers and bias corporations in these last few years, and the same could happen to tenured that outlets like Reuters. So even if it isn’t the whole solution, it may help in part, and for that I’ll subscribe and support it if they stay true to the sacred role of neutral journalism.
- RGamma 6y ago
  There really needs to be some sort of 0-/1-click micropayment system for at least journalism (or better yet the web) to complement subscriptions. I think such things have been attempted unsuccessfully thus far :( It's simply not feasible for me to subscribe to every quality publication I see online for reading a few articles here and there. (Note that such a system could presumably be gamed and would need oversight, curation and responsible use.)
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gralx 6y ago
Reuters' news service is a division within Thomson Reuters that complements much more profitable divisions. As such, I can't imagine this paywall addresses any question of sustainability. For a financial, accounting, and legal services company like TR, it helps to have a popular mouthpiece from which to champion your agenda. I suspect this move is less about profits and more about prestige and market norms - Financial Times, Wall St Journal, Bloomberg, etc., all gun for business readership behind paywalls, and so why shouldn't Reuters? And it's not expensive compared to the very expensive journals and newsletters (e.g., mining industry research journals, newsletters like Gartner's, TR's own products) subscribed to by major financial institutions.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > helps to have a popular mouthpiece from which to champion your agenda. So what do they do if they want to be a news organisation instead of a PR outfit?
  - gralx 6y ago
    News organizations are PR outfits by their very nature. I'd just be parroting Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, though, to explain it. If you disagree with them, you'll disagree with my perspective.

throwawaysea 6y ago

Personally I like to support news with subscriptions. I do so across the political spectrum, both so I’ll be better informed and so we can have high quality news from each worldview, free from bad incentives, instead of noise on all sides. So far, I’m not sure that subscription models have successfully prevented bias in either left or right leaning news media, so I’m not sure it’ll help here either. But it is probably worse to not have subscriptions at all and have either an unprofitable or ads dependent news industry. We’ve already seen how activist can campaign against advertisers and bias corporations in these last few years, and the same could happen to tenured that outlets like Reuters. So even if it isn’t the whole solution, it may help in part, and for that I’ll subscribe and support it if they stay true to the sacred role of neutral journalism.

RGamma 6y ago
There really needs to be some sort of 0-/1-click micropayment system for at least journalism (or better yet the web) to complement subscriptions. I think such things have been attempted unsuccessfully thus far :( It's simply not feasible for me to subscribe to every quality publication I see online for reading a few articles here and there. (Note that such a system could presumably be gamed and would need oversight, curation and responsible use.)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gralx 6y ago

Reuters' news service is a division within Thomson Reuters that complements much more profitable divisions. As such, I can't imagine this paywall addresses any question of sustainability. For a financial, accounting, and legal services company like TR, it helps to have a popular mouthpiece from which to champion your agenda. I suspect this move is less about profits and more about prestige and market norms - Financial Times, Wall St Journal, Bloomberg, etc., all gun for business readership behind paywalls, and so why shouldn't Reuters? And it's not expensive compared to the very expensive journals and newsletters (e.g., mining industry research journals, newsletters like Gartner's, TR's own products) subscribed to by major financial institutions.

MattGaiser 6y ago
> helps to have a popular mouthpiece from which to champion your agenda. So what do they do if they want to be a news organisation instead of a PR outfit?
- gralx 6y ago
  News organizations are PR outfits by their very nature. I'd just be parroting Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, though, to explain it. If you disagree with them, you'll disagree with my perspective.