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Let us be real, folks: - You are reading this comment. - You are likely highly or fairly paid. - You don’t pay for your news (to a partisan substack doesn’t

• Yajirobe 5y ago
  > - You are highly or fairly paid. Not everyone is from the US
  • shadow28 5y ago
    Software engineers are highly paid in most parts of the world though.
• corpMaverick 5y ago
  Right. I would like to have Netflix for news. Pay $10 a month. And have access to NYT, NPR, The Economist et al. I want it to be easy to sign in and out.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I would also like everything to be cheaper. With password managers, it’s not that much work to visit multiple websites.
    • corpMaverick 5y ago
      > I would also like everything to be cheaper. The point is that with "Netfilx for news" you increase the number of people paying. Thus decreasing cost for the individuals. > With password managers, it’s not that much work to visit multiple websites. It is not just about managing logins. You also have to manage payments. And make the decisions about what you want to read months in advance. People hate making decisions. A lot of people end up jumping over the fence and not paying at all.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I do not think that is possible due to the ease of copy pasting journalism. Journalists and their companies are also mainly selling their reputation, and it makes no sense to muddy it with others.
  • jhickok 5y ago
    In theory that's like Apple News+, but unfortunately all the major news providers (e.g. newspapers) do not make their content available with an Apple News+ subscription.
• ds206 5y ago
  Why do you think substack doesn't count as paying for news?
  • WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
    Substack (to me) is more of a lens you put on to consume the news. Multiple other use cases but most people are paying and trusting someone to filter the noise for them. If they realize it or not.
    • andreilys 5y ago
      The same can be said of NYT, WaPo, etc. most are taking stories that have already broken and adding their own spin on it, often to score points for whatever tribal team they represent
• airstrike 5y ago
  What are my alternatives, really? Be part of the very small subset of NYT readers who actually pay for it and still have access to the virtually the exact same content? I'd rather pay for something fully paywalled like the WSJ
• serial_dev 5y ago
  First of all, I'm not sure what's your point. But... Why wouldn't a "partisan" substack count? What if I spend around 30 seconds a day on Google News, just to see what the different propaganda machines try to push for today, so it's not something I would like to pay for, but I value and trust some "Substack" journalists and opinion people.
  • WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
    See my other comment. In most cases, you are probably not paying for the reporting of “new” news and instead paying for a filter of existing news. Substack is super great. Just paying for it is not the same as paying for a NYTimes subscription however people would like to spin it.
    • andreilys 5y ago
      Substack is super great. Just paying for it is not the same as paying for a NYTimes subscription however people would like to spin it. You're right, in a lot of cases substack writers can be more transparent about their conflicts of interest and aren't beholden to censors who kill stories that might upset NYT readers or writers.
      • WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
        Oof, you missed my point. I'm not debating that. Just saying it's different.
    • aembleton 5y ago
      > In most cases Maybe. I pay for The Mill [1] which is published on Substack. The founder of it has written an excellent piece, explaining why he created it [2]. It is a local paper, that you have to pay for; which means actual journalism. It's still small but now has an office and one full time employee. I'm hoping that one day this model works for cities all over the world; because advertising doesn't work for local journalism. 1. https://manchestermill.co.uk/ https://manchestermill.co.uk/ 2. https://manchestermill.co.uk/p/the-case-for-a-new-newspaper-in-manchester https://manchestermill.co.uk/p/the-case-for-a-new-newspaper-...
• seattle_spring 5y ago
  What are some examples of non-partisan news outlets to support?
• dleslie 5y ago
  Respectfully, not everyone here is American. Canadaian and UK citizens reading this forum are actively paying for the CBC and BBC, respectively.
  • throwaway3699 5y ago
    I don't have a TV license, nor do I read BBC. Plenty of other people don't either.
• garbagetime 5y ago
  I'm not paid at all, and I do pay for my news.
• einpoklum 5y ago
  > You don’t pay for your news (to a partisan substack doesn’t count) ... Maybe stop clicking and reacting and instead stop and reflect your role in all this? I have - well, not now, but a long time ago - and because of that, I pay for much of my news. However it is not true, IMO, that "we caused the problem", because disorganized news consumers have less of a pull on what happens than organized, conscious forces like large companies involved in news media (well before Facebook, see my other comment). PS - I'm not from the US.
• stainforth 5y ago
  I advocate for publicly funded journalism, elections, etc. but our legislators are already captured as well. And yeah if that means higher tax revenue to support that then that's just what we have to do.
• gpvos 5y ago
  I pay for several of my main news sources, but I can't possibly pay for all of the news websites I occasionally read articles from until either micropayments are made to work or some other solution is found.
• arrosenberg 5y ago
  > Cold hard truth? We caused this problem, Facebook is a great scapegoat, and most here likely contributed to bigger issues with information distribution in one way or another through their employment. Yeah, yeah. We should all recycle more and drive less too; smokers should stop smoking, and the anxious should stop having anxiety. Users didn't create the system that exploits them, and it's very weird any time I see someone blaming them for it. Facebook isn't a scapegoat - they did exactly what they are accused of, and they should be accountable for it.
  • WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
    Fair point. But, what do you really want right now, blood? Say we disappeared Facebook off the planet, do you really think — boom! — problem solved?
    • arrosenberg 5y ago
      I obviously don't subscribe to a straw man position. My comment was about systems exploiting people, because it's a system that needs to be fixed. Facebook is the 800 pound gorilla protecting the system from change.
      • WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
        Well, first of all I agree. Though I think it's more of a line of 800 pound gorillas knocking at your door. It's not going away because "we stopped Facebook". For example, I actually think Twitter influences the system in much worst ways. It's just easier to look the other way with those and is trendy to hate on Facebook because techy SV people don't use it anymore.
• ramphastidae 5y ago
  Maybe you’re projecting a little? I don’t use Facebook or Twitter at all and pay full price for the NYT and Economist.
• biztos 5y ago
  I certainly pay for some of my news. I subscribe to two US newspapers, one international one, a trade newspaper, a glossy trade magazine, and two US weeklies that are among the heavy hitters of criticism and cultural writing, including a lot of news analysis and investigative reporting. And that’s just the paid subscriptions. I wouldn’t be so quick to assume the HN audience, of all audiences, is penny-pinching serious journalism out of existence. I bet we even have a fair number of WSJ subscribers among us.
• marnett 5y ago
  I’ve been a proud paid subscriber of The New York Review of Books and Harper’s Magazine for several years. I advocate often just how worth the price is for quality, long form journalism.
• bogwog 5y ago
  > Cold hard truth? We caused this problem, Facebook is a great scapegoat, and most here likely contributed to bigger issues with information distribution in one way or another through their employment. That's bullshit. The current state of affairs came about due to Facebook and Google's actions and business practices over the past two decades. Both of these companies massive scale (obtained in large part due to anti-competitive practices and a total lack of regulation) and reach gives them complete control over what we consume and where. It's a long history with a lot of different parts to it, but it's mostly the fault of these two companies. Consumers can't be blamed for seeking the most value in the market, it's just that the market is fucked because of these two powerful bad actors.
  • Nasrudith 5y ago
    That doesn't add up - it is Craigslist who surplanted classifieds, Monster and other for job postings. Furthermore why are media companies assumed blameless for failing to adjust their business model. "Millenials are killing X industry" was widely mocked because it was understood that it was undue entitlement to think their business model was sancrosanct and anything which went against it was guilty. How does the news differ?
• CivBase 5y ago
  Serious question: which news organizations should I consider paying for? It appears like a negative feedback loop to me. News orgs are bad because they optimize for clicks and "engagement" to drive ad revenue. News works rely on ad revenue because nobody will pay for them. Nobody will pay for them because they're bad. Is there anyone who hasn't succumbed to this cycle which is worth my money? My current strategy is to visit aggregators like HN to help filter out some of the better content. Aggregators are subject to the biases of the communities they foster so I have to be very careful of echo chambers, but they're better than nothing.
• screye 5y ago
  > to a partisan substack doesn’t count Ouch, that hurts. But, there really isn't any difference between secondary-source news outlets and a substack. The substack just allows me to know exactly what I'm getting. In a world where there is no such thing as neural or fair, the most we can do is promote those that are transparent and thoughtful. > You don’t pay for your news I do pay good journalistic outlets. ThePrint in India charges me $10 a month, but they routinely produce good quality Indian news. They also openly declare a 'economically liberal, socially liberal' for their editorials and it is rare to find that kind of openness. I would've paid for the Economist if I read it more often. I would've had an opinion on WSJ if I read it at all. Reuters has deteriorated a bit, but they provide first sources which is indispensable for the entire industry. But those 3 would be the closest mainstream new outlets that I'd consider paying for. With how blatantly partisan NYT, WaPo, Guardian and the likes have become, it is hard to justify giving them a single cent of my hard earned money. Especially when they hide behind a veneer of fairness, prestige and even-handedness.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  I pay for multiple print subscriptions but I see your point. What's free often proves most costly. Less fortunate people can't afford to pay and consume whatever is shoveled into them for free. Moneyed interests can afford to subsidize bullshit.
• freeflight 5y ago
  That's making a lot of assumptions about people on HN, all to basically say this [0] If you want to stereotype the typical HN user, then I'd be willing to bet money the average HN user is more aware about the dangers, problems and short-comings of social media than the average FB user. Mostly because there are only a couple of million people reading HN, even fewer actually participating, while FB has billions of active users, the vast majority of which are complete laymen about tech. A rather big number of them see FB as synonymous with the web, as in a lot of developing countries FB struck deals with mobile-carriers so FB traffic won't count into the data caps. Compared to that, the HN crowd is tiny and while they are more likely to be employed in the tech sector, it's a bit misleading trying to ascribe collective guilt to HN as if every single FB employee hangs out here to get inspiration. Case in point: I don't even work in tech, I work in healthcare. In that context I really don't see how not even a handful of million people would be able to influence the behavior of billions of people on a completely different platform, the biggest platform of its kind, the platform that actually championed many of the things considered problematic with social media. [0] https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/330/819/e47.png https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/330/819/e47...
• selfhoster11 5y ago
  > - You don’t pay for your news (to a partisan substack doesn’t count) Point me to a somewhat unbiased, affordable (no, anything more than $9 a month is not affordable and I've got other expenses), non-US centric news source and we have a deal.