4 ms·

An article worth reading is worth buying.

by makach 5y ago

lxgr 5y ago
Agreed, but I don't know many newspapers that sell individual articles. And I certainly don't want yet another subscription.
echelon 5y ago
Except the industry is stuck in 1995. You want to pay $50/yr [1] for twenty different news websites? All I want to do is read one article. It needs a Spotify / Netflix model. Or the promise of micropayments that never happened. (Yeah, I'll pay 10 cents for an article. And also learn to distrust your site if you shill clickbait.) [1] NYT digital cost
- pier25 5y ago
  Totally agree. Micropayments have not worked because major news outlets won't use them. Technically it's a solved problem. See Coil for example: https://coil.com/ https://coil.com/
  - hombre_fatal 5y ago
    It's not a technical problem but a business and social one. For example, getting your users to give their money to a third party that then might come back to you isn't better than getting paid directly—it's even more friction and you're giving all the power away to a third party. The user experience isn't necessarily better either. I still have to open my wallet and start a recurring billing subscription, but with this weird Coil site instead of just this one service that I want. And then there's a chicken-egg problem of no sites using Coil, so no money in Coil, so no value for the user, thus no value for the content creator. Just like every micropayment attempt before Coil. As engineers we like to think that everything is a technical problem. But the technical implementation of a micropayment solution is 0.0001% of the work.
    - pier25 5y ago
      > I still have to open my wallet and start a recurring billing subscription, but with this weird Coil site instead of just this one service that I want. Obviously if you just want this one service you can subscribe to it. No need to use something like Coil. > And then there's a chicken-egg problem Yeah absolutely. I had a Coil subscription for a couple of months and ended up canceling it because IMGUR was the only site that had an integration with it. But what I know 100% is I won't pay a subscription to the NYT, The Economist, or any other news outlet to read 1-2 article per week at the most.
- histriosum 5y ago
  Not disagreeing that a new model is needed, but.. I'm not sure Netflix/Spotify is a good example. In order to access all the content I want, I have to have a zillion streaming accounts with monthly fees. The Netflix model in particular is indistinguishable from the existing pay news model, at least in this regard...
  - echelon 5y ago
    You're right. If it goes too far in that direction, it'll be disrupted again. Nobody is happy with this.
  - dangus 5y ago
    The Spotify model is a great example, though, because all the record labels put their music on basically every music streaming service. Streaming video, not so much anymore.
- Spivak 5y ago
  No "normal" business model really works for news because there no way to align reader and publisher incentives. * Pay per article incentivizes click-bait trash. * Subscriptions soloed content, incentivize anger as a service, fearmongering, and addictive practices. * Ads incentivize both. The ideal news source for the reader is one designed to minimize its use.
- criddell 5y ago
  What do you think of the Apple News model? It's something like $10 / month for access to 300 publications.
  - echelon 5y ago
    I think that works fantastically, I'm just not in the Apple ecosystem.
zufallsheld 5y ago
Sure, but on most sites you cannot buy single articles but rather a monthly subscription.
stusmall 5y ago
Amen. Good news is expensive. It takes a lots a lot of resources and trained professional's hours to make a well researched story. High quality investigative news outfits have real, positive impact on society. They root out corruption and help bring injustices to light. I figure most people on this site can afford to subscribe to a news source or two and probably should.
- bcj7393nsk 5y ago
mccorrinall 5y ago
How am I supposed to know beforehand if an article is worth reading? I ran into a lot of articles on HN which are behind a pay wall (I use this extension), but were not deeply interesting, therefore I left after one or two paragraphs. I can't imagine how much money I would've spent on nothing if I'd pay for every article I click on. Also, I believe the news outlets have a similar problem like video stream providers: too much fragmentation. When I'm forced to subscribe to prime for a specific movie, then to netflix for another movie, then to disney for ANOTHER movie, I'll eventually end up just pirating them all.
- Spivak 5y ago
  We kinda solved this for other media with reviews but Rotten Tomato for news would be a dumpster fire.
charcircuit 5y ago
The value proposition just isn't there. How does an article expect to compete with a free YouTube video. The YouTube video is probably going to be more entertaining anyways. YouTube offers me a billion times more value than some news site.
- mint2 5y ago
  Ignoring the fix it tutorials for a moment, are you sure YouTube provides more value? Is it short term or long term? For most people id guess a YouTube habit provides short term value in terms of entertainment but reading a quality paper habit provides long term value to the individual and society in terms of being informed.
buildsjets 5y ago
But an article worth reading is seldom justifies buying a subscription to ALL the articles.

An article worth reading is worth buying.

by makach 5y ago

An article worth reading is worth buying.

lxgr 5y ago

Agreed, but I don't know many newspapers that sell individual articles. And I certainly don't want yet another subscription.

echelon 5y ago

Except the industry is stuck in 1995. You want to pay $50/yr [1] for twenty different news websites? All I want to do is read one article. It needs a Spotify / Netflix model. Or the promise of micropayments that never happened. (Yeah, I'll pay 10 cents for an article. And also learn to distrust your site if you shill clickbait.) [1] NYT digital cost

pier25 5y ago
Totally agree. Micropayments have not worked because major news outlets won't use them. Technically it's a solved problem. See Coil for example: https://coil.com/ https://coil.com/
- hombre_fatal 5y ago
  It's not a technical problem but a business and social one. For example, getting your users to give their money to a third party that then might come back to you isn't better than getting paid directly—it's even more friction and you're giving all the power away to a third party. The user experience isn't necessarily better either. I still have to open my wallet and start a recurring billing subscription, but with this weird Coil site instead of just this one service that I want. And then there's a chicken-egg problem of no sites using Coil, so no money in Coil, so no value for the user, thus no value for the content creator. Just like every micropayment attempt before Coil. As engineers we like to think that everything is a technical problem. But the technical implementation of a micropayment solution is 0.0001% of the work.
  - pier25 5y ago
    > I still have to open my wallet and start a recurring billing subscription, but with this weird Coil site instead of just this one service that I want. Obviously if you just want this one service you can subscribe to it. No need to use something like Coil. > And then there's a chicken-egg problem Yeah absolutely. I had a Coil subscription for a couple of months and ended up canceling it because IMGUR was the only site that had an integration with it. But what I know 100% is I won't pay a subscription to the NYT, The Economist, or any other news outlet to read 1-2 article per week at the most.
histriosum 5y ago
Not disagreeing that a new model is needed, but.. I'm not sure Netflix/Spotify is a good example. In order to access all the content I want, I have to have a zillion streaming accounts with monthly fees. The Netflix model in particular is indistinguishable from the existing pay news model, at least in this regard...
- echelon 5y ago
  You're right. If it goes too far in that direction, it'll be disrupted again. Nobody is happy with this.
- dangus 5y ago
  The Spotify model is a great example, though, because all the record labels put their music on basically every music streaming service. Streaming video, not so much anymore.
Spivak 5y ago
No "normal" business model really works for news because there no way to align reader and publisher incentives. * Pay per article incentivizes click-bait trash. * Subscriptions soloed content, incentivize anger as a service, fearmongering, and addictive practices. * Ads incentivize both. The ideal news source for the reader is one designed to minimize its use.
criddell 5y ago
What do you think of the Apple News model? It's something like $10 / month for access to 300 publications.
- echelon 5y ago
  I think that works fantastically, I'm just not in the Apple ecosystem.

zufallsheld 5y ago

Sure, but on most sites you cannot buy single articles but rather a monthly subscription.

stusmall 5y ago

Amen. Good news is expensive. It takes a lots a lot of resources and trained professional's hours to make a well researched story. High quality investigative news outfits have real, positive impact on society. They root out corruption and help bring injustices to light. I figure most people on this site can afford to subscribe to a news source or two and probably should.

bcj7393nsk 5y ago

mccorrinall 5y ago

How am I supposed to know beforehand if an article is worth reading? I ran into a lot of articles on HN which are behind a pay wall (I use this extension), but were not deeply interesting, therefore I left after one or two paragraphs. I can't imagine how much money I would've spent on nothing if I'd pay for every article I click on. Also, I believe the news outlets have a similar problem like video stream providers: too much fragmentation. When I'm forced to subscribe to prime for a specific movie, then to netflix for another movie, then to disney for ANOTHER movie, I'll eventually end up just pirating them all.

Spivak 5y ago
We kinda solved this for other media with reviews but Rotten Tomato for news would be a dumpster fire.

charcircuit 5y ago

The value proposition just isn't there. How does an article expect to compete with a free YouTube video. The YouTube video is probably going to be more entertaining anyways. YouTube offers me a billion times more value than some news site.

mint2 5y ago
Ignoring the fix it tutorials for a moment, are you sure YouTube provides more value? Is it short term or long term? For most people id guess a YouTube habit provides short term value in terms of entertainment but reading a quality paper habit provides long term value to the individual and society in terms of being informed.

buildsjets 5y ago

But an article worth reading is seldom justifies buying a subscription to ALL the articles.