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Personally I'm very cautious about accepting free content; it could be a freemium, a trial period, or some other form of marketing in disguise; or it could be o
by thih9 3y ago
Personally I'm very cautious about accepting free content; it could be a freemium, a trial period, or some other form of marketing in disguise; or it could be of lower quality.
Do we know more about the methodology? Were the participants aware that this is a paid publication made free for the purpose of a study?
Edit:
The paper says: "In the first phase, we used postcards and targeted Facebook advertisements to offer treated individuals free, 13-week online subscriptions to their local newspaper.".
In 2024 I automatically ignore all postcards, web ads or phone calls that promise to give me free stuff. A Mitchell and Webb sketch comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYoeoEE3ww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYoeoEE3ww
- JohnFen 3y agoI wouldn't have seen their offer either. With physical mail, I pull out everything that doesn't look like junk mail and immediately put the rest in the recycling bin. I don't examine any of it well enough to know what they're offering. And I don't use Facebook, so anything there is invisible to me. Although if I had seen their offer, I wouldn't have taken it anyway, because free offers are almost never worth the hassle they bring later.