8 ms·

As a developer who works for one of these news publishers you have little sympathy for, what I can tell you is that: 1) Most people don't want to pay for news.

• xedrac 2y ago
  > 1) Most people don't want to pay for news. Even $1/year is too high. So much of news today is not even worthy of my attention, let alone my money.
  • asow92 2y ago
    What about news specific to your locale?
    • Thiez 2y ago
      Definitely not. Nothing noteworthy happens locally, and if it does it will be on the national news.
      • asow92 2y ago
        You have no interest at all in if cronyism is affecting your local politics? Do you care about how your taxes are spent?
        • Thiez 2y ago
          Not enough to invest money and time, no. And my preferred party isn't in power, so it's not like knowing the current leadership is corrupt would change my vote - I don't vote for them anyway.
• candiddevmike 2y ago
  RE: 4, NPR seems to do OK, same with the BBC. You're choosing to implement all of these terrible things by continuing your employment, so you "not wanting them" is kind of moot. Find a different job if you genuinely don't agree with what you're building. I'm a firm believer that companies would stop doing this kind of crap if we, collectively as tech workers (even better as a union!), stopped implementing it.
  • asow92 2y ago
    NPR is very biased: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/npr-criticism-liberal-bias.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/npr-critic... And to be honest, I don't think most of these things are terrible per se, albeit mildly annoying. Also, I don't see what you're suggesting as realistic, but idealistic. You can try to unionize developers, but good luck with that because you'll just be replaced with overseas contractors. I'd rather keep my job and feed my family, thanks.
    • g8oz 2y ago
      Do you call that NPR story proof of a bias worse than what happens at other institutions? Or because it's biased in the direction that doesn't align with your views?
      • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y ago
        I think the biggest complaint about NPR having a bias - any bias - is that it's publicly funded.
        • DerekL 2y ago
          Mostly, NPR isn't publicly funded. It gets about 1% of its funding from the federal government. Public radio stations that carry NPR shows get more, but it's only about 17% from federal, state, and local governments. Some of them are also funded by universities, some of which are public.
• 1000100_1000101 2y ago
  > 3) "SEO clickbait" (especially Taboola) helps keep the lights on. Click at your own peril. Sure, stand your customer base in a mine-field for some minor short-sighted profit. Implement this at your own peril.
  • asow92 2y ago
    Taboola is used by USA Today, NBC, Business Insider, MSN, Yahoo, Bloomberg, CBS News, ABC News, and more. Also, I wouldn't call Taboola revenue minor. You also have to understand that half of our customers are advertisers, not just readers.
    • 1000100_1000101 2y ago
      When you've driven away your reader base, any profit you made while doing so will seem minor, compared to total revenues from keeping those readers happy and around for years to come. Of course you can also view it as a major source of income immediately, and just ignore that it's driving away your readers. With the readers dwindling, you've lost leverage, and the advertisers are able to offer you worse and worse deals on the ads, which compounds with the dwindling reader base. Scam ads are a choice that only makes sense in isolation. The advertisers are only your customers due to your reader base. You need to keep the reader base around.
      • asow92 2y ago
        It's a balancing act, of course, and as long as the optimization function of churn and revenue is trending positively it will remain. There are dozens of data scientists working on this problem. Taboola ads are at the bottom of pages away from the main content.
  • g8oz 2y ago
    Taboola and Outbrain should be the subject of a Department of Justice inquiry. Their whole business model seems to be facilitating scammers.
• jyunwai 2y ago
  > 1) Most people don't want to pay for news. Even $1/year is too high. Alternatives to increasing advertisements have been tried and found to work. However, these approaches may not be feasible for all publications—especially local news outlets that may not have as many resources. These approaches are to: i) Start selling other services besides news. The New York Times—one of the most currently financially successful newspapers—has found a lot of success in its Games section. This was famously seen in their acquisition of Wordle, though this has already been popular with their Crosswords section. The company has also found success with its Recipes section. (This is not the only reason behind their financial success, but it's a significant part of their strategy.) ii) Focus on financial news, which lets the publication frame their reports as having a financial value that arguably exceeds the subscription price. The Financial Times is also a highly profitable newspaper today, with one of the highest-priced subscription prices that can be about $500 USD a year for a standard subscription (depending on one's region). The Wall Street Journal similarly charges a high subscription price. Both are seen as important resources for well-funded companies to buy group subscriptions for. (Once more, this isn't the only reason for their success, but it's a major factor.) iii) Focus on a specialized, niche area of reporting that other publications can't or won't cover—ideally appealing to institutions or large audiences willing to spend money. For example, several publications in Canada focus on providing detailed reports on federal politics (such as The Hill Times and iPolitics), which is useful information for their readership that fills a gap by less-frequent reports from the country's main newspapers—this lets them charge high subscription prices. The Athletic also used to be financially successful by standing out with its sports-only reporting, which led to its acquisition by The New York Times. These specialized publications can charge more, because certain audiences find these reports financially valuable. --- However, a major drawback to thinking about news through the lens of financial value is that many important news stories don't have financial value. While an outlet can attempt to use one of these approaches to subsidize the rest of their stories, it's also costly. It's usually not feasible for many local newspapers to fund the software development of a Games section (especially as this would need to compete with all the other online alternatives for one's attention). It's also pricey to offer competitive enough salaries to create a newsroom to compete with The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg. However, it's not impossible—there have been a few alternative publications that have found success by focusing on a niche, such as business news in a country outside of the US, or focusing on a sector such as biotech for the publication STAT. It's a tough problem to try and fund local news. There is civic value for one's community to have a platform for providing a check against corruption by various institutions—yet in practice, oftentimes not enough for most local residents purchase subscriptions. Alternatives to support local news can include funding (such as through taxes), but that makes the outlet reliant on government funding, which is subject to change (and the perception, real or not, that the outlet is less independent from the government). Increasing advertisements seems like a short-term solution for local news outlets trying to stay afloat, but it's hard for me to see this as a long-term solution for sufficient funding.
• kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  I'll pay $50 a year, but I better be able to cancel with a single click and no criminal shenanigans with fraudulent charges thereafter.
  • disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    I pay 60 a month for the FT and I'm pretty sure that money isn't the full cost. Good journalism is really expensive and the internet had destroyed their business model.
  • fma 2y ago
    My local library system offers digital access to WSJ, NY Times and many other periodicals. You may want to see if yours does too.
  • asow92 2y ago
    In some states it is the law to single click cancel. In others it is not, and requires a phone call to cancel. It's not impossible to cancel, but they bank on people not wanting to call in. They'll also try to negotiate down your rate if you call in wanting to cancel.
• A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  I think part of the issue is that news does not seem to equal valuable information. Subscriptions, where a person has paying followers due to expertise in his particular domain do exist though. The difference is that they apparently offer value to the followers. The issue is value. 1$ is too high, because most of the news right now are, and I am being charitable, opinion pieces. I have an opinion too. In fact, there is no shortage of opinions on the market. The market has spoken that opinions are worth less than 1$ a year. Now, media companies do have an opportunity now to distinguish themselves as gatekeepers ( and a source of truth ) from AI generated stuff, but I am too cynical to seriously consider it as a possible outcome.
• bdw5204 2y ago
  The main problem the news industry faces is they're trying to run for-profit businesses when they should see themselves as a public service that seeks to break even or produce sustainable losses. News should be subsidized by people who want to inform the public whether out of public-spirited motives or out of a self interested desire to influence the public debate and, indirectly, the government. That means allowing people who want to support the news outlet to donate or to purchase a print version of the outlet's reporting. If I was a millionaire, I'd probably start or purchase my own media outlet to influence public opinion. Controlling the media is probably a better ROI than directly buying politicians so I'm surprised rich people mostly seem to opt for the latter. Even those who buy media outlets, such as Bezos buying WaPo, often don't noticeably change their editorial line or move away from the "we have to be a profitable business" paradigm. It also doesn't help that journalists are, on average, well to the left of public opinion or that colleges offer degrees in journalism which was traditionally a blue collar profession that anybody could do. Journalism schools mean journalists are unnecessarily stuck with debts they probably can't ever repay and unable to pivot out of their profession if there's a lack of people willing to pay for it.
• mbrumlow 2y ago
  Last time I checked if you went in front of investors and said “hey, I want to make a business where nobody wants to pay, not even a dollar a year” you would be laughed out of the room. So. I think that is your problem. Maybe make a business where people are wanting to pay for the content? Think about how much more money you would make!!!
  • asow92 2y ago
    I agree with you completely, and there are voices within the organization advocating for that as well. Big legacy mainstream media companies move at a glacial pace and making that kind of change takes a lot of time and buy-in throughout the whole org chart. And, somewhat counterintuitively, I think it's also important to note that sometimes what the journalists want to cover and content that people want and are willing to pay for aren't always the same thing. Additionally, sometimes what people want and are willing to pay for doesn't sit well with advertisers, so it is always a nuanced balancing act.
    • mbrumlow 2y ago
      What is weird is people use to pay for news papers and magazines. Yes there were some ads, but people still had a leg in the game by way of paying, it kept it balanced. The internet grew up so fast and easy payment methods lagged, and still so mostly. I figure out for my self if I can use Apple Pay, then I buy stuff, but if I need to do more than double tap on the power button I am out.