3 ms·

For those of you wondering why The Magazine is on iOS (first) and not a website, the answer is simple. Marco is just replicating the successful Instapaper busin

• smackfu 14y ago
  You mean, "I sell an app for money, then I spend less than I make." This seems like a quite different business model than what's he's trying here, with a free app but paid subscriptions and paying authors and such. The Instapaper model is much simpler... but it's clear Marco doesn't really like it much any more, since you only make money by selling the app once but it costs you to support those users forever. So "spend less than I make" eventually gets very difficult if sales trail off.
  • zach 14y ago
    This is totally the same as Instapaper but instead of an app, it's magazine issues. All paid-subscriptions magazines still appear as free apps on iOS, but they either offer a free sample or a free trial. In this case, it's a free trial, which makes sense when it's the first issue! But don't be surprised if The Magazine switches to a free sample. That's especially worth noting if you're expecting to optimize for a free trial. My point is that Marco doesn't have any expertise selling advertising, as many would like him to do, and does have a lot of experience selling through the App Store. He's just keeping the business model as constant as possible.
• ryanwatkins 14y ago
  Doing it as an iOS app like this also prevents you from doing "Share to Pocket / Readability" like you would be able to with a website -- keeps you from scraping the content out of the publishers site.
  • duck 14y ago
    Ironic, eh?
    • greedo 14y ago
      Yeah, he should actively support his competitors... And that word. I do not think it means what you think it means...
      • ryanwatkins 14y ago
        There was no suggestion above to add Pocket or Readability support to the iOS app, just that by picking iOS, he chose a distribution platform that keeps apps much like his own from scraping the content. If all publications worked this way, Instapaper couldn't exist.
      • Kylekramer 14y ago
        Why not support them? Pocket/Instapaper/Readability support is pretty much a given in most content apps these days. And blocking others from your content definitely goes against the spirit of Instapaper. It is reminiscent of Microsoft's strategy tax. Making a product worse cause it may harm your other businesses.
  • smackfu 14y ago
    It sure does have a Share to Instapaper button though.