5 ms·

> If the news industry is in fact struggling and laying off writers, I'm not sure making people want to leave your site as quickly as possible is really the bes

by afavour 10mo ago

> If the news industry is in fact struggling and laying off writers, I'm not sure making people want to leave your site as quickly as possible is really the best strategy. It definitely isn’t but I think it’s all they have left. Subscriptions just don’t work any more. And less tech savvy users just battle through it, presumably through gritted teeth.

wat10000 10mo ago
Declining industries can get into a death spiral where they can’t find a way to stop bleeding customers, so they focus on extracting more money from the customers who remain. Which then drives away even more of them. It’s not a good strategy, but there may not be a good strategy.
wolvoleo 10mo ago
I kinda see the opposite, all sites seem to be going to subscription models. Obviously it doesn't work because I'm not going to subscribe to every news site I see a link from on HN. So I tend to use archive.ph . I wish there was a plugin to open a page in that more easily though. Luckily most HN posts have a reader contributing a link in the comments.
- rrradical 10mo ago
  I've always wondered why I can't pay some small fee (20 cents? $1?) to read an article. Why it have to be an entire subscription? If I put $20 / month into an account and then spend that bit by bit on high quality articles from different sites I'd gladly do that.
  - Yiin 10mo ago
    because payment processors hate small payments and punish accordingly (with flat fee +%)
    - wolvoleo 10mo ago
      That shouldn't really be a problem if there's an intermediary that takes the payment and distributes it.
      - Freak_NL 10mo ago
        We had a service that did this in the Netherlands (Blendle). They had a lot of the big Dutch media titles on-board. It failed and they pivoted to a crappy subscription service. The model just doesn't work at this point.
        klez 10mo ago
        Inkl, on the other hand, is still alive and kicking. If you're ok with their selection of sources it's 9.99 per month o 99.99 per year. I still have a pay-per-read subscription, which I prefer to the subscription model, but I'm afraid they don't offer that anymore.
        wolvoleo 10mo ago
        Yes I know blendle but this was decades ago. In a market that was completely different, where paywalls weren't yet a thing and they would just display ads. It was "ads vs paying a bit". Not really a big incentive. I think in this day and age where most news outlets simply give you a paywall I think this will work just fine. Because now the alternative is just not reading the content (or paying a sub which is ridiculous for a site you view a couple times a month)
        Marsymars 10mo ago
        Their hope with subscriptions is that there's value to you visiting more than a couple times per month. Anecdotally, this works for me - I pay for a handful of subs, and I don't use any news aggregators or feeds - the sites with subs I pay for cover everything of interest to me.
  - tonyedgecombe 10mo ago
    It would be cheaper for you but not very profitable for them.
    - prmoustache 10mo ago
      It really depends, there are so many peoole who just don't want more than a couple subscriptions. The subscriptiin model only favor the giants like netflix, spotify and NYTimes but not necessarily the smaller players.
    - wolvoleo 10mo ago
      It's only extra money for them because I'm never ever going to subscribe a monthly sub to a site I read one or two articles a month from. So they're not losing anything from me, only gaining. It's basically free money. Right now I use archive.ph because I can but if I couldn't (if they make it a hard block) I would just ignore links to said outlet. I sub to a few outlets which I read daily. But I couldn't possibly sub to every single outlet I see a link from. And I wouldn't anyway. However if I could click '€0.50 to read this article' then yeah I would if it seemed interesting. Especially real journalism, not reuters copy/paste. And for a regular reader who reads said site daily, it still makes sense to take out a 10-20 bucks a month sub. Still cheaper than paying per read.
  - g947o 10mo ago
    1. You can be sure that most people still won't pay to read the article, so it might not be worth doing at all 2. "Number of subscribers" is a real, meaningful metric used across the industry for various purposes, including informing advertisers and calculating recurring revenue. Your proposal, on the other hand, is somewhat odd and questionable that people probably don't know how to make use of.
  - afavour 10mo ago
    The math doesn’t work out: https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-by-article.php https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-b...
    - ecosystem 10mo ago
      Throwing up hands and saying: internalizing the externalized cost is "ridiculously expensive" is not proof it doesn't work. The examples of the a la carte exercise brands referenced (SoulCycle, etc) are quite ineffective arguments -- those are successful businesses with loyal, high retention users because they provide specific, high value products to the users.
      - afavour 10mo ago
        If you’re looking for concrete examples of why it doesn’t work why not study the various companies that have tried this and failed?
- ctippett 10mo ago
  Wish granted. https://github.com/MostlyEmre/hn-anti-paywall https://github.com/MostlyEmre/hn-anti-paywall
  - wolvoleo 10mo ago
    Thanks!!

by afavour 10mo ago

wat10000 10mo ago

Declining industries can get into a death spiral where they can’t find a way to stop bleeding customers, so they focus on extracting more money from the customers who remain. Which then drives away even more of them. It’s not a good strategy, but there may not be a good strategy.

wolvoleo 10mo ago

I kinda see the opposite, all sites seem to be going to subscription models. Obviously it doesn't work because I'm not going to subscribe to every news site I see a link from on HN. So I tend to use archive.ph . I wish there was a plugin to open a page in that more easily though. Luckily most HN posts have a reader contributing a link in the comments.

rrradical 10mo ago
I've always wondered why I can't pay some small fee (20 cents? $1?) to read an article. Why it have to be an entire subscription? If I put $20 / month into an account and then spend that bit by bit on high quality articles from different sites I'd gladly do that.
- Yiin 10mo ago
  because payment processors hate small payments and punish accordingly (with flat fee +%)
  - wolvoleo 10mo ago
    That shouldn't really be a problem if there's an intermediary that takes the payment and distributes it.
    - Freak_NL 10mo ago
      We had a service that did this in the Netherlands (Blendle). They had a lot of the big Dutch media titles on-board. It failed and they pivoted to a crappy subscription service. The model just doesn't work at this point.
      - klez 10mo ago
        Inkl, on the other hand, is still alive and kicking. If you're ok with their selection of sources it's 9.99 per month o 99.99 per year. I still have a pay-per-read subscription, which I prefer to the subscription model, but I'm afraid they don't offer that anymore.
      - wolvoleo 10mo ago
        Yes I know blendle but this was decades ago. In a market that was completely different, where paywalls weren't yet a thing and they would just display ads. It was "ads vs paying a bit". Not really a big incentive. I think in this day and age where most news outlets simply give you a paywall I think this will work just fine. Because now the alternative is just not reading the content (or paying a sub which is ridiculous for a site you view a couple times a month)
        Marsymars 10mo ago
        Their hope with subscriptions is that there's value to you visiting more than a couple times per month. Anecdotally, this works for me - I pay for a handful of subs, and I don't use any news aggregators or feeds - the sites with subs I pay for cover everything of interest to me.
- tonyedgecombe 10mo ago
  It would be cheaper for you but not very profitable for them.
  - prmoustache 10mo ago
    It really depends, there are so many peoole who just don't want more than a couple subscriptions. The subscriptiin model only favor the giants like netflix, spotify and NYTimes but not necessarily the smaller players.
  - wolvoleo 10mo ago
    It's only extra money for them because I'm never ever going to subscribe a monthly sub to a site I read one or two articles a month from. So they're not losing anything from me, only gaining. It's basically free money. Right now I use archive.ph because I can but if I couldn't (if they make it a hard block) I would just ignore links to said outlet. I sub to a few outlets which I read daily. But I couldn't possibly sub to every single outlet I see a link from. And I wouldn't anyway. However if I could click '€0.50 to read this article' then yeah I would if it seemed interesting. Especially real journalism, not reuters copy/paste. And for a regular reader who reads said site daily, it still makes sense to take out a 10-20 bucks a month sub. Still cheaper than paying per read.
- g947o 10mo ago
  1. You can be sure that most people still won't pay to read the article, so it might not be worth doing at all 2. "Number of subscribers" is a real, meaningful metric used across the industry for various purposes, including informing advertisers and calculating recurring revenue. Your proposal, on the other hand, is somewhat odd and questionable that people probably don't know how to make use of.
- afavour 10mo ago
  The math doesn’t work out: https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-by-article.php https://www.cjr.org/opinion/micropayments-subscription-pay-b...
  - ecosystem 10mo ago
    Throwing up hands and saying: internalizing the externalized cost is "ridiculously expensive" is not proof it doesn't work. The examples of the a la carte exercise brands referenced (SoulCycle, etc) are quite ineffective arguments -- those are successful businesses with loyal, high retention users because they provide specific, high value products to the users.
    - afavour 10mo ago
      If you’re looking for concrete examples of why it doesn’t work why not study the various companies that have tried this and failed?
ctippett 10mo ago
Wish granted. https://github.com/MostlyEmre/hn-anti-paywall https://github.com/MostlyEmre/hn-anti-paywall
- wolvoleo 10mo ago
  Thanks!!