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The problem with removing ads for paying subscribers is that it greatly devalues the remaining ad impressions -- who would want to reach just the people too dis
by eli 11y ago
The problem with removing ads for paying subscribers is that it greatly devalues the remaining ad impressions -- who would want to reach just the people too disengaged or cheap to buy a subscription? It also incentivizes the site owner to have increasingly obtrusive and annoying ads for non-paying members.
- moron4hire 11y agoSo how does Reddit manage to have ad-less subscriptions and yet still restrain themselves from creating obtrusive interstitial ads? Superhuman strength? Immortality? Some other heretofore unknown super power? The truth is, there is nothing on the NY Times or WaPo that is worth paying twice for.
- eli 11y agoReddit has its users create all the content for free. And AFAIK they still aren't profitable.
- jacquesm 11y agoYou'd hope that the content produced by newspapers would rise above the level of reddit leading to people wanting to pay for the content directly. Of course if people are looking for entertainment then that's a different story and reddit may be serious competition.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoOne would hope. The problem is, content produced on Reddit (and HN) is way better than content produced by newspapers, by a very simple mechanism: someone posts an article to Reddit/HN, people start debunking all the bullshit, misinterpretations and lies journalists wrote in that article. Newspapers have a lot of trust to regain with people. But then again, I suppose the general population doesn't give a rat's ass about the truth, and want to read only something shocking to use as a "social object" (i.e. something you can start discussing with other people you meet).
- jacquesm 11y agoThat's a good point, the value of the comments on articles is often >> the value of the article itself.
- cwyers 11y agoWell, Hacker News is the exception, not the rule. Most Internet comment sections are unmitigated dumpster fires. Some are even worse than that. Even if you restrict yourself to the really good comments and discussions on the Internet, if you cut off the oxygen from the articles I think the value dries up real fast.
- moron4hire 11y agoAlright, fine, then how does HBO do it? If I want to have the NY Times, it's $32/mo [0], plus I have to let them ride my shoulder as I go about the rest of my business online. HBO Now is $15/mo [1], the only ads I get are in between episodes and only for other shows on HBO. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp3004.html http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp3004.htm... they charge different rates for different screen sizes, which I find highly objectionable. If I want it on all of my devices, it's $8/wk [1] https://order.hbonow.com/ https://order.hbonow.com/ Oh, look, an https site. NY Times redirects from https to http.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoNY Times creates all their own content. HBO in comparison creates a tiny fraction of their content and licenses other companies content for rebroadcast.
- VLM 11y agoHow does paying middlemen save them $17/month vs the competitor that doesn't pay middlemen? That argument would make a lot more sense, if the NYT, like my local newspaper, were merely a re-wrapped slightly localized Reuters news feed.
- scott_s 11y agoI pay $15 a month for the NY Times, and I read it on all devices (laptop, iPhone, iPad). Their webpage is the best in the business, and I find it fine for all devices. To answer your question: I do not know. But I don't find it a useful comparison; while they both produce "content", the content itself is vastly different. Producing shows with the quality of, say, Game of Thrones, is expensive, but so is having and sending reporters all over the world.
- moron4hire 11y agoI don't think the nature of the content changes much. They both have employees to pay. They both have infrastructure costs. They both live off of people consuming their stuff. HBO has competitors who use NY Times revenue model. HBO even publishes at least a small amount of investigative journalism.
- rmc 11y agoReddit is still losing money.
- rbinv 11y agoAlthough true, wouldn't an efficient advertiser try not to pay for ads that target those "cheap people" anyway? Seems like they would be a waste of ad budget in any case.
- eli 11y agoYes, exactly: most advertisers would want to reach the sort of paying subscribers who no longer see ads. By removing all ad impressions from that segment of the audience, you disproportionately decrease ad revenue. (Also, digital advertising is still very far from efficient)
- moron4hire 11y agoWhy should we bend over backwards for advertisers but not paying customers?
- TeMPOraL 11y agoMost likely because advertisers pay much more.
- eli 11y agoI don't follow the question. I'm not suggesting we bend in any direction, merely pointing out that this sort of "freemium" ad-or-paid site is much harder to pull off in practice than it might seem at first blush. At some point it resembles "nag-ware" style shareware from the 90s.
- VLM 11y agoPaying subscribers have money and get complimentary copy. Non-paying subscribers get complimentary copy and garish advertisements as a punishment to encourage subscription. I'm not sure getting rid of the punishment ads is necessarily helpful to drive subscriptions. My understanding of the complimentary copy marketplace is its informal, "here's this nice news release of ours, now you wouldn't want us to pull our ad budget, would you, so you know what to do." I'm not aware of any journalistic experiment where readers get to select between ads and complimentary copy. In theory it should be economically possible. Maybe even a slider bar where you can smoothly pick any ratio such as 20% ads and 80% complimentary copy? I'm pretty good at reading thru B.S. so I'd go complimentary copy, my elderly MiL needs help not getting ripped off so she's best pushing the slider to ads... of course putting my best interests in direct opposition to the advertisers isn't going to work well...