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Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#41

Post by Flammy »

NeutronBoy wrote: post #35
mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

> What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article The other side of the coin is that if you're a news organisation, "the economics just don't work" with micro payments. You can't fund a month long investigative report based on micropayments, even if it produces a prize-winning piece, if you don't have guaranteed income to support it. What happens if you spend the month in…

> Micro-payment per-article will only encourage "safe" journalism - articles that you know will resonate with your readers, rather than controversial pieces or in-depth, resource intensive research.

I actually disagree, from what has happened when trying ads ads (basically micropayments in terms of $ amount per view), we get click bait and sensationalist headlines for any news source which focuses on income-per-article-metrics.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#42

Post by Shivetya »

mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

we are seeing/going to see a replay of such with streaming services as well. everyone wants their piece of a pie that isn't large enough for them.

the news has it harder as its content is not necessarily as unique as individual tv shows. the editorial content is unique per paper and a valid revenue stream provided the paper can assemble a valuable enough team with broad appeal. however charging for national and international news? too much competition, this is the last place to bet the paper on

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#43

Post by ripdog »

mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

Micropayments for most major US news outlets already exists - check out Blendle.com. It's in closed beta right now, but works great, and invites are easy to come by.

It does require you to read articles on its own website and not the original publisher's, but it's a nice clean layout. You own (a license for) articles once you pay for them. There's also fast, automated refunds if you don't like an article.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#44

Post by stefco_ »

NeutronBoy wrote: post #35
mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

> What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article The other side of the coin is that if you're a news organisation, "the economics just don't work" with micro payments. You can't fund a month long investigative report based on micropayments, even if it produces a prize-winning piece, if you don't have guaranteed income to support it. What happens if you spend the month in…

> What happens if you spend the month investigating and don't find anything?

Same as what already happens; you don't write the story.

> Micro-payment per-article will only encourage "safe" journalism - articles that you know will resonate with your readers, rather than controversial pieces or in-depth, resource intensive research.

Maybe for some people, but for me it would have the opposite effect. If forced to pay for boring/unoriginal content, I would probably just not read it at all. I already do this for content that is behind subscription paywalls or that has hideous ads everywhere. If anything, being forced to pay for content I read would make me even more reluctant to read useless filler.

I am sure I am not alone. Hacker News in particular is seemingly filled with people who would rather throw down ¢10 or something many times a day than pay for 10 separate monthly subscriptions that don't reflect the actual proportion of reading you do on each journalism platform.

Given how much potential revenue is already lost by forcing people to pay for the full subscription, I don't believe that micropayments are an obviously inferior solution. They might prove to be flawed in some way, but I don't think that the points you make are good arguments against them.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#45

Post by chatmasta »

mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

Unfortunately, what we will get is a model where you pay Google some amount of money, and they divvy it up amongst the publishers.

AdWords/AdSense solved micro payments by bundling $0.01 clicks into monthly segments and. I expect google to try the same model with publishers, especially since a) adblockers are increasing, and b) google has already proved it can bully publishers into signing up for any "service" it offers.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#46

Post by FireBeyond »

baldfat wrote: post #36
FireBeyond wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So "blocking paywalls" that appear accessible in Google Search is now "opt out"? Ewww. This might be the time I hit Duck Duck Go. To be clear, I have no issue with paywalls. But they should be flagged as such. "Article title: blah blah blah [Subscription required to view content]" even. But they won't do that, because publishers, who buy advertising, will scream because they KNOW their click through rates would plumm…

> Google Search is now "opt out"? No, not at all. It just doesn't let you get free articles behind the pay wall. So now you can either avoid the pay wall websites or you just block them.

Right. I have to go through and filter my search to remove each source that has "articles that are available to Google to index, but not to me, except for a fee".

Note that in no way am I complaining about using Google to avoid paywalls. I rarely bother.

I'm talking about having to filter out paid content that is indiscernible from free content.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#47

Post by stefco_ »

jellicle wrote: post #40
NeutronBoy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article The other side of the coin is that if you're a news organisation, "the economics just don't work" with micro payments. You can't fund a month long investigative report based on micropayments, even if it produces a prize-winning piece, if you don't have guaranteed income to support it. What happens if you spend the month in…

That ship sailed a long time ago. The current status quo IS micro-payment per article, only it comes from advertisers instead of readers.

Yes, but unlike clickbait advertising, microtransactions actually encourage a positive publisher-reader relationship. If you trust a news source to do good journalism and if you don't have to jump through hoops to pay for an article, my bet is that most people would happily throw down ¢10 or something for a good short read (or more for a better read). Conversely, I would be even more reluctant to read click bait if I was asked to pay to view it. So I think that micropayments is similar from a maximizing clicks perspective, but the incentive is actually to build a great relationship with readers.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#48

Post by ehsankia »

mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

Isn't that more or less what Google Contributor program was trying to do?

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#49

Post by pessimizer »

Pxtl wrote: post #27
erentz wrote: post #9

I have no problem with this. But in return I should be able to opt out of results that I cannot view. A result for a news article that changes when I click on it to a "Please subscribe..." plea is not the result that was returned that I clicked on. Unfortunately, like the AMP fiasco, I doubt this is what will happen as Google doesn't exist to serve it's users.

> I doubt this is what will happen as Google doesn't exist to serve it's users. There intent is to serve users with quality, truthful information. If all the quality information goes out of business and gets replaced with "Fwd:Fwd:Fwd: Obama failed New Orleans during Katrina!!" then Google doesn't have any more quality information anymore. Google and Facebook are becoming acutely aware of how easily dishonest propaga…

> Their intent is to serve users with quality, truthful information.

I thought their intent was to serve me the websites that I'm looking for. If their aim it to define truth, I want to see them broken up.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#50

Post by ehsankia »

Pxtl wrote: post #27
erentz wrote: post #9

I have no problem with this. But in return I should be able to opt out of results that I cannot view. A result for a news article that changes when I click on it to a "Please subscribe..." plea is not the result that was returned that I clicked on. Unfortunately, like the AMP fiasco, I doubt this is what will happen as Google doesn't exist to serve it's users.

> I doubt this is what will happen as Google doesn't exist to serve it's users. There intent is to serve users with quality, truthful information. If all the quality information goes out of business and gets replaced with "Fwd:Fwd:Fwd: Obama failed New Orleans during Katrina!!" then Google doesn't have any more quality information anymore. Google and Facebook are becoming acutely aware of how easily dishonest propaga…

Also, it's a very small percent of users who dislike it (or even know AMP is a thing), and majority of them are developers who don't want their site cached. To claim that they don't serve their users is ridiculous.
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