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Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

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Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#41

Post by otalp »

radmuzom wrote: post #8
amriksohata wrote: post #6

The physcology behind this is more political than business, the guardian is a lefty newspaper and is getting political support

While this comment is down-voted, it is not necessarily wrong. As an Indian, I was so exasperated after Americans voted a criminal as the President that I subscribed to multiple organizations which are considered left-wing by American conservatives or libertarians. These include regular fees to NY Times, Propublica and Guardian with occasional donations to various organizations in the United States.

NYT and The Guardian are not "left-wing". They are establishment liberal and have supported every major war the US has been involved in. They regularly slander anti-establishment and left-wing intellectuals[1][2] and for the most part hate or ignore people like Corbyn and Sanders.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/23/noam-c...

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#42

Post by scandox »

I sometimes feel like there isn't much alternative to The Guardian - on the other hand the opinion pieces are often wearisome and at times the whole thing starts to feel like a parody of itself. It is as if, in becoming "worthy" of "support" it has to crank itself up to an insane degree...just as sugary drinks become more sugary over time to retain their core drinkers.

This is especially noticeable when ludicrous lifestyle pieces sit cheek-by-jowl with slightly overwrought culture wars content. I can't find an example today so I'll make one up:

- Is enjoying the movie Chinatown an act of molestation?

- Why Colombian hemp chocolate makes for the best edible luggage

I mean I both think Polanski should be in jail and that Colombia tourism should be encouraged...but this stuff isn't news.

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#43

Post by matthewmacleod »

otalp wrote: post #37
amriksohata wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know why this got downvoted, it's the same as dailymail or the sun, or times, they have right wing donors and subscribers

There isn't a single left-winger I know who thinks the Guardian isn't mostly garbage. They are filled with Blairites, have long hated Corbyn, barely covered Sanders in their US edition and openly libel even moderately left-wing intellectuals before they are forced to retract their articles after their egregious reporting is pointed out.(eg: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/23/noam-c... and https://w…

I rolled my eyes so hard at this misrepresentation that I think I injured myself.

Your point is not well-made. The Guardian is a soft-left newspaper, objectively so, and while it might not be a flag-waving neo-Pravda it’s anything but a paper for classical liberals.

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#44

Post by calcifer »

peeters wrote: post #35

I think that most media outlets make a wrong assumption about online content. They think that everybody wants content that's free above all else, so they swamp their content with ads. But I think it's more that people want diversity. I'll happily support news outlets financially, but at $300/yr for Globe&Mail and $260/yr for NYTimes, etc, the cost is just ridiculous. I WANT to support good journalism, but I want to p…

For me it's the other way around. I pay for the Guardian because I think they do important, much needed journalism in many areas - including ones I'm not personally interested in. I like the idea that my money helps pay for articles that wouldn't get funded if it depended on a popularity contest.

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#45

Post by lclarkmichalek »

scandox wrote: post #42

I sometimes feel like there isn't much alternative to The Guardian - on the other hand the opinion pieces are often wearisome and at times the whole thing starts to feel like a parody of itself. It is as if, in becoming "worthy" of "support" it has to crank itself up to an insane degree...just as sugary drinks become more sugary over time to retain their core drinkers. This is especially noticeable when ludicrous lif…

What about the recent editorial condemning Taylor Swift: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/the-gu...

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#46

Post by icc97 »

drinchev wrote: post #28
f055 wrote: post #10

This. Years ago it was obvious to most newspapers that paid subscribers are their lifeline. Advertisers come and go, daily sales come and go, but long-period subscribers keep you afloat. Somehow, when the respected newspapers moved to the web, they forgot that, and kept pumping ads like crazy. This, in essence, moved the sense of their product from quality content to clickable content - these two don't mix. Consequen…

Note that Guardian is successful, because of "supporters" and not >subscribers<. It's different than WSJ, where they lock the content, until you pay. The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one.

Indeed, here's the relevant CEO quote in the article:

> "We recognize we have to get more direct-to-consumer revenue over time, and the way we will do that is through membership-type propositions, but it’s going to be much more than a paywall. A paywall is to me an inverse loyalty scheme, where the more you consume the more you pay, which doesn’t seem to work."

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#47

Post by bryanlarsen »

f055 wrote: post #10

This. Years ago it was obvious to most newspapers that paid subscribers are their lifeline. Advertisers come and go, daily sales come and go, but long-period subscribers keep you afloat. Somehow, when the respected newspapers moved to the web, they forgot that, and kept pumping ads like crazy. This, in essence, moved the sense of their product from quality content to clickable content - these two don't mix. Consequen…

Back in the day, a typical newspaper made about 80% of it's revenue from advertisers (including the classifieds), and about 80% of its costs were printing & distribution. So free Internet distribution should have been 80% of the revenue at 20% of the cost... :)

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#48

Post by r3bl »

return0 wrote: post #27

Imagine if browser vendors added some form of online payment directly into the browser (like , i don't know , bitcoin).

Try to convince every website owner ever to accept the same payment methods.

Both Brave and Flattr are attempting the same, both have little to no success for that simple reason.

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#49

Post by monksy »

calcifer wrote: post #34
monksy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with the concept of only supporting the writers that you like. I used to like the Guardian because they had good journalism. However, the opinion pieces are absolutely atrocious and detract the quality of the paper. For example, there was an article in my google now articles recommended from the guardian that was "Milo Yiannopolous has huge support in Australia, men must call him out."

That opinion piece is titled " If Milo Yiannopoulos has huge support in Australia, men must call him out". I wasn't aware of the article before your post, but now that I've read it, I don't see anything controversial (much less "atrocious") in it. Care to elaborate?

I just typed it directly from my phone. That must have been updated.

Haven't read the article, because I've seen numerous others from the news source. The issue I have with an article with a title like this: Why is it a bad thing to support Milo? Why is it "men who need to be called to fight"? (I don't care about reasons why you don't like Milo. I'm suggesting they're a person with different opinions, respect that)

TL;DR: It's been getting obnoxious that platforms have been used to push political stances. (Such as this) I see this as supressing the opposition and has caused a massive swing in action. (i.e. Trump is "magically" elected despite "predictions" saying otherwise, Brexit happens despite the upper class talking down and ignoring the larger population)

Re: Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

#50

Post by Pxtl »

aleph_naught wrote: post #39
drinchev wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that Guardian is successful, because of "supporters" and not >subscribers<. It's different than WSJ, where they lock the content, until you pay. The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one.

I really like the wikipedia model, but I know it wouldnt work for every outlet. I’ve contributed more to public radio and wikipedia than any other news service subscription. Ideally, nytimes/wapo/economist would be completely open, and one would be able to ‘donate’ with a single press of the apple pay button. I prefer that over yet another username password combo + subscription + app echo system I need to maintain. O…

The big worry is that this doesn't work for local news at all. The nitty gritty details of governance happen at the local level - municipal and state/provincial legislatures. Journalism on that stuff doesn't scale.
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