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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

#51

Post by mtgx »

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…

Also, unlike ads, which make you chase page views at all costs, paid subscribers will incentivize you to keep writing quality content, otherwise they will quit. Even if they sign-up because of a few sensationalist articles, they will eventually get bored with them, when they'll realize that 9 times out of 10 the headlines are just clickbait.

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

#52

Post by scandox »

lclarkmichalek wrote: post #45
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...

See my problem here is not the analytical over-reach - it's an editorial that mentions Taylor Swift...

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

#53

Post by ghaff »

asfdsfggtfd wrote: post #40
ghaff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that paid subscribers (and newsstand sales) largely went into paying for printing and distribution while ads paid for basically everything else. Therefore, I expect that part of the thinking was that ads by themselves could pay for digital content creation and delivery. It's also the case that most people assume that an outsized percentage of costs goes into the physical copy of things. At one poi…

> in that case, the publishers ended up being able to hold the line fairly effectively. By effectively you mean steadily declining sales as people return to printed books.

The decline is fairly small on a percentage basis and the reasons are debated--although it's definitely happened. A fairly sharp increase in audiobooks seems to be one reason. I suspect that people have also figured out that eBooks are good for some materials and not for others. Once you get away from books that are mostly flowing plain text, fiction in particular, eBooks don't generally work nearly as well.

I haven't seen pricing given as a major factor. Used books certainly compete with the eBook back catalog but they aren't usually counted under physical book sales.

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

#55

Post by calcifer »

monksy wrote: post #49
calcifer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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) T…

> Haven't read the article

Wow, so you are complaining about, and asking questions to the author of, an article based purely on your perception of its title?

> I don't care about reasons why you don't like Milo. I'm suggesting they're a person with different opinions, respect that

Just a cursory search into who Milo is, what he says and does will show you he is a deeply, virulently intolerant person. And in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance [1].

> It's been getting obnoxious that platforms have been used to push political stances.

It's the personal opinion column of a journalist. I also don't see anything wrong with her "pushing political stances". Unbiased journalism is a myth. People who call for it are either looking for journalism they already agree with or stuff that is so mundanely unimportant that couldn't possibly contain any stance and therefore news value.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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

#56

Post by inetknght »

Pxtl wrote: post #50
aleph_naught wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where's the proof that it doesn't scale to local level?

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

#57

Post by croon »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #21
floatboth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NY Times is far from "considered left-wing". It's currently heavily criticized for publishing terrible articles sympathizing with and humanizing literal neo-nazis.

Well, neo-nazis are humans, and we should never forget that fact. They're not mindless monsters, they're actual living breathing people, and only by understanding that fact can we surmise their motivations and act against them.

> Well, neo-nazis are humans, and we should never forget that fact. They're not mindless monsters

I'm not sure that being mindful monsters is better.

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

#58

Post by otalp »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #43
otalp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not about being "flag waving neo-pravdas" - incidentally their example of egregious reporting that I gave an example of, was aimed at someone who's compared the soviet union to fascist states and was fiercely critical of Lenin, Trotsky and Marx.

It's about their documented antipathy against anyone left of Blair and New Labour. Call a Bush-allied war-mongering neoliberal "soft-left" if you want, but it's risible to claim that the grassroots organising and activism that Momentum and Sanders represent is Stalinist.

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

#59

Post by guelo »

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…

If you make your content only available for paid subscribers than it doesn't get talked about. If you don't get talked about you lose the importance of being the so-called "newspaper of record". And if you don't get talked about you lose the new subscribers that come from word of mouth. In the old days there was just a few options available in a city and a handful of national papers. Today there is an almost infinite selection of available content. They also had the classifieds. This allowed business models that are not possible today.

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

#60

Post by stfu »

lclarkmichalek wrote: post #45
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...

Wow, I haven't seen that before! Just stunning how distorted the Guardian's editorial board has become.

Their hatefulness must have become so deep seeded that they are unable to tolerate anyone out there who does not wanted to get instrumentalized by their 'either you are with us or you are our enemy' crusade.

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