Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

niemanlab.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 365 posts

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

#61

Post by harryf »

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.

> The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one

Have any newspapers experimented with crowd-funding stories? This Niemanlabs report suggests none of the big names had as of Sept 2016 - http://niemanreports.org/articles/crowdfunding-the-news/ - wonder if that's changed?

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

#62

Post by icc97 »

otalp wrote: post #41
radmuzom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The Guardian is 'centre-left' and the most left wing (it's the only one that is left of centre) broadsheet newspaper in the UK [0].

I don't think your comment about hating Corbyn is that correct either. There clearly were some negative articles about him and there was a columnist who was attacking Corbyn but who has since apologised [1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unit...

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/10/jeremy...

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

#63

Post by psergeant »

wjnc wrote: post #25
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…

Totally agree. Even my favorite subscription (The Economist) had a time where I as a subscriber felt too much content was given away for free online. They luckily turned that back and kept the ecosphere going.

The number of ads in The Economist is pretty irritating for paid content

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

#64

Post by calcifer »

scandox wrote: post #52
lclarkmichalek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I think they explain why a high profile celebrity's position - or lack thereof - on modern day issues is a concern. They are arguing that not having a public position on issues means you are siding with the status quo and, since the status quo is Trump, they find it wrong for the "worlds biggest pop star" to take that stance.

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

#65

Post by JumpCrisscross »

guelo wrote: post #59
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…

> If you make your content only available for paid subscribers than it doesn't get talked about

This doesn’t seem to apply to the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal.

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

#66

Post by librvf »

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…

> I sometimes feel like there isn't much alternative to The Guardian

I stopped reading The Guardian years ago. A little part of me dies inside every time I see some piece of completely off-topic Guardian propaganda make the front page of Hacker News and nobody seems to care.

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

#67

Post by throwawayyx96 »

Supernaut wrote: post #36
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."

I too find some of the Guardian's columnists truly exasperating. However, isn't it important that they be given space to voice their opinions? Very occasionally, they give me pause for thought, and that's important. We've seen what happens (Trump, Brexit, etc.) when large sections of society retreat to personalised echo chambers.

Actually, that would be what happens when mainstream media becomes an echo chamber and is rejected by half the populace.

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

#68

Post by ethagnawl »

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…

> The salable entity in the internet era shouldn't be a subscription to a newspaper, it should be an article.

I think this is spot-on. My guess is that a browser based micropayment solution/ecosystem will emerge (a la Brave and its Basic Attention Token).

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

#69

Post by alva »

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.

Important to note that the Guardian is not actually financially successful at all. They have been suffering heavy losses for years

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/01/heavy-losses-...

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

#70

Post by allengeorge »

icc97 wrote: post #46
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.

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."

What if you pay as you consume up to a maximum? That would transition repeat users into, in effect, subscribers.
Post reply on HN