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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

#221

Post by eponeponepon »

Spivak wrote: post #155
Pxtl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But it doesn't need to scale. It needs to be as big as the area it services.

Hubris can be a powerful motive force. You get as big as the area you service, you think "I could do more than this", you get bigger, you service a larger area, you think "hey, is this enough..?" - and before you know it, the Manchester Guardian is a worldwide media company.

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

#222

Post by peoplewindow »

peeters wrote: post #88
ethagnawl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

> My guess is that a browser based micropayment solution/ecosystem will emerge I think so too, I think it's just a question of outlets realizing that the lost profits from cannibalizing their subscription sales does not compare to the income from allowing consumers to buy pieces of your publication.

It was tried in the past. There were attempts to get newspapers to unite behind single group subscription schemes. The newspapers themselves rejected it. Problem is if a third party collects your income for you, you're not really independent anymore. Also, they don't want to receive pennies because someone read a single article they wrote, they want long term subscribers. Finally it requires them to all adopt paywalls which they didn't want to do back then (maybe these days it'd be different).

I wish I could remember the name of the scheme I'm thinking of.

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

#223

Post by jopsen »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #47
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... :)

There is probably not as much money in ads as there used to be.

In the good old days there was no alternative to print media ads. Today there is so much more ad space available.

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

#224

Post by hitekker »

hsod wrote: post #215
ogre_magi wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both sides perceive the outgroup as the source of all evil in the world. You could replace left/right and republican/democrat in your comment and there would be people on the other side who sincerely believe it as much as you do. Neither claim is accurate.

This seems like relativism run amok. All political positions are not equal except in a completely unmoored ethical system.

It's less a system of thought and more a way to think less.

If truth does not exist for a person, then that person can stand, sneering on the sidelines at those who dare stand up for whatever this or whatever that. Or they can squirrel themselves away, safe in their own make believe world.

Some people need that illusory superiority or distance to get through life.

At least until they hear a knock at the door at night.

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

#225

Post by ogre_magi »

hitekker wrote: post #224
hsod wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like relativism run amok. All political positions are not equal except in a completely unmoored ethical system.

It's less a system of thought and more a way to think less. If truth does not exist for a person, then that person can stand, sneering on the sidelines at those who dare stand up for whatever this or whatever that. Or they can squirrel themselves away, safe in their own make believe world. Some people need that illusory superiority or distance to get through life. At least until they hear a knock at the door at night…

This is a cutting attack on those who fail to support your ingroup.

Well done.

I recommend steelmanning my comment and seeing if there's another interpretation of my position you can find. Me not sharing your values is not equal to me disbelieving in objective reality.

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

#226

Post by currysoup_t »

te_chris wrote: post #128
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.

Also worth noting: Jimmy Wales is on the Guardian's board.

Not since April of this year.

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

#227

Post by hsod »

ogre_magi wrote: post #217
hsod wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like relativism run amok. All political positions are not equal except in a completely unmoored ethical system.

I don't subscribe to an objective morality. There are things that I value and attempt to maximize, but I don't feel the need to compel all sentients in the universe to adopt my position. I'm willing to "live and let live," with the understanding that conflict will still happen sometimes and that's okay.

There need not be an objective morality for us to bring our values into our politics.

Politics is the way we make collective decisions about things of mutual importance. What's important to you?

What would a society full of people who refuse to advocate for their own values out of a sense of meta-ethical relativism look like?

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

#229

Post by stfu »

mitjak wrote: post #191
stfu wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they are doing is advancing the politicizing of everything and driving an agenda of divisiveness. Why is an artist is not allowed to be an artist anymore but needs to be an political activist? Even worse, because TS doesn't follow the Guardian's absurd logic, they are trying to shame her with their imaginative interpretation. That's not journalism, that is a 6-year old's fantasy world, who dreams up stories abou…

But everything is already political? They're saying that _this_ specific person should have a more explicitly political stance, and not taking one is a political stance still.

58.9% of Americans voted last election. Has the Guardian already lost that much touch with reality to accept that those 41.1% of the population exist who don't care about their outrage theater?

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

#230

Post by jopsen »

stfu wrote: post #60
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...

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.

I rarely read the opinion pieces... they seems to be deliberately designed to provoke a discussion. And occasionally, just plain clickbait.

But they are clearly labelled "Opinion" and then I don't have a problem ignoring and being very critical when I do happen to read such an article.

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