Introducing Increment subscriptions • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#41

Post by marvindanig » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #37

ceejayoz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but paper's pollution footprint is far larger than mere carbon output. There's so much focus on climate change that people forget a bucket of mercury is carbon-neutral but still not great to pour in a lake. Someone elsewhere in the discussion asks for a Kindle edition; that'd be a great way to keep unnecessary paper down.

Strip mine the land for more minerals for more never-decomposing plastic devices with chemical batteries? I'd rather have the dead trees, thanks.

Of course you will prefer dead trees. There's money to be made isn't it? :-) Thanks, but no thanks!

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#42

Post by frandroid » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #3

I think more companies should create zines. But maybe not be so corporate about it.. like this... be more authentic. Very powerful culture building tool tho IMO.

*magazines

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#43

Post by bradstewart » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #40

People have been saying "print is dead" for almost a century now, and somehow it hasn't happened. I read an article a couple of months ago which stated that magazine subscriptions are up, and so is printed catalog distribution and sales from those catalogs. Anecdotally, subscribing to Apple News only whetted my wife's appetite for the printed versions of the magazines she sees on her iPhone. She's since subscribed to…

Agreed. Also anecdotally, but I feel the same way with photographs. While digital photos are amazing and I never want to go back, I also really, really enjoy printed albums. Especially for photos of a trip or special event. I find it way easier to capture, remember, and re-tell the story by flipping through a book.

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#44

Post by scraplab » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

101008 wrote: post #24

Unrelated: I do a digital magazine too, people can download the PDF. I'd love to give the people to opportunity to buy a printed copy if they want to (and maybe do some profit on the side). I think that's a good SaaS idea: upload your magazine in PDF and let the startup do everything, from pritning to shipping, and get a cut on that.

I was a co-founder of Newspaper Club (https://www.newspaperclub.com) (but left a few years ago). They do this sort of thing, such as printing internal and public papers for Facebook, Mailchimp and Spotify, amongst others.

We briefly ran a full online marketplace for individual copies printed on demand and shipped, with a revenue split, but it was too difficult to make the economics work.

However, if you need to print a few hundred copies and send them all round the world, I expect they can organise that.

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#45

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #37

ceejayoz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but paper's pollution footprint is far larger than mere carbon output. There's so much focus on climate change that people forget a bucket of mercury is carbon-neutral but still not great to pour in a lake. Someone elsewhere in the discussion asks for a Kindle edition; that'd be a great way to keep unnecessary paper down.

Strip mine the land for more minerals for more never-decomposing plastic devices with chemical batteries? I'd rather have the dead trees, thanks.

I read my Kindle content on the smartphone I already own.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#46

Post by marvindanig » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

bradstewart wrote: post #43

reaperducer wrote: post #40

People have been saying "print is dead" for almost a century now, and somehow it hasn't happened. I read an article a couple of months ago which stated that magazine subscriptions are up, and so is printed catalog distribution and sales from those catalogs. Anecdotally, subscribing to Apple News only whetted my wife's appetite for the printed versions of the magazines she sees on her iPhone. She's since subscribed to…

Agreed. Also anecdotally, but I feel the same way with photographs. While digital photos are amazing and I never want to go back, I also really, really enjoy printed albums. Especially for photos of a trip or special event. I find it way easier to capture, remember, and re-tell the story by flipping through a book.

Have you tried the book on Ladakh by Satie Sharma on the iPad? I loved it for exactly these reasons.

https://bubblin.io/book/ladakh-by-satie-sharma/1

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#47

Post by cedricium » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #3

I think more companies should create zines. But maybe not be so corporate about it.. like this... be more authentic. Very powerful culture building tool tho IMO.

As mentioned elsewhere, Airbnb also publishes a magazine: https://www.airbnb.com/magazine

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#48

Post by wilde » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 12:02 AM UTC

ergl wrote: post #38

101008 wrote: post #24

Unrelated: I do a digital magazine too, people can download the PDF. I'd love to give the people to opportunity to buy a printed copy if they want to (and maybe do some profit on the side). I think that's a good SaaS idea: upload your magazine in PDF and let the startup do everything, from pritning to shipping, and get a cut on that.

This is mostly what Blurb ( https://www.blurb.com ) does!

Blurb is amazing! They printed a photo book that I gave to my fiancée when I proposed. Top quality printing and an easy to use app to create the book.

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#49

Post by joegahona » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #40

People have been saying "print is dead" for almost a century now, and somehow it hasn't happened. I read an article a couple of months ago which stated that magazine subscriptions are up, and so is printed catalog distribution and sales from those catalogs. Anecdotally, subscribing to Apple News only whetted my wife's appetite for the printed versions of the magazines she sees on her iPhone. She's since subscribed to…

> I read an article a couple of months ago which stated that magazine subscriptions are up

Would love more context on this. Up from when? Up for whom? Which countries? The details matter in something like this.

"Print is dead" is hyperbole but I thought it was pretty established that print is struggling compared to the mid/late-'90s or mid-'00s. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184055/estimated-revenue...

Re: Introducing Increment subscriptions

#50

Post by mchusma » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

Please introduce core missing features to billing and payments first before print magazine subscriptions.

The most obvious one to me: allow people to test their applications in production. Allow them to generate a temporary fake card number, expiration, and cv2 that Stipe can authorize as if it is real.

Allow you to generate and expire it from the console and via the API.

We had people on stripe's support team for 6 months tell us we can't test in production on real cards. We didn't want to, but we do have to test production check out flows, and currently the only way to do it is with real cards.

Someone senior finally told us "of course everyone tests production, you have to. Just nobody likes it. "

I would put out a call for at least 10 to 100 customer requested features first before a print magazine.

I think it's been almost 5 years since stripe has introduced a feature we actually wanted. I'm not trying to be a troll, but this super obvious payment testing thing really bothers me because 100% of customers who build apps for payments should be using it. And it's not built.