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Won’t Subscribe

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Re: Won’t Subscribe

#211

Post by znpy »

mnky9800n wrote: post #133

What's strange is it used to be you would pick up a newspaper at a stand for the day, pay a dollar or whatever, and then have quite a lot of articles to read for that day. But now, it is impossible, the only way is to lock-in. And that may be for the rest of your life if the complaints about the labirynth you may navigate to unsubscribe the nytimes is to be believed. If there was some sort of daily access pass that d…

Ironically enough, buying a physical copy of a newspaper is quite literally "a daily pass", and you get to keep the newspaper in case you want to re-read an article tomorrow, want to dig deeper or share it with somebody else in the house/office.

Here in .it most newspapers cost less than 2.50-3€, and you get a physical good.

I just checked on one of the most relevant newspapers in Italy (IlSole24Ore) and if you want to browse the current issue there's no option for one-time payment, only subscriptions.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#212

Post by matthewowen »

mnky9800n wrote: post #133

What's strange is it used to be you would pick up a newspaper at a stand for the day, pay a dollar or whatever, and then have quite a lot of articles to read for that day. But now, it is impossible, the only way is to lock-in. And that may be for the rest of your life if the complaints about the labirynth you may navigate to unsubscribe the nytimes is to be believed. If there was some sort of daily access pass that d…

Setting aside that you can still buy the newspaper, you can also buy daily editions of the new York times for kindle for 99 cents each.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#213

Post by StavrosK »

anentropic wrote: post #199
ako wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a publisher maybe it is time to rethink your primary metric. As a long-time reader, i'm not interesting in being a loyal reader, i'm interested in reading the best news. I don't limit myself to the music of one band, so i really appreciate spotify, and i don't limit myself to the news of one publisher.

> I don't limit myself to the music of one band, so i really appreciate spotify this is a bizarre analogy no one had to limit themselves to listening to only one band before Spotify

No one had to limit themselves to one news source before either, but that's what publishers are trying to do now.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#214

Post by fbelzile »

Why don't publishers create a system where I can "load" my account with 20 articles for $10?

I strongly dislike subscribing to things I don't feel like I can commit to. Especially, with the way companies make it a hassle to cancel.

A pay-as-you-go system would give the consumer the confidence they need to pay something (which isn't recurring) but saves the overhead of micropayments.

They could even have it where if you start paying more than the annual subscription, the rest of the year is on the house.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#215

Post by maxerickson »

mkl wrote: post #196
skocznymroczny wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the browser starts streaming micropayments every second while you are engaging with the content." This sounds bad. Websites will have even more reason to delay you with slow scrolling, filler text, popup windows just to make you stay on the website longer. Kind of like subscription based MMORPGs have slow travel times, long character leveling and a lot of grind to make you play longer.

It sounds really bad, though it's pretty hard to understand. Webmonetization.org/explainer is a 404, but I think I found it at https://webmonetization.org/docs/explainer/ . One thing it says is "It should also be possible to: Tell the browser NOT to pay a particular website any money." We may end up with blocking lists like ad blockers, and getting put on or taken off such a list could be very contentious. Clickbait,…

The sensible thing would be to make it opt in. Then the initial interaction is "give us a try" instead of some dark pattern designed to make it hard to leave the page or whatever.

Could still have community managed lists, where adding/enabling the list switched payment on for those sites.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#216

Post by wazoox »

Kosirich wrote: post #178

What the author didn't mention explicitly is the obvious sludge techniques used in media subscription models. ( https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclope... ) In case of The Economist, to which I'm subscribed, you have to call them...on a phone...like it's the 80s The worst offender of the type is scribed.com that has a fake "we're sorry to see you leave" page before you actually hit the final "yes…

One of the web-only paper I'm subscribed to require an actual letter, with an "Avis de réception", that requires you to go to the post office to get the proper, special envelope, like it's the XIXth century all over again. For a web-only publication, that's quite rich.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#217

Post by dathos »

fbelzile wrote: post #214

Why don't publishers create a system where I can "load" my account with 20 articles for $10? I strongly dislike subscribing to things I don't feel like I can commit to. Especially, with the way companies make it a hassle to cancel. A pay-as-you-go system would give the consumer the confidence they need to pay something (which isn't recurring) but saves the overhead of micropayments. They could even have it where if y…

There was an aggregator of sorts that did this in the Netherlands [1]. But it seems they never were able to make it profitable, I assume if the publishers themselves did it the case would be a lot different.

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

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#218

Post by jerrygoyal »

fbelzile wrote: post #214

Why don't publishers create a system where I can "load" my account with 20 articles for $10? I strongly dislike subscribing to things I don't feel like I can commit to. Especially, with the way companies make it a hassle to cancel. A pay-as-you-go system would give the consumer the confidence they need to pay something (which isn't recurring) but saves the overhead of micropayments. They could even have it where if y…

true, not all businesses are suited for SaaS based monetization models.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#219

Post by richardwhiuk »

onion2k wrote: post #77
comex wrote: post #61

> So, says Mr Manager, “Why on earth would I invest in selling individual articles when a click on the “Subscribe” button gets me a hundred times the revenue?” > Why they’re wrong: Their arithmetic didn’t consider their chance of getting me to click on “Subscribe.” Didn’t it? Sure, maybe Tim Bray would have been willing to buy an article for $1 even though he wasn’t willing to subscribe. Maybe a lot of people would h…

But if, out of every 100 people who buy the article for $1, a single one of them would have otherwise become a subscriber (if the micropayment option weren’t available), then the paper lost money on net. I don't think Tim Bray is suggesting removing the subscription option. The point is that there could be a price for an individual article as well as the subscription option. If that 1 person would subscribe anyway th…

No, it might be undercutting the subscription as well.

If nobody ever subscribes any more, and they just choose the articles which interest them and pay, the newspaper may decrease the amount of revenue it gets.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#220

Post by etripe »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #162
mikelward wrote: post #10

> “But wait,” says Mr Manager, “you already subscribe to five publications, so you’ve proved you have a propensity to subscribe! You’re exactly my target market!” Wrong. It’s exactly because I’ve done some subscribing that I’m just not gonna do any more. Exactly. Same thing is happening with cable unbundling. Few people want to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO, ESPN+, Disney+, Peacock, and YouTube TV/Sli…

I don't have much sympathy for this argument. If you're a very heavy consumer of the content, it makes good sense that you end up paying more. It used to be that your only options were cable or satellite packages that included lots of content you didn't want to pay for. People complained, and wished they could only pay for the content they watched. Now we have multiple competing Internet streaming subscription servic…

With all due respect, your post boils down to "we should be glad it isn't as bad as it used to be". That doesn't at all imply that the current state is desirable.

It's more about access and convenience than entitlement. Even on Google/Amazon/iTunes, you simply can't access all content. Depending on where you are globally, it might not even be possible to gain access if you subscribe to every available streaming service. It's not like there's a common infrastructure where all content is published, with streaming services as a wrapper on top. And as Gabe Newell said, "The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting anti-piracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates."

The reality is there are a lot of exclusive, regional licensing schemes that preclude the content from being accessible anywhere for a fee. The media business has been and continues to be distributor centric instead of consumer focused, which is costing them potential revenue while they cling to an outdated business model. This business model likes to pretend the bundle is the product, but makes licensing deals on a per-show or per-franchise basis.

The license holder gets to choose whether I'm fed the "one episode a week" bullshit or whether I can watch episodes at my own leisure, whether to limit streaming to a limited time period or a limited subset of a series' seasons, to postpone my local launch date by an arbitrary delay, and so on. The streaming service middlemen get to decide how much of my time to waste by obscuring quality ratings, limiting discoverability, not listing availability dates, not allow viewing of shows because subtitles aren't yet available, and so on.

We have the networking and storage infrastructure to have any content available anywhere at the same time. We have the payment infrastructure to allow target audiences to access your content and pay a variable price based on what they watch. We know how to make rich user interfaces where users can indicate their viewing preference. The only conclusion I'm left with is media companies want to compete on status instead of merit.

I really wish we didn't live in a time of rent-seeking, "engagement"-driven, anti-consumer walled gardens of crap.

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