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Won’t Subscribe

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Re: Won’t Subscribe

#351

Post by nobody9999 »

retzkek wrote: post #345
nobody9999 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have been using it for the last 3 months and it is simple to implmentent and helps support an open standard. >The concern on basing payment on length of the site visit are valid and something I think will need to be addressed at some point. People will try to game it as it gains acceptance. Please post the name of your site so I can make sure to never visit it. Not because you're bad or evil. Not because your cont…

> But because the entire idea that just visting your site entitles you (or anyone else) to income is incredible hubris and disrespectful of the intelligence of your users. I'm not sure your vitriol is called for here, it seems very easy to selectively enable and disable monetization [1]. I'm not OP, but if I were to monetize a search engine I'd have the tag on the results page but _not_ on the home page. Likewise if…

>I'm not sure your vitriol is called for here, it seems very easy to selectively enable and disable monetization [1].

Easy for who? And for what purpose?

Implementing an HTML tag that will attempt to charge you money is wrong on so many levels.

If I walk into a store (click on a link), even though I know there's stuff to buy there, the store (website) doesn't have the right to charge me just for walking into the store (hitting the landing page) -- unless they clearly let me know that (perhaps a big sign on the door?) before I enter the store.

And as for what you would or wouldn't do, that's great! You're a stand up guy[0].

Sadly, there are way too many people who would abuse this in a hot minute. Especially since many folks wouldn't even find out about it until they get some sort of transaction notification (with a credit/debit card, that could be weeks).

[0] N.B.: That's not snark or sarcasm. It's good to know that there are still other people who will do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Thank you.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#352

Post by helsinkiandrew »

ricardobeat wrote: post #349
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then what was the whole point of going online (broadly speaking), if not to decrease delivery cost of articles? To chase the audience that had gone online. The newspapers were loosing customers to other sites that could produce articles cheaply themselves or republish newswire stories or rely on content from users and didn't have the overhead of a traditional newspaper

> didn't have the overhead of a traditional newspaper Hm. So you are saying going online decreases costs? Can't have it both ways...

No I’m saying people aren’t buying print newspapers. There’s 30% less than in 2000 and the revenue of the remaining has dropped off a cliff. The surviving papers have moved online to find new customers and some have got rid of print version altogether.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#353

Post by wishysgb »

I have tried to contact multiple newspapers and did a survey that had an okay response I really want to start an organization that unites subscription to all newspapers and it just tunnels money directly from reader to newspapers.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#354

Post by wishysgb »

boplicity wrote: post #19

As a long-time publisher, there is only one primary metric that matters to me: loyal readers. I don't publish for the occasional visitor. I publish for the loyal readers that I have worked hard to cultivate, engage, and enrichen. The primary work is one of building a relationship with a loyal readership, based on consistency and quality. Our websites, as they're designed, are probably a little annoying to people who…

hi, I would like to say that I think you are approaching this with a very old mindset. I have made survey that had a hundred people in it most of which said they don't subscribe to any paid news and most of them said they would subscribe to a service which provides access to multiple newspapers, and they are willing to pay good money for that .

Would you be available to talk about this and let me know what I am missing. As I have been wanting to do this for a while but sadly all my attempts to contact papers came to a dead end.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#355

Post by pmontra »

DocTomoe wrote: post #294
JulianMorrison wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won't necessarily help if there's still a "bleed money to XYZ" HTML tag in there.

You mean a piece of text that is easily filtered out?

Talking to a friend of mine a few days ago. He develops with Flutter for Android and iOS. He told me that (almost) the same code can render to the web as pixels in a canvas tag. I didn't investigate the details (copy and paste, etc) but it's another step toward full black boxes that will do whatever they want, without any chances of blocking some parts of them.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#356

Post by richardwhiuk »

onion2k wrote: post #239
richardwhiuk wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's an unknown though. Saying it might be undercutting subs is true, but it has no more or less validity than saying it wouldn't. It depends on the number of people who subscribe (could be 1 in 100, but it could be 1 in 10,000), and the number of people who'd pay for an article, and the optimum price they'd pay at, and so on.

Sure - it's all unknown. You can do market research and A/B testing to try and test the market though.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#357

Post by etripe »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #331
etripe wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 servi…

> your post boils down to "we should be glad it isn't as bad as it used to be". It doesn't. I responded to the complaint that there are now many competing subscription services. > That doesn't at all imply that the current state is desirable. I don't see any problem with there being multiple competing subscriptions, and you've not pointed any out. Your other complaints are valid but are on different topics. > Dependi…

First off, thank you for taking my post in good sport despite its... empassioned nature.

> For a show like Game of Thrones, releasing an episode a week is important to enable 'water-cooler conversations' about the show, which many viewers enjoy.

That's a fair point I hadn't considered. One could ask whether that decision is up to the distributor, but that's a quibble.

> These are both annoying, but streaming services don't have a monopoly on recommendations and reviews. Personally I put very little stock in their recommendations anyway, so I don't much care when they mess about with them.

Would you agree reliable recommendations would be a value-added service?

>> not allow viewing of shows because subtitles aren't yet available

> Guessing here but that might be done in the name of inclusiveness.

Another excellent point I hadn't considered. How do you feel about, say, English subtitles not being available in a country that doesn't have it as a national language, with the series having been released in the Anglo world already on the same service?

> If you want to buy a la carte, you already have that option too. I don't see any problem here.

By your own admittance, à la carte isn't always an option - you'd mentioned the Simpsons in the UK.

> I agree engagement-driven ecosystems can be very troublesome, but [...] not so much with paid subscription services

I agree YouTube is worse at actively trying to limit what you see based on what they think you should watch, but I see elements on Netflix, too, with it moving around UI elements to try and get me to engage with what they've curated, pop-ups telling me "what I've missed" and so on.

> What do you mean by walled garden in this context?

I suppose what I meant to point out is that in my opinion, these services aren't actually competing, since their content offering is mutually exclusive. Seldom are two shows simultaneously available on two different streaming services. Perhaps this is a local expression of streaming providers, I'm not sure.

This diminishes the need for said service to distinguish itself on customer service, convenience and UX, since there's no one else offering the same content. That makes me question the added value of the middle man for the consumer, but I suppose content producers see Netflix and co as the consumer, not you or me.

They're competing like broadband providers are competing in the US, based on exclusive territory. The same could be said for gaming consoles, but to a lesser degree since there are way more multi-platform games.

I'm aware this is a judgement based on my own preferences, since they can be said to compete in terms of what their bundle contains. I'm personally not interested in bundles. I'm interested in good quality shows and movies. I'm interested in having a say in which shows get prolonged for another season and at which price point I'm still willing to endorse them.

Like you've indicated, this will probably never completely be the case, since that would make it cost prohibitive for content producers to try anything new, but some modicum of democratisation wouldn't hurt. It's happened for some areas of retail and for the music business, why not for video content? I'm imaging a blend of kickstarter mechanics and content aggregation systems. Perhaps with a mandatory "Innovation" subscription to fund new IP and a corresponding pilots/preview channel.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#358

Post by chris_f »

nobody9999 wrote: post #307
chris_f wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other nice thing about Web Monetization is that you can use it to divide earnings to content providers on your site through probabilistic revenue sharing [0]. I have been using it for the last 3 months and it is simple to implmentent and helps support an open standard. The concern on basing payment on length of the site visit are valid and something I think will need to be addressed at some point. People will try…

>I have been using it for the last 3 months and it is simple to implmentent and helps support an open standard. >The concern on basing payment on length of the site visit are valid and something I think will need to be addressed at some point. People will try to game it as it gains acceptance. Please post the name of your site so I can make sure to never visit it. Not because you're bad or evil. Not because your cont…

That's an interesting perspective, and I don't feel attacked at all but rather appreciate the feedback.

I do think there is a misunderstanding of how Web Monetization currently works though.

You won't be charged anything to visit the website UNLESS you subscribe to a Web Monetization provider and wish to contribute to websites that you visit in this way. Right now, the only Web Monetization provider is Coil. Coil charges members $5 a month and handles the distribution of payments to sites that the user visits.

So unless you subscribe to Coil you wouldn't be charged anything, and even then it is capped at a pre-paid $5/month that get's distributed to all the website that you visit who participate in Web Monetization.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#359

Post by chris_f »

nobody9999 wrote: post #351
retzkek wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But because the entire idea that just visting your site entitles you (or anyone else) to income is incredible hubris and disrespectful of the intelligence of your users. I'm not sure your vitriol is called for here, it seems very easy to selectively enable and disable monetization [1]. I'm not OP, but if I were to monetize a search engine I'd have the tag on the results page but _not_ on the home page. Likewise if…

>I'm not sure your vitriol is called for here, it seems very easy to selectively enable and disable monetization [1]. Easy for who? And for what purpose? Implementing an HTML tag that will attempt to charge you money is wrong on so many levels. If I walk into a store (click on a link), even though I know there's stuff to buy there, the store (website) doesn't have the right to charge me just for walking into the stor…

> Implementing an HTML tag that will attempt to charge you money is wrong on so many levels.

Just a quick clarification. The HTML tag doesn't charge you anything. It just indicates that the website participates in WM and provides a location on where the website can accept a payment.

You still need to subscribe to a Web Monetization provider that actually makes the payment and calculates the amount.

You have 100% control over whether you want to participate in Web Monetization or not.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#360

Post by MaxBarraclough »

etripe wrote: post #357
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your post boils down to "we should be glad it isn't as bad as it used to be". It doesn't. I responded to the complaint that there are now many competing subscription services. > That doesn't at all imply that the current state is desirable. I don't see any problem with there being multiple competing subscriptions, and you've not pointed any out. Your other complaints are valid but are on different topics. > Dependi…

First off, thank you for taking my post in good sport despite its... empassioned nature. > For a show like Game of Thrones, releasing an episode a week is important to enable 'water-cooler conversations' about the show, which many viewers enjoy. That's a fair point I hadn't considered. One could ask whether that decision is up to the distributor, but that's a quibble. > These are both annoying, but streaming services…

> Would you agree reliable recommendations would be a value-added service?

Yes, and I agree it's annoying when they play games with these systems, when they could just make a product that customers like. In the case of Netflix, the interests of the user and the subscription provider are relatively well aligned. It's more of an issue in YouTube where people can be pointed to toxic lies. That kind of thing can have real consequences in the world, it's not merely causing people to waste their time online.

> How do you feel about, say, English subtitles not being available in a country that doesn't have it as a national language

If it's translation into a foreign language then that's a different matter. The disabled access point really only applies when it's a native language in the relevant region. Still a plus to have it, but I don't think it would make sense to withhold a show until it's ready.

> à la carte isn't always an option

Sure, I was generalising. These peculiar omissions do occur. There's still the option to buy/rent these things on disc, at least.

> curated, pop-ups telling me "what I've missed"

Good old FOMO-based marketing.

> these services aren't actually competing, since their content offering is mutually exclusive

That's still competition, they're competing on having the best shows. They're in no way obliged to all offer the same stuff.

If Netflix turns to garbage, downgrades everything to 480P, stops producing/licensing decent shows, increases their prices, and introduces adverts, then people will move over to Prime and the other alternative services.

> This diminishes the need for said service to distinguish itself on customer service, convenience and UX, since there's no one else offering the same content.

Not really, as they're not competing only on having the best shows. They compete on convenience and quality too. This is why Amazon has invested in support for Roku, PlayStation, Xbox, Wii U, Chromecast, Apple TV, many different smart TV brands, etc. Some competing services have made less of an investment in supporting these platforms, and are consequently less appealing to customers. Amazon are keen to highlight that with a Prime subscription, you get 4K content for no additional charge, unlike Netflix.

> That makes me question the added value of the middle man for the consumer, but I suppose content producers see Netflix and co as the consumer, not you or me.

You pay Netflix, and Netflix provides you with a streaming service and pays licensing fees to external content-producers. They're 'middle men' in a sense but they're earning their cut.

Content producers make money through Netflix, and through direct sales to customers through discs and through streaming rentals/purchases with services like Google Play Movies.

> They're competing like broadband providers are competing in the US, based on exclusive territory.

No, that's not a fair comparison at all. With the ISP situation in the USA, each individual customer has little to no choice about which ISP they will have to use. That's not the case here, where customers have many competing services to choose from.

This is competition in action. There's no reason they should all offer the same shows, instead they should compete to offer me the best shows they can, then I'll decide which subscription(s) are worth my money. Fortunately, this is exactly what they're doing.

> It's happened for some areas of retail and for the music business, why not for video content?

From the point of view of someone like Netflix, making a highly unusual show is a high-risk investment of tens of millions of dollars. I'd say they're doing a pretty good job of not being too risk-averse though: Stranger Things was hardly a sure bet, but we can be sure Netflix are glad they went for it. Competition with Amazon Prime is presumably one of the reasons they did it; they know they have to keep adding quality content to stay in the game.

> I'm imaging a blend of kickstarter mechanics and content aggregation systems

I don't know of any successful TV shows made through Kickstarter-style funding. I don't want to be dismissive of the idea but I haven't been given a reason to think it could be made to really work well.

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