"audiences prepared to pay $34.99 per month for a deeper level of coverage" Holy crap...who is this audience? NYT is $4/month, WAPO is $4-6/month, etc. Edit: Ah, okay, intro pricing that shifts to ~$17/month after a year. Still, though, that's half of this proposed pricing.
NYT is $4/4 weeks (not per month) during its trial period. That plan jumps to ~$18/mo after that ($17 per 4 weeks => ~$18/mo). WaPo is similar.
The audience appears to be people who subscribe to Bloomberg, which is in the same price bracket.
"Reuters.com will remain free for a preview period, but will require users to register after five stories. It is not immediately clear when it will begin charging." Reuters reporting about Reuters in the third person is amusing. "We asked ourselves when we would begin charging but we didn't know."
Does anyone pay for these kind of sites? I just can’t imagine doing it. I already have streaming subscriptions I just cannot imagine paying for news. I know that is a problem for the internet and journalism in general but what person will buy a Reuters sub? I can maybe see a NY Times sub or WSJ for some people but it has to be the best of the best. And still I personally wouldn’t do it. I don’t need to know news. It’s likely the news will make me feel worse, as opposed to my streaming subscriptions which will make me feel better.
Although it's regrettable that Reuters' content will be harder to access, it's a positive trend for the news ecosystem to generate increasing revenue through a subscription-based business model rather than selling ads. The more money that comes from subscriptions, the more that news coverage will reflect the interests of subscribers rather than advertisers.
In my very personal opinion, based on the New York Times this isn't necessarily a good thing. Yes they cater to their subscribers but that's made them batshit crazy in their coverage.
(and Fox is just as bad, but its not an online publication for the sake of my point)
Although it's regrettable that Reuters' content will be harder to access, it's a positive trend for the news ecosystem to generate increasing revenue through a subscription-based business model rather than selling ads. The more money that comes from subscriptions, the more that news coverage will reflect the interests of subscribers rather than advertisers.
If subs-only model improves reporting and rids the pubs of propagandizing, I’m all for it. The price we pay now for free news is too high -click bait, us vs them, persistent shallow dives into inane subjects is taking its toll.
Although it's regrettable that Reuters' content will be harder to access, it's a positive trend for the news ecosystem to generate increasing revenue through a subscription-based business model rather than selling ads. The more money that comes from subscriptions, the more that news coverage will reflect the interests of subscribers rather than advertisers.
I'm not sure I agree. Ad-funded publishers will still get the scoop. While the lucky subscribers might get access to better news, the masses will be left with the dreadful reporting of the open websites.
I wonder at what point Google needs to pay attention to this. If a large number of websites are behind registration or paywalls, then the chance that any individual person searching would have a subscription (or registration) to any individual news site is pretty low. People might have some small number of subscriptions, but not for many sites. So, why keep returning search results that the end user can't use without…
I'm also curious whether googles core business will be affected.
It stands to reason that a subscription model reduces the dependency on ads and strengthens the negotiation position of publishers.
I'm pretty sure Google has made an art form out of being a rent seeking middle man.
Although it's regrettable that Reuters' content will be harder to access, it's a positive trend for the news ecosystem to generate increasing revenue through a subscription-based business model rather than selling ads. The more money that comes from subscriptions, the more that news coverage will reflect the interests of subscribers rather than advertisers.
The more neutral sites that go behind paywalls, the more people will turn to sensationalist sites which remain free. This divides the knowledge of the people, sorting the well off and the not into different news buckets.
Advertising-based is awful in itself, but I don't view this is a positive improvement.
"Reuters.com will remain free for a preview period, but will require users to register after five stories. It is not immediately clear when it will begin charging." Reuters reporting about Reuters in the third person is amusing. "We asked ourselves when we would begin charging but we didn't know."
Does anyone pay for these kind of sites? I just can’t imagine doing it. I already have streaming subscriptions I just cannot imagine paying for news. I know that is a problem for the internet and journalism in general but what person will buy a Reuters sub? I can maybe see a NY Times sub or WSJ for some people but it has to be the best of the best. And still I personally wouldn’t do it. I don’t need to know news. It’…
I'm not sure, but I would have thought it would be the opposite — you should not pay to read (or read at all) biased journals such as the NYT, WSJ, or Fox etc., and instead only pay attention to journals with minimal bias like Reuters and AP.
"Reuters.com will remain free for a preview period, but will require users to register after five stories. It is not immediately clear when it will begin charging." Reuters reporting about Reuters in the third person is amusing. "We asked ourselves when we would begin charging but we didn't know."
Does anyone pay for these kind of sites? I just can’t imagine doing it. I already have streaming subscriptions I just cannot imagine paying for news. I know that is a problem for the internet and journalism in general but what person will buy a Reuters sub? I can maybe see a NY Times sub or WSJ for some people but it has to be the best of the best. And still I personally wouldn’t do it. I don’t need to know news. It’…
I pay for NPR. I mean, I know that's different because their content isn't behind a paywall.
My mom pays for the NYT, but I think that's mostly for access to their cooking site.
I think these big news companies need to form a federation or something where you buy access at one and get rights to read over multiple different magazines.