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You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

mcsweeneys.net

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Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#21

Post by amelius »

akulbe wrote: post #6
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #5

When I ask older family members where they were or how they reacted when some important event happened, they usually say something like, busy with real life. Being glued to the news is a modern phenomenon, it’s not the required state of being

I stopped watching and reading the news, in general. I have some friends who balked at the idea when I mentioned it. They'd say, "Oh, but how do you keep up on important news?" I don't. My life is better for letting it go. If something is genuinely important, and I really need to know - I always end up finding out somehow.

And yet, here you are, on HN.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#22

Post by throwaway237289 »

thinkingkong wrote: post #8

Its so wild to me that the business models of newspapers and journalism in general just dont translate well to the web. Like I get that people expect content online to be free and the alternative sources of information are freely available but its just so tragic. There are so few journalists who do investigative journalism in countries that are smaller because the ad revenue just isnt there. For example, there are a…

Is it surprising that the audience for "serious investigation into misallocated funds in local county" is extremely small? Is it really wild that you don't see this is a niche, that most people don't care enough to pay for someone to do that work?

It's not the web. It's democratization. And unfortunately, people would rather watch dancing cats then pay someone to tell them what their local county is doing. That's called consumer choice and fighting it is like fighting nature.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#23

Post by adolph »

exe34 wrote: post #17
red_admiral wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blogger siderea has talked about this a lot in relation to patreon, and the challenges for any platform wanting to replace it. EDIT: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1824441.html and https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1371510.html Apparently it comes down to how card processing fees work, as long as there's a constant fixed cost per payment (whether or not there is also a percentage fee), "microtransactions" become unecono…

i suppose you could make a $10 donation to the site and they could give you free coupons for articles.

The coupons could be on a cryptographic ledger so you have access to it from mobile/desktop/family members and any article could ask for payment from it or maybe different pricing for different sales funnel entry points. I think this is what Brave browser has set up, but I havnt been motivated enough to inquire.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#24

Post by bsder »

itsoktocry wrote: post #4
ReadCarlBarks wrote: post #2

Most sites use simple cookies or a localStorage entry to limit how many articles you can read in a month. You can bypass this with a private tab or by disabling JavaScript with uBlock Origin: * https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/open-in-temp-container/ * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-... * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

I mean, yeah? This entirely misses the point of the article. In fact, it couldn't have been a worse shot. I don't know enough about the economics of this stuff, but I'm willing to pay for good online writing. I have a national paper subscription, two magazines and a handful of substacks I subscribe to. But this feel like a price point issue for me. Why is everything $9.99/month (close to $15/month CAD)? Where are all…

> Why is everything $9.99/month (close to $15/month CAD)?

Money handling is expensive.

Rampant fraud is the big problem. Even if you don't ship physical objects, your system will get used to test out stolen credit cards, for example.

As such, anyone with two brain cells to rub together will immediately outsource money handling, which means that your minimum price is now limited by how much your processor charges.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#25

Post by rightbyte »

akulbe wrote: post #6
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #5

When I ask older family members where they were or how they reacted when some important event happened, they usually say something like, busy with real life. Being glued to the news is a modern phenomenon, it’s not the required state of being

I stopped watching and reading the news, in general. I have some friends who balked at the idea when I mentioned it. They'd say, "Oh, but how do you keep up on important news?" I don't. My life is better for letting it go. If something is genuinely important, and I really need to know - I always end up finding out somehow.

It is usually better to read about stuff like months later when the dust have settled. Watching CNN lazer focus on some "developing story" with almost nothing to talk about but gossip makes my head hurt.

If the local bridge is closed due to X people tell you.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#26

Post by erkt »

itsoktocry wrote: post #4
ReadCarlBarks wrote: post #2

Most sites use simple cookies or a localStorage entry to limit how many articles you can read in a month. You can bypass this with a private tab or by disabling JavaScript with uBlock Origin: * https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/open-in-temp-container/ * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-... * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

I mean, yeah? This entirely misses the point of the article. In fact, it couldn't have been a worse shot. I don't know enough about the economics of this stuff, but I'm willing to pay for good online writing. I have a national paper subscription, two magazines and a handful of substacks I subscribe to. But this feel like a price point issue for me. Why is everything $9.99/month (close to $15/month CAD)? Where are all…

Or some sort of system to pay per article. I’d toss a quarter here and there for content.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#27

Post by a2128 »

ReadCarlBarks wrote: post #2

Most sites use simple cookies or a localStorage entry to limit how many articles you can read in a month. You can bypass this with a private tab or by disabling JavaScript with uBlock Origin: * https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/open-in-temp-container/ * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-... * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

I learned once of a quick workaround that's baffling - putting a dot at the end of the domain name (example.com/page becomes example.com./page)

Apparently this usually still resolves to the same page but the browser treats it as a different domain with separate cookies and localStorage, so it would bypass the limit, but if you kept doing it then it'd probably accumulate free articles still and stop working

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#28

Post by lstamour »

itsoktocry wrote: post #4
ReadCarlBarks wrote: post #2

Most sites use simple cookies or a localStorage entry to limit how many articles you can read in a month. You can bypass this with a private tab or by disabling JavaScript with uBlock Origin: * https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/open-in-temp-container/ * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-... * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

I mean, yeah? This entirely misses the point of the article. In fact, it couldn't have been a worse shot. I don't know enough about the economics of this stuff, but I'm willing to pay for good online writing. I have a national paper subscription, two magazines and a handful of substacks I subscribe to. But this feel like a price point issue for me. Why is everything $9.99/month (close to $15/month CAD)? Where are all…

It’s like cheap Canadian cellphone or internet plans - you have to wait until a news org offers a deal, then sign up for it. Managed to get cheap NYT and WSJ subs from it. You have to cancel when the price goes up and then accept the offer at cancellation to keep your low price for one more year, forever.

Honestly, if my local library offered more online news subscriptions, I would much prefer that. How we ended up in this scenario where everyone, even Medium, shows me a paywall with high subscription fees to bypass it is not sustainable worldwide in the long run. I don’t mind paying for content, but keep it reasonable!

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#30

Post by hodgesrm »

zem wrote: post #7

wow, they nailed the "vague feeling of doom" tone. I continue to be impressed by the sheer quality of writing mcsweeneys puts out.

This one was poetry itself, down to the verse-like meter and the repeated refrain: "This is your last free article."

We are not worthy.

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