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Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

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Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#121

Post by UncleMeat »

samirm wrote: post #105
UncleMeat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not scalable. This is like saying medical bills are under control because of GoFundMe. Some people can support themselves with patreon but the number is limited and it requires tons of work for zero pay while you build a follower base large enough. "Work for free for two years and maybe you will have a semi sustainable income" sucks. Crowdfunding also encourages extreme opinions and bubbles over neutral reporting.

Why does news have to be scalable? I don't understand your comparison to medical bills or gofundme either. >Some people can support themselves with patreon but the number is limited isn't that true for all industries? >Crowdfunding also encourages extreme opinions and bubbles over neutral reporting. lol wat. you got a source for that?

The NYT has like 4,000 employees. There are 40,000 journalists in the US (just journalists). All of patreon has 100,000 creators.

The number of sustainable journalists is much more limited using crowdfunding than other monetization models.

How many patrons are giving to high quality neutral journalism? How many are giving to people that they personally like and agree with? Look at somebody like Jordan Peterson for an example of how on can leverage culture wars (instead of quality analysis) into cash.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#122

Post by dragonwriter »

vorpalhex wrote: post #16
duxup wrote: post #6

I feel for sites that provide a service that want to bring users in, and still offer them some content up front for free. Having said that as a user I should be able to be anonymous at will too...

You can still offer people content for free and also not be defeated by incognito. Offer regular news articles for free, and make premium editorials and analysis require a (reasonably priced) subscription. But anecdotally, news orgs will never get my money while their subscription terms continue to be asinine. I will gladly give a newspaper $25 - $50 a year for access. I will not play these $X/week for odd week incre…

> Offer regular news articles for free, and make premium editorials and analysis require a (reasonably priced) subscription

Why would they offer facts for free and charge for the opinions they are trying to use their reputation on facts to promote?

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#123

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

dymk wrote: post #107
brandmeyer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this was a tiny minority, too. But a key takeway from https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-n... was this statistic: "26% of Internet users are now blocking ads." Its a minority, but its not tiny.

Very, very probably only to declutter their screen. Does the survey collect intent about why they install it? I doubt anywhere near 26% block ads because of tracking. I doubt even 1% if users even understand what tracking means.

Many of them probably also didn't set the ad blocker up themselves - they have tech-savvy relatives handle their computer stuff, and those tech-savvy relatives have realized that fewer ads means fewer malicious social engineering ads means less malware to remove during the next visit.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#125

Post by DangitBobby »

dymk wrote: post #39
hedora wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, publishers should probably just accept that any tracking is unacceptable, so if they want people to pay (and therefore login), then they need to stop funneling data to ad networks and other PII aggregators.

Who says it’s unacceptable? The incredibly tiny minority of readers coming from HN?

Where do you get the impression that it's a minority?

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/most-americans...

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#126

Post by pkaye »

mschuster91 wrote: post #48

News publishers should get their asses together in one building and build a "netflix for news". No I don't want to register or put my CC info at your US 10k town TV station with a single overworked dude managing IT just to follow a reddit link, but link yourself with a central ID provider that manages payment and does not disclose my personal data, and I'd be in for it.

I think none of this will work in the long run. There is too much content available for free. I have a digital magazine subscription (access to 1000s of magazines) but I hardly ever use it because there is so much alternative content. I might cancel in the future.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#127

Post by DangitBobby »

ungzd wrote: post #49
aorth wrote: post #40

The title is confusing click bait and the article content is garbage... "intrusion attempt"? "master key"?

What is even more ironic is that it has anti-adblocker.

Which can be circumvented by sophisticated hacking techniques such as pressing escape before the page finishes loading all the bullshit

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#128

Post by reaperducer »

vorpalhex wrote: post #119
greenburger wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not clear what newspapers you’re looking at but NYTimes has these options that seem to meet your criteria. https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/gift

That's $200 a year for a newspaper I read about once a week and that doesn't even get me their cooking section.

That's $200 a year for a newspaper I read about once a week

Seems reasonable to me. Important journalism isn't free. If you want free trash, Buzzfeed is your friend.

that doesn't even get me their cooking section.

Lucky you! From that same link someone else posted above you can subscribe to the cooking section for $40 for a whole year ($3/month). And then you don't have to have the newspaper that you're not going to read anyway!

But go ahead and move the goalposts again. We'll wait.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#129

Post by reaperducer »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #120
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is there is so much content available on the web, but there isn't yet a federated subscription service to support it all. I would pay ~ $5 a month for news access, but I'm certainly not going to pay 2 or 5 or 10 dollars a month for each random site I visit to read their couple articles that may interest me. I just will skip their content.

Sounds like Apple News?

Yep. And if the price of two cups of coffee a month is too much of a burden on one's wallet, there's always Blendle for 40¢ an article.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#130

Post by m-p-3 »

eli wrote: post #54
qmarchi wrote: post #10

There are going to be people complaining about the new requirement to have an account to view content. To the publishers, you should _really_ use some kind of federated login. Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. but don't forget those who are willing to have a unique account.

As a publisher, there's absolutely no way I'm letting Google, Apple or Facebook manage the identity or control the authentication of my readers.

What are you using for analytics or ads placement?
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