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The desperation of NYTimes

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Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#251

Post by nickff »

notsydonia wrote: post #63
devindotcom wrote: post #15

It's not just them. Yeah, this is bad, but I get tons of unsolicited messages from any company I establish a basic relationship with. Every interaction I have with a store or site signs me up for some promotional thing, which I unsubscribe from immediately, only to find it's one of 4 different lists I was added to. Then 6 months later I receive some stupid new thing as they try to drum up engagement. One that particu…

It's nuts and I can't believe it works. It's interesting that you're getting bank P.R. fluff with that 'should be illegal' workaround - I've been getting them from my bank in Australia and wondered if we had really slack laws. A mass mail-out solution like - say - Mail Chimp would not let users do this. There has to be an unsubscribe link on mass-mail blasts and you should not be able to pretend P.R. fluff is suddenl…

>"It's nuts and I can't believe it works."

The success rate is low, but the problem is that it's an arms race, where every competitor is spamming, so each new entrant (or non-spammer) must try to spam even harder to compete. If one elects not to spam, they are at a competitive disadvantage. If there is an anti-spam law or regulation, this just benefits competitors from other jurisdictions, where it is difficult to enforce the rule.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#252

Post by bakul »

no_no_no_yes wrote: post #212
bakul wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s now one day only, at least through my library.

It's 3 days through mine. What's your library's page? I have a few library cards so I'm curious as to which ones have better or worse terms.

https://sccld.org/nyt-online/

It used to be 3 days until some time last year.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#253

Post by xnyan »

bluebarbet wrote: post #219
tptacek wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Washington Post is a national paper of record as well and it's in a tailspin; newsletters, games, and recipes are huge business areas of the Times.

There can only be one newspaper of record, that's the point. In a media landscape where everything became nationalized, the NYT leveraged its status to take the pot. Most of America's serious newspapers (Boston Globe, LA Times, Philadelphia Enquirer, all the rest) are now even more dead than the WaPo. The NYT, with its massive frontrunner advantage, did not need games and crosswords to win this battle.

> There can only be one newspaper of record,

I'm not sure I've ever heard this before. IIRC the term originates from liberians and can refer to papers of official record and reputational record.

The Wall Street Journal is highly profitable, and also definitely a paper of record.

https://libguides.mcmaster.ca/news/record

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#254

Post by danudey »

regnull wrote: post #203
epistasis wrote: post #3

NYTimes is predatory on subscriptions. Over my long lifetime I've subscribed twice, and regretted it both times with intensity. Any place that allows easy instantaneous subscription by a simple web form, but makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours for cancellation , is a toxic place. I've been told they have stopped this predatory practice due to some newly passed laws or something, but they…

Unsubscribe? And then miss out on all that excellent "There is another thing you should be worried about" content?

What, you don't appreciate opinion pieces like "Donald Trump is a convicted felon, serial liar, serial business bankrupter, Russian asset, dementia victim, alleged pedophile, and racist, sure, but what if Kamala was worse somehow? That would be awful, so I encourage everyone not to vote for her."

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#256

Post by AlexDragusin »

Reading this thread I realized something, I am just as annoyed with the upsells but have I e-mailed them and communicated my dissatisfaction with the family plan upsell popup instead of online ranting? No. I am wondering how many others did?

I'm gonna write them.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#257

Post by derfurth »

mikestew wrote: post #111
iscrewyou wrote: post #50

I was a subscriber and stopped simply because they have ads in the app. I could look past the slowness of the app than what a webpage could deliver but ads in articles for paid subscribers? Cancelled it.

The NYT, as well as just about every other newspaper, has always had ads in the print edition whether you subscribed or not. Subscriptions have rarely paid the full cost of producing a newspaper. In the case of magazines, I would argue that the whole point of the magazine is to carry ads that target a specific demographic. The articles are just there to make you buy it.

To me the issue is that ad vendors in the app knows what you read, the NYT have over 300 vendors listed in their privacy section, the Economist about 80. But if you refuse in the NYT they nag you over and over again for accepting cookies.

It’s crazy not to have privacy reading a magazine.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#258

Post by saghm »

> Because the messages are about your relationship with The Times, you are receiving them regardless of whether you are opted in to receive marketing emails from The New York Times.

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. Companies should never be abusing the fact that some messages are actually essential (e.g. "you requested a password reset") to pretend that random marketing stuff is not marketing when it obviously is.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#259

Post by yurodivuie »

angelofthe0dd wrote: post #96

I bought into the low-cost subscription offer a few months ago. Since then, I get a huge pop-up ad literally every other article, asking me to upgrade to all-family access. I also receive a similar email every other day. They must be very desperate indeed to have to nag me every other article to upgrade. The irritatingly incessant pop-ups have guaranteed that, not only will I NOT be upgrading, I will be cancelling my…

I had subscriptions to news, games, and cooking, but they were constantly trying to upsell me while still showing ads on their pages. It was so annoying that I canceled it all, even though I was using all three products regularly.

It's so strange. I was a happy customer until they made every interaction a sales push. It's like buying a timeshare.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#260

Post by saghm »

nickff wrote: post #251
notsydonia wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nuts and I can't believe it works. It's interesting that you're getting bank P.R. fluff with that 'should be illegal' workaround - I've been getting them from my bank in Australia and wondered if we had really slack laws. A mass mail-out solution like - say - Mail Chimp would not let users do this. There has to be an unsubscribe link on mass-mail blasts and you should not be able to pretend P.R. fluff is suddenl…

> "It's nuts and I can't believe it works." The success rate is low, but the problem is that it's an arms race, where every competitor is spamming, so each new entrant (or non-spammer) must try to spam even harder to compete. If one elects not to spam, they are at a competitive disadvantage. If there is an anti-spam law or regulation, this just benefits competitors from other jurisdictions, where it is difficult to e…

So then enforce the rule on the receiver side: people in your jurisdiction should have the right to be free from spam, and if you want to serve customers there, you need to comply. I'm pretty sure companies aren't going to opt out of the US market because if they're not allowed to send stupid marketing emails anymore.
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