Won’t Subscribe • Hacker News Board

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#271

Post by jhayward » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #123

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…

There is easy solution for this: syndication/bundling. 1) You subscribe only NYT for $221.00/year 2) You subscribe NYT with digital syndication bundle for $521 and you get unlimited access to NYT and all other papers, including all local papers. The extra $300 is divided between papers according to the articles this subscriber reads from other sources.

It is amazing to me that this concept, syndication of subscribers, is completely unexplored at this late date and after such carnage in the industry.

There have been dozens or hundreds of content syndication efforts, all failures, but no one is doing the obvious thing for customer experience and syndicating their subscription.

Can anyone in the business (which I used to be in back in the early 2000's) explain this?

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#272

Post by sethherr » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

albumsrexp wrote: post #243

anentropic wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't limit myself to the music of one band, so i really appreciate spotify this is a bizarre analogy no one had to limit themselves to listening to only one band before Spotify

Back in the days of buying albums, comparable to the newsstand days, was certainly a lot more expensive to listen to multiple albums. There was the radio, but you weren't in control of that. You could make mix tapes, in the 90s. But you might have more of a tendency to prefer sticking to one band since you couldn't preview their albums before buying, other than getting lucky hearing a tune in the radio. Seems like a…

Minor clarification: mix tapes were not condoned by the recording industry, they were actively opposed.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#273

Post by cassepipe » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

I thought Mozilla had a plan for a global license. Did they give up on that too?

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#274

Post by paxys » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

grumple wrote: post #165

mnky9800n wrote: post #133

What's strange is it used to be you would pick up a newspaper at a stand for the day, pay a dollar or whatever, and then have quite a lot of articles to read for that day. But now, it is impossible, the only way is to lock-in. And that may be for the rest of your life if the complaints about the labirynth you may navigate to unsubscribe the nytimes is to be believed. If there was some sort of daily access pass that d…

These prices are just crazy compared to their old model. Do these papers really think they are providing as much value as Netflix (or more)? Even ignoring journalistic quality...

Why is that so crazy to think of? My New York Times crossword subscription provides me with more value than Netflix right now.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#275

Post by boulos » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

082349872349872 wrote: post #183

boulos wrote: post #68

Ezra Klein’s interview with Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post (formerly of the Buffalo news) included a lot of discussion on the economics of media and news [1]. Her conclusion is that historically the local newspaper(s) had a monopoly on advertising. That advertising shifted to national ad campaigns on television, national papers (so her transition from Buffalo is highly relevant), and finally online advertis…

If a public good is technically difficult for the private sector to produce, that still leaves the option of the public sector, or of individual households?

I’d actually recommend the discussion during the interview (kind of towards the end, IIRC).

There’s a decent back and forth about the risk of political influence in journalism if the money were controlled by a government, the relative pros and cons of the philanthropy model (“tend to prefer ‘serious’ journalism, not local small news” in addition to needing to avoid angering the benefactor), and the various donation / crowdfunding / micro transaction possibilities. I think there was also a little detour into “why ads at all?”.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#276

Post by dspillett » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

srg0 wrote: post #259

I can get that publishers may not see profitable selling access to individual articles. I can get they don't want to sell an individual issue like they used to sell paper copies. I can understand they have annual RPU target so short-term subscriptions are off the table. But not offering an option of a limited time subscription without auto-renewal is a scam. Auto-renewal should be an opt-in. Unsubscribing should not…

> Unsubscribing should not require a phone call

This is my bug-bare. It shouldn't be permitted for unsubscribing to be more difficult than subscribing. There are many examples where you can sign-up to spend instantly 24/7 but have to call, only M-F, 0900-1700, on a number that probably costs, and sit in a queue for a while, to unsubscribe. Even seemingly reputable periodicals do this (New Scientist: not sure if they have an online unsubscribe option, but they certainly didn't a not-long while ago).

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#277

Post by virgilp » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

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…

Here's the thing: with this model, it's (somewhat) easy to keep loyal readers, but it's maybe hard to get new ones.

I think this is the part that you're not disclosing here - how do you get new readers? A lot of times, a business like yours relies on the referrals from the loyal customers in order to expand. If you make it impossible for the "occasional reader" to read you, then by extension you make it extremely difficult for your loyal customers to refer you. Based on your "little annoying" comment, I'm guessing you don't do that. So this means occasional visitors are free to read your content, it's just annoying to do so - and you're relying on that annoyance to convert them to paid customers (should they find themselves coming back again & again).

I mean, it's a valid tactic. BUT - I don't think it's the only one. I do think "subscription fatigue" is a real thing - people will not be subscribed to countless services. As the competition for the subscription money sharpens, at least some publishers may find themselves pushed out of this model. I think that's all that Tim Bray was saying - and, I think he's right. There's unexplored potential out there, that you ignore at your own risk.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#278

Post by pronik » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:30 PM UTC

The one thing I find really bizzare about this whole web thing is that while we all pretend to be global, we are in reality even more local than ever. Facebook recommends me people I've never seen in my life just because someone I've went to school with moved to another part of the world and has friends there. Alexa (and probably Siri) doesn't understand my request for russian or japanese songs on Spotify even though they are available. And just like this, every publisher on this planet thinks that there is any value to me, a German resident, to shell out a significant amount of money for a monthly paywall subscription to Adelaide Times, just because someone sent me a link to an interesting article. I also will not subscribe to your newsletter, I have no interest in getting push notifications, I just want the article in question, I'm not local to your main information funnel. It's a whole another question whether I'm ready to jump hoops to pay for just this article, but your publication entity doesn't interest me one bit as it is.

As soon as publishers stop thinking locally, the world might become a better place for information. But somehow, I seriously doubt it.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#279

Post by gambler » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:31 PM UTC

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…

>That's by design; you're either part of our core audience, or we're filtering for whether you could be part of our core audience.

Are you one of those publishers who purposefully create a rentable filter bubble and then rage about how people outside of it don't take you seriously?

There is nothing wrong with having a well-defined audience. There is plenty of wrong with having audience defined purely by their willingness to read your stuff.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#280

Post by boplicity » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:33 PM UTC

It's clear that there is one problem that the article is trying to solve.

The irony, of course, is that it is not a problem for newspapers, it's a problem for the author of the article.

The author wants to read articles they don't have access to, and they don't want to pay what publishers are charging.

That's the problem.

Newspapers regularly create things worth reading. People want to read those things. They don't want to pay what the newspapers are charging. So, they suggest a solution: "Give it to me for cheap!"

Sorry, but suggesting difficult and complex business models (with very low prices) does not help newspapers.