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The rich niche

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Re: The rich niche

#31

Post by liber8 »

ssivark wrote: post #28
dwater wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This took a lot of my mental energy when I was a teacher. I didn't have any of my bills on autopay because I had to constantly manage when I would have enough money in my account to pay any given bill. Even now that I'm much more comfortable I only have about half of my bills set to autopay just in case, e.g., one bill comes due the day before my paycheck lands in my account.

Seems like it would be a fantastic feature for payment processors to provide scheduling! (and negotiating with subscription providers to operationalize that) I dunno how many Bay Area SWEs/PMs can even grok such a lived experience, for them to prioritize it as a feature request.

I've never seen a credit card that did not allow you to schedule your payments. If you auto-pay everything with credit cards, then by default you are scheduling your payments. Same with mortgages. For the few things that don't accept cards (rent/water/gas/electric?) you could schedule payments whenever you want through your bank, though you'd likely be paying in advance rather than in arrears.

Re: The rich niche

#32

Post by sanderjd »

sandworm101 wrote: post #6

I was recently a rep for the office's annual charity drive. At the end of it our office (west coast) was compared to offices in other parts of the country. While we had lots of one-time donations, literally nobody signed up for "workplace giving", to have money regularly taken off their paychecks. It is about fear an uncertainty. When people are stretched thin they will still give money when they can. But when is key…

Really great insight. I have absolutely seen this in my own approach to subscriptions. I cancel them when I work for startups and sign up for them when I work for big stable companies.

Re: The rich niche

#33

Post by ghaff »

xyzzyz wrote: post #8
hammock wrote: post #4

Author's argument seems to be that the only profitable publishers are subscription-based, and therefore cater to the rich, because only the rich can afford subscriptions. That seems to ignore...the entire history of publishing. Like how a newspaper used to cost a quarter and everyone read it.

The newspaper price was heavily subsidized by ad revenue. If the paper had to depend solely on the sales revenue, the price would have had been much higher than a quarter, and consequently, much fewer people would buy it regularly.

This probably isn't exactly correct but, as I recall, the idea was that the subscription/newsstand revenues paid for the printing and distribution of the physical paper while advertising paid for the creation of the content.

Re: The rich niche

#34

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

"one valid criticism often leveled at them is that they are catering to rich and influential people"

It's not actually a valid criticism, and it is also not a problem.

Anybody who worries about that is free to launch another publication targeted at whomever they fancy.

What IS a problem is that people really think that kind of thinking has merit.

Re: The rich niche

#35

Post by AlbertCory »

hammock wrote: post #4

Author's argument seems to be that the only profitable publishers are subscription-based, and therefore cater to the rich, because only the rich can afford subscriptions. That seems to ignore...the entire history of publishing. Like how a newspaper used to cost a quarter and everyone read it.

For my book, I did a ton of historical research, mainly the LA Times (via newspapers.com). You can get a free trial of that without paying, but the subscription price is pretty nominal. You can probably get a paper from where you grew up, too.

Anyway, it's pretty eye-opening to see how much of the paper in the late 70s was ads. Like, 3/4 of most pages in the front section, after the first three. The Sunday paper was 300+ pages. They were raking it in. They could afford to subsidize some foreign bureaus.

Why was that? There was no other good way to reach the Southern California audience. I got my job at Xerox by answering an ad in the Sunday Times.

So they had a monopoly, and now it's gone.

Re: The rich niche

#36

Post by brimble »

liber8 wrote: post #31
ssivark wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it would be a fantastic feature for payment processors to provide scheduling! (and negotiating with subscription providers to operationalize that) I dunno how many Bay Area SWEs/PMs can even grok such a lived experience, for them to prioritize it as a feature request.

I've never seen a credit card that did not allow you to schedule your payments. If you auto-pay everything with credit cards, then by default you are scheduling your payments. Same with mortgages. For the few things that don't accept cards (rent/water/gas/electric?) you could schedule payments whenever you want through your bank, though you'd likely be paying in advance rather than in arrears.

I've never paid bills from the CC side, but from the provider side. I don't even know how I'd tell my CC to automatically pay some entity on a set schedule. It's all pulled by the service providers, separately, on whatever schedule they decide (or choose to let me configure). I know I can do it with account-to-account transfers (so, electronic checks) from my checking account, but had no idea that was a thing for credit cards. Where do you tell it to send the money? Do you have to get bank account info for the receiver?

[EDIT] On reflection, I've even built subscription systems reliant on credit card payments, and didn't know you could do this.

Re: The rich niche

#37

Post by escapedmoose »

I’ve been a subscriber to the print edition of Wired for about 4 or 5 years now. Lately the ads and articles targeted at the absurdly-affluent have got on my nerves, and I don’t think I’ll renew again. I can’t say whether this is because the ads are now more pervasive, or because I’ve become more class-conscious over time.

As a side note, does anyone find it ridiculous that a combined household income of $100k is supposedly “affluent?” When my partner and I broke that barrier, we were living in a shitty apartment with a roommate. Didn’t feel affluent

Re: The rich niche

#38

Post by [deleted] »

brimble wrote: post #36
liber8 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen a credit card that did not allow you to schedule your payments. If you auto-pay everything with credit cards, then by default you are scheduling your payments. Same with mortgages. For the few things that don't accept cards (rent/water/gas/electric?) you could schedule payments whenever you want through your bank, though you'd likely be paying in advance rather than in arrears.

I've never paid bills from the CC side, but from the provider side. I don't even know how I'd tell my CC to automatically pay some entity on a set schedule. It's all pulled by the service providers, separately, on whatever schedule they decide (or choose to let me configure). I know I can do it with account-to-account transfers (so, electronic checks) from my checking account, but had no idea that was a thing for cre…

[deleted]

Re: The rich niche

#39

Post by ForHackernews »

escapedmoose wrote: post #37

I’ve been a subscriber to the print edition of Wired for about 4 or 5 years now. Lately the ads and articles targeted at the absurdly-affluent have got on my nerves, and I don’t think I’ll renew again. I can’t say whether this is because the ads are now more pervasive, or because I’ve become more class-conscious over time. As a side note, does anyone find it ridiculous that a combined household income of $100k is sup…

> does anyone find it ridiculous that a combined household income of $100k is supposedly “affluent?”

It's 150% of the median household income[0] in the United States, so no I don't think it's that ridiculous.

[0] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-27...

Re: The rich niche

#40

Post by jseliger »

escapedmoose wrote: post #37

I’ve been a subscriber to the print edition of Wired for about 4 or 5 years now. Lately the ads and articles targeted at the absurdly-affluent have got on my nerves, and I don’t think I’ll renew again. I can’t say whether this is because the ads are now more pervasive, or because I’ve become more class-conscious over time. As a side note, does anyone find it ridiculous that a combined household income of $100k is sup…

Depends on where you are and who you are. Housing costs vary dramatically across the U.S.: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388.

In addition, most zoning regulations reduce the supply of housing and thus raise prices as demand go up. Someone who bought a place in California or New York or Boston 30 years ago may have seven figures in a primary asset and relatively low earnings.

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