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New York Times Redesign

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Re: New York Times Redesign

#31

Post by Shivetya »

fragsworth wrote: post #19
abat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the intro price. It's $5/WEEK if you want nytimes.com + tablet apps. That's $260/year instead of $22/year. I would gladly subscribe if the long term rate was $5 for 12 weeks. See full prices here: http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp5558.htm...

Yeah, that's too much. And that's just for the NY Times... how many other sites are you supposed to pay for? I feel like there should be some technical way to handle letting a user pay a flat amount, and distribute the proceeds to the sites you actually visit, in a sort of fair way.

Yeah, its so damn much money....

Five dollars might buy you a meal at lunch at a fast food place, once, per week.

Five dollars might buy you a specialty coffee drink, once, per week.

Five dollars might cover your commute, bus fare, maybe once a week.

Five dollars a day won't even cover what most people put into car notes, its barely less than what many pay to play some MMOs.

So in the grand scheme of things its not a price point, people just like to gripe about having to actually pay for what they do not place value on, or sufficient value. Face it, far too many geeks do not see the complexity of delivering the news. Oh sure they see the web side but even then they vastly under estimate the costs to create the process let alone maintain it.

As with all other pay services, find those which are relevant to your needs, but damn, quit trying to tell these places how much it costs to run their business

Re: New York Times Redesign

#32

Post by majani »

ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

They are doing value-based pricing, not cost-based pricing. They feel that the content is worth 5 bucks, and so do their hundreds of thousands of online subscribers. If you don't, no love lost. There are other places you can get your news.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#33

Post by dsr_ »

eurleif wrote: post #22
crazygringo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer isn't environmentally friendly, but it has solid business logic behind it. From what I understand, upping their print circulation lets them charge more for print advertisers (which pays more than digital advertisers), so NYT has a strong financial incentive to make the prices for digital/print comparable, in order to try to convince people to get the print version as well, instead of just the digital. Beca…

>Because all print advertisers know are the circulation numbers -- they have no idea if you're actually opening it up or not, or just sending them all straight to the recycling bin while you read them digitally. Presumably the price of print ads is in some way related to typical response rate? Obviously there is less direct feedback than online, but advertisers aren't flying completely blind and just assuming people…

Oh, no. Print advertisers are almost completely unable to gather meaningful statistics. Prices are determined by circulation x a fuzzy notion of impact.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#34

Post by danielweber »

crazygringo wrote: post #16
kunai wrote: post #13

Most of it is good, but the thing that kills it is the inline comments. When I want to get down and read an article, I want to get down and read the damn thing, not be faced with comments that most often reiterate whatever's in the article anyway. Keep the comments where they should be – AFTER the article.

I wouldn't knock it until you see it. I'll be curious -- and NYT articles generally have curated "Times' Picks" comments that often genuinely add to the articles. Remember, most articles don't even have comments -- only the ones which the NYT deems comment-worthy, and they do put forth editorial efforts at quality control.

People who comment on the NYTimes are literate and can use full sentences. But beyond that it's about as useful as any other general-purpose comment board: a whole lot of self-selecting, self-important, in-group tribal bullshit.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#35

Post by mattlutze »

dredmorbius wrote: post #24
Alphasite_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope that you're joking...

The idea of some sort of syndicated media fee has occurred to me in the past. The main problem I see is that there's a fairly strong argument to paying based on your ability, so that wealth customers ought to pay more. Pricing information goods is hard.

Um...

The main problem is that it would create an economy where the the media outlets that produce the media desired by the paying authority (people are people and the fund will not be unlimited dollars) are prioritized over others, so that the only news will eventually be that which will be known to get you paid.

I.e., the controlling body -- I'm guessing a government entity, here -- will be the sole voice of the fourth pillar, and the whole notion of press freedom is buried and forgotten.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#36

Post by mattlutze »

ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

You can get internet and mobile access for $3.75 a week.

http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp5558.htm...

All of that content, written, designed and published by some of the best news producers in the world.

It's instantly accessible, from anywhere you are. Updated all the time.

I simply cannot understand how you could argue all of that is worth no more than $1. Even $5 a week for an Internet/mobile subscription is reasonable considering the volume of edited and proofed material you get.

It's unfortunate that the mashables and reddits of the world have so soundly devalued the expectation of quality in news reporting.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#37

Post by aestra »

gizzlon wrote: post #25
abat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the intro price. It's $5/WEEK if you want nytimes.com + tablet apps. That's $260/year instead of $22/year. I would gladly subscribe if the long term rate was $5 for 12 weeks. See full prices here: http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp5558.htm...

Just as a reference point: the digital only edition of one of the largest newspapers here in Norway is ~7$ per week and with the paper edition it's ~13$

Quick reference doesn't matter in this case, they don't compare...

The average income in Norway is $6909 (USD), monthly and the average income in the United States (which is kinda a useless stat since cost of living is significantly different in different places) is $2678 (USD) monthly.

I used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Norway

for quick stats.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#38

Post by ajays »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #26
ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

Well from what I've seen, the online version has no ads, while I'm sure the print version does; that'd compensate for the difference in price. They could reduce the online price if they plastered it with ads, but then, people would complain even more because they're paying for a site with ads (???) (and they don't complain about a newspaper with ads because they know it reduces the price). tl;dr: you pay for content…

If they guaranteed an ad-free paper, and guaranteed that they would not share my info with anyone else, then the price would be more appealing.

But they don't.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#39

Post by ajays »

cageface wrote: post #9
ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

Seriously? An extra dollar a month is a dealbreaker for you?

I dunno, maybe our math is different, but how are you getting $1/month difference?

Re: New York Times Redesign

#40

Post by ajays »

crazygringo wrote: post #15
ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

The answer isn't environmentally friendly, but it has solid business logic behind it. From what I understand, upping their print circulation lets them charge more for print advertisers (which pays more than digital advertisers), so NYT has a strong financial incentive to make the prices for digital/print comparable, in order to try to convince people to get the print version as well, instead of just the digital. Beca…

On the other hand: with the digital edition, they are able to track _each_ and _every_ thing you do on their site, and sell that data to advertisers. Try doing that with the paper version.
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