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New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

slate.com

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Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#41

Post by icebraining »

applecore wrote: post #33
jonathansizz wrote: post #11

I think it's pretty sad that so many people balk at paying very modest amounts of money for high-quality material. It's as though everything that's available on the web should be free, just because it's on the web. It's the same with people moaning about paying a couple of dollars for an app or even installing pirated versions rather than paying. There's something seriously wrong here. The New Yorker costs $50/year -…

To get the most value from high-quality writing, I need to be able to share and discuss it with others. A paywall stops me from doing that.

That depends on the paywall; some give you a private URL you can use to share the page with non-subscribers.

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#42

Post by chadgeidel »

kbenson wrote: post #22
Ricapar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just let me spend small amounts so I don't become aware of my own habits. ding ding ding Amazon's mobile app does this excellently with the One-Click purchase. And don't even get me started on Steam sales. I dare not look at my spending history on either of those two.

For me that's GOG.com and the Humble Bundles. I keep telling myself that someday I'll have the time to go back and beat Baldur's Gate, or any of the hundreds of other games I've bought on sale. Fat chance...

One of these days I'll do something like this: http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1jg15u/so_i_actu...

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#43

Post by superuser2 »

marcell wrote: post #39
digitalsushi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had this thing to deliver content for 20 years (the web) but in the same 20 years no one has invented a simple way to pay for the content. I'll balk at 50 dollars a year the same way I'll balk at 3500 dollars worth of gourmet coffees paid on January 1st. Just let me spend small amounts so I don't become aware of my own habits.

Bitcoin makes it very easy: http://www.coinwall.co

No, it doesn't. The intersection of New Yorker readers and people who already possess Bitcoin would be infinitesimally small.

This would, in fact, mean "Open a Coinbase account, scan your drivers license and passport, link your bank account, do the two-small-deposits thing, initiate a transfer, wait the first-time-purchaser waiting period, and then read the article. Weeks later."

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#44

Post by GrinningFool »

dublinben wrote: post #10
thathonkey wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pay wall isn't meant to attract people who "rarely read" the New Yorker. Those are the consumers they are OK with losing because they didn't make up an appreciable demographic for their business model anyway.

Readers are readers. They now have zero chance of converting me into a paying subscriber, since I can't read their articles. With a more flexible paywall, I can be encouraged to subscribe every time I'm linked to an article.

But they had a zero chance of converting you to a subscriber to begin with. You represented only an expense to them.

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#45

Post by jahewson »

discardorama wrote: post #34
jonathansizz wrote: post #11

I think it's pretty sad that so many people balk at paying very modest amounts of money for high-quality material. It's as though everything that's available on the web should be free, just because it's on the web. It's the same with people moaning about paying a couple of dollars for an app or even installing pirated versions rather than paying. There's something seriously wrong here. The New Yorker costs $50/year -…

My main problem is with the fact that these publications (not necessarily New Yorker) charge me as much (or even more) as the printed version for the digital version, even though the costs associated with the digital version are significantly lower: no printing, no mailing, no delivery, etc. Case in point: NY Times. Home delivery to where I live (SF, CA) for a week: $8.45 Full digital access: $8.75 (or $5.00 for Tabl…

On the other hand the printed edition has no servers, no CDN, no developers, no sysadmins, no pay-per-click advertising pipeline, no app developers, no tech support, and no 30% to Apple for Newsstand.

I'd like to see what the cost differences are, but it's pretty hard to speculate.

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#46

Post by contingencies »

I just spent a few hours trawling through these and recommend http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/30/swingers-2?curr... (bonobo research), http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/05/how-to-be-good (a philosopher's defense of moralism) and http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/master-of-play?... (interview with miyamoto of nintendo).

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#47

Post by brown9-2 »

davidf18 wrote: post #4

Well, I hope that authors that currently publish in The New Yorker such as Dr. Atul Gawande, Dr. Jerome Groopman, and Malcolm Gladwell switch to a different publication such as Slate so that everyone can read their well written, very important articles about healthcare and other fields.

You realize the paywall gives non-subscribers more access to these TNY articles than before, right? Before this current "free access" thing, 99% of New Yorker articles were not available online.

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#48

Post by keithpeter »

jonathansizz wrote: post #23
tomjen3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might not object to paying 50 bucks a year, but I read articles shared by dozens of people on different websites so it would be more like ten times that, to different publications. I very rarely actually go to any one publications website.

I'm sure there's a better way for authors to get paid. Would you pay (say) $1 for a credit for any five articles from the archives of a magazine, with free previews to help you decide? Or would you pay for a Netflix-like service for long-form materials?

If we are talking about £50 per year, I'd quite like email subscription to a service that popped out a couple of long form articles per week selected from a range of good quality publications. Just plain text. Its the writing I enjoy. I imagine licensing of the content a month or two after publication would not be outrageously expensive. Just expensive.

Yup, Reader's Digest for 21st Century.

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#49

Post by e15ctr0n »

I recommend reading the following 2 stories:

Cheap Words: Amazon is good for customers. But is it good for books? By George Packer | February 17, 2014 Issue

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/cheap-words?cur...

Change the World: Silicon Valley transfers its slogans — and its money — to the realm of politics. By George Packer | May 27, 2013 Issue

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/change-the-worl...

This second story was discussed last year in context of Rebecca Solnit's article on a similar issue. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5189580

Re: New Yorker Stories to Read Before the Paywall Goes Up

#50

Post by georgiapeach »

ch4s3 wrote: post #27
adrusi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slate article calls it a "metered paywall" which means that unsubscribed users will be able to read a limited number or articles per week. You'll probably be below your limit every time "the occaisional article" pops up.

Not to mention that if you're the free rider type, you can just read the articles in incognito and avoid the metering issue.

You don't even need to go incognito.

There are extensions available for every major browser that will let you set detailed cookie policies, such as wiping per-domain cookies once every x hours or x days.

This can be set up once, and then be completely transparent to the user afterwards.

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