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Won’t Subscribe

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Re: Won’t Subscribe

#71

Post by corty »

boplicity wrote: post #60
notimetorelax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were printed newspaper I could go and get one for a few bucks. Digital has nothing to offer of that kind. As the other poster wrote, how else would you expand your readership?

> As the other poster wrote, how else would you expand your readership? By creating a valuable product, finding potential costumers, and offering the product for sale. Why would it be different than any other business? It would be ridiculous to expect every SaaS business to offer their services for "a few bucks", and yet, for some reason, people think it is egregious that publishers don't do this. Bizarre. Though, I…

Articles are more of a product that is sold, and less of a service. There is no close interaction required like in a real service business. A service customer has to interact with the service provider and therefore a longer-term ongoing relationship is beneficial to both.

But even then, a low-individuality service can be one-off and is expected to be. Think e.g. of a car wash. Or renting VMs in the cloud.

So I don't think newspapers, selling their totally unindividualized, standardized and prepackaged good (can't even pick just the sports section) is anything like a "service" or comparable to most SaaS. However, they continue behaving like it saleswise, alienating their readership

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#72

Post by phendrenad2 »

gombosg wrote: post #7

How would you pay for individual articles? Up-front? (If not, that's called donation.) If so, then what happens if you happen not to enjoy the content? Will you (users) feel like playing lottery every time you purchase an article? Feel disappointed for the purchase you just made? Or just quit paying on a certain site, for a certain author etc. after reading too many 'bad' (subjectively) articles? From this standpoint…

Yep, it's the same problem we've had for a decade. Microtransactions are far from frinctionless (sign up, enter a credit card). News sites need to band together and use a consolidated billing system, where you refill it when it gets low.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#73

Post by gpvos »

MattieTK wrote: post #62
wdrw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you get new loyal readers, if not by repeatedly proving your value to new occasional readers?

Something the New York Times have talked about recently is how they repositioned their subscription offers in the opposite direction to Tim's suggestion recently to great success. The whole idea is to offer long trials at reduced prices, and I presume push this offer harder and harder to users that keep visiting regularly enough to look like potential subscribers. Once a user hits subscribe, a bunch of other systems…

The NYT and Guardian have me in that first stage now, but the chance that I'll upgrade to something more expensive is again, like Tim writes, ultra-close to zero (the Guardian is pay-what-you-want anyway, and it seems to work for them). My main news expense is my local national newspaper, and other papers will always remain secondary news resources for me unless they develop the same kind of coverage of the Netherlands.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#74

Post by kubanczyk »

Beldin wrote: post #48
dijit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about the micropayments future. The thing holding it back is some kind of central authority that can process micropayments with significantly less friction and overheads. Even better if people can accrue credit in some way that isn’t just paying fiat currency in, because we live as a privileged class to have disposable income that is essentially in escrow.

We have de facto micro payments: ads. There is very little overhead for users. There are a lot of downsides to ads, but it is the most successful micro payment mechanism we have. It is also the most successful online business model we have. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Wow, that's really an inspiring model. Thank you for sharing.

Attention as a replacement for hard cash. Hmm... So, how to control its spending as a consumer - that's the question. We're like natives selling land for glass beads. Can we omit ranting and make that a technological problem somehow?

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#75

Post by jimkleiber »

notimetorelax wrote: post #27
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…

If it were printed newspaper I could go and get one for a few bucks. Digital has nothing to offer of that kind. As the other poster wrote, how else would you expand your readership?

Hmm, what if they offered a one-week or one-month access pass that didn't auto-renew. Would you be interested in something like that?

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#76

Post by dijit »

ketamine__ wrote: post #42
dijit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about the micropayments future. The thing holding it back is some kind of central authority that can process micropayments with significantly less friction and overheads. Even better if people can accrue credit in some way that isn’t just paying fiat currency in, because we live as a privileged class to have disposable income that is essentially in escrow.

Brave browser is doing exactly what you described.

Can I take payments from other browsers? I think what’s missing is a service, not a browser.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#77

Post by onion2k »

comex wrote: post #61

> So, says Mr Manager, “Why on earth would I invest in selling individual articles when a click on the “Subscribe” button gets me a hundred times the revenue?” > Why they’re wrong: Their arithmetic didn’t consider their chance of getting me to click on “Subscribe.” Didn’t it? Sure, maybe Tim Bray would have been willing to buy an article for $1 even though he wasn’t willing to subscribe. Maybe a lot of people would h…

But if, out of every 100 people who buy the article for $1, a single one of them would have otherwise become a subscriber (if the micropayment option weren’t available), then the paper lost money on net.

I don't think Tim Bray is suggesting removing the subscription option. The point is that there could be a price for an individual article as well as the subscription option. If that 1 person would subscribe anyway then the lack of an individual article price is just leaving the other 99 payments on the table.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#78

Post by seanhunter »

notimetorelax wrote: post #27
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…

If it were printed newspaper I could go and get one for a few bucks. Digital has nothing to offer of that kind. As the other poster wrote, how else would you expand your readership?

There are a few apps (eg The economist if I recall correctly) which allow you to buy specific editions without a full subscription if you want to.

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#79

Post by jmnicolas »

In France the state is funding massively the mainstream press since it's not economically viable. As you can imagine it has done wonders for plurality of opinions and journalists feeling free to criticize the government ...

Re: Won’t Subscribe

#80

Post by gpvos »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #26
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…

At least for newspapers this model can’t work. When considered as a civic function to ensure unbiased access to facts and emerging critical stories, your approach is completely at odds with consumers, even loyal customers. The reason is that the market signals emitted by loyal readers don’t have any relationship to objective reality. Loyal readers might disbelieve evolution and only respond to articles that favor cre…

Being entirely dependent on subscribers is still better than depending only on advertisers. There are quite a large number of people who actually want their newspaper to apply sound journalism whatever it takes. Advertisers just want attention. Of course, a mix of both is probably the best.
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