Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- paid_news [2025/07/19 06:04] – created particles
+++ paid_news [2025/07/19 06:10] (current) – particles
@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 I take issue with many of these details:
-**I don't want to subscribe to some website just because I visit a lot.** The problem with this dynamic paywall option is that it hurts people who visit a lot, but not necessarily people who depend on that particular source. I visit The Verge because the web design is nice and because I want to see if something new has been posted by someone I like. I do not depend on The Verge. If I depend on any tech news website, it would be TechMeme, because it encompasses all sources.
+**I don't want to subscribe to some website just because I visit a lot.** The problem with this dynamic paywall option is that it hurts people who visit a lot, but not necessarily people who depend on that particular source. I visit The Verge because the web design is nice and because I want to see if something new has been posted by someone I like. I do not depend on The Verge. If I depend on any tech news website, it would be TechMeme, because it encompasses all sources -- maybe a TechMeme subscription would make sense?
-**I do not want an ad-lite experience**: If I'm paying, why am I served any ads at all? The subscription should, at minimum, at least justify removal of all ads. If it doesn't, it's too cheap?
+**I do not want an ad-lite experience.** If I'm paying, why am I served any ads at all? The subscription should, at minimum, at least justify removal of all ads. If it doesn't, it's too cheap?
+**There is too little value from one individual source.** If I subscribe to The Verge, do I need to visit any other websites ever? If the answer is no, it doesn't really make sense. I can't subscribe to all news websites, so am I expected to pick and choose? Why is The Verge more valuable than Bloomberg or WSJ or Ars Technica?
+The idyllic news site would cover all of my interests in excruciating detail. But the reality is that few people are actually covered by this. People are diverse and have diverse interests, and the price of any one news subscription is relatively high, but the value presented is relatively low. If every publisher set a low price, it would make sense if the sum reached some normalized value ($9.99/mo for all news?), but they all have their own demands to meet, and none of them could be this cheap.
 ----
@@ Line 22: / Line 25: @@
 I have subscribed to various news sources over the years and I've never found that any one source is justifiable in a vacuum. These include mainstays like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to more esoteric things like The Information, Ars Technica, and Stratechery. The only thing I actually remain subscribed to is Stratechery, and that's because one person's analysis (i.e., Ben Thompson) is exclusively paid, there are no ads, and the analysis is worth it.
-None the mainstream/general websites I've paid for have been rewarding from a news perspective, and many of them suffer other paper cuts. I subscribed to Ars Technica once, only for them to skip out on sending me a subscription to Wired, instead sending Sports Illustrated. It also wasn't ad-free, and it never kept me logged in. WSJ and NY Times also failed to keep me signed in, giving me paywalls at every turn. I imagine that The Verge wouldn't have technical incompetency, but it just isn't a compelling enough product to pay for.
+None the mainstream/general websites I've paid for have been rewarding from a news perspective, and many of them suffer other paper cuts. I subscribed to Ars Technica once, only for them to skip out on sending me a subscription to Wired, instead sending Sports Illustrated. It also wasn't ad-free, and it never kept me logged in. WSJ and NY Times also failed to keep me signed in, giving me paywalls at every turn. I imagine that The Verge wouldn't have technical incompetency, but that's the bare minimum.
 ----
 I feel very strongly that the paid news model is broken. I was a huge fan of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor|Google Contributor]] for the reason that it theoretically allowed publishers to get micro payments depending on what I saw. I really liked this concept, and I really like it as it applies to news. It's economic incentive alignment: If I visit your site and read an article, you get paid. If you don't produce the content I want to read, you don't. Maybe this doesn't work for generalized publications, but I would really like to see it come back in some form.