Subscription Fatigue

[Tdarcos]

My tablet supports FM radio with a wired earphone plugged in. As it turns out I stumbled upon noted blowhard and hypocrite[*] Rush Limbaugh.

It was in the middle of his story, but what he was talking about were apps or websites that expect you to pay for a monthly subscription and some have different subscription levels. Then he pointed out this is the way newspapers are attempting to make money off their content since on-line advertising has dried up: 80% of all ad revenue goes to just two sources: Google and Facebook.

Originally newspapers gave away their content and used advertising to subsidize the price of the paper. They can't do that anymore except small newspapers can't use an on-line subscription method. Not many people are willing to pay for the Rochester, NY Democrat and Chronicle or the Sacramento Bee. Further, if you try to establish a pay site and your competitors don't, you ain't gonna get many takers.

But you have a problem when there are too many sites wanting paid subscriptions, whether they are 99c a month or $9.99, you can only have so many sites demanding payment before it gets to be too many, and you have "subscription fatigue."

Beyond that, CNN alone gives away a lot of news on their website; they make up the losses from other sources. This does not bode well for some newspapers trying to make a living.

One thing Limbaugh failed to mention is this threatens news coverage of important stories in small towns. Many important stories of public malfeasance and corruption only came out because the local paper could do so. The Washington Post's current slogan has it spot-on right: Democracy dies in darkness.




[*] When Limbaugh was having troubles with pain, he arranged to get extra prescriptions from multiple doctors for pain medications, a practice known as "drug seeking," an activity which, fortunately for him isn't illegal. However, he had savagely criticized this behavior in the past, and never admitted after his behavior became public, that he was wrong.

[Jizaboz]

I think it's a miracle that my local town's newspaper is still running. I used to work for the newspaper for a larger nearby city, where many of them poked fun at mistakes they made and being a small "out of touch" outfit. That larger newspaper keeps cutting and cutting their staff, while the local one is doing just fine.

One reason may be is there is a good deal of honest local reporting combined with opinion columns from both righties and lefties.

[Casual Observer]

I gave in to subscribing to the San Fran Chronicle and East Bay Times for just the Sunday paper, partially because they would lift the paywall. In the 3 month period I didn't open a single paper, just straight to the recycling bin so that's done. I had a free 6 month web subscription to WaPo due to being a Prime member but didn't continue when they wanted to start charging. I hate my town so couldn't care less about local news and anything important regionally can be found in multiple sources. I refuse to pay subs for news websites, in fact whenever I run across one I have Google News suppress it (goodbye Mercury News and NYT after my few free monthly articles). Between Xfinity, Verizon, and all 3 streaming services, I am not only into it for almost 6 bills a month but also have more "entertainment" than I can possibly use so I refuse one dollar more.

If these papers want to make some money from me on their content then they need to ink some deals with the internet providers and then lift their paywall for those customers.


Limbaugh is a blast, if you listen to his show he repeats his major theme at least 4 times an hour. He gives away iPhones to get his dittoheads to call in and re-enforce whatever bullshit he's propagating. It's amazing to me that there are so many sadly stupid people who buy into it.

[AArdvark]

I discovered if you open a New York Times article and then switch to reader mode (in Firefox) before it's done loading it will display the article. I don't understood how newspapers think online subscription services will ever work. If there's a paywall I simply go to a site where there isn't. Most of the time I only read the headlines anyway so Google News works just fine.

THE
SKIMHEAD
AARDVARK

[Tdarcos]

I discovered if you open a New York Times article and then switch to reader mode (in Firefox) before it's done loading it will display the article

Please explain this and how it's done.

[The Happiness Engine]

If you just clear your cookies NYTimes forgets about you. Ditto if you're running Ublock Origin and Ghostery.

[AArdvark]

I must say most of the articles aren't worth reading.

[Tdarcos]

I must say most of the articles aren't worth reading.

"90% of everything is crap."
- Theodore Sturgeon, also known as "Sturgeon's Law."

[The Happiness Engine]

Well, that wasn't the question I was asked to Help with.