We pay a bundle for entertainment, but not for news. And we get what we pay for.
How many entertainment subscriptions do you have? My cable TV package is just big enough to get the White Sox, plus more than enough reminders of the channels I can't watch. But wait, there's more:
- Netflix, even though I can't really chill
- Amazon Prime, because shipping is free
- MLB TV, filling the urgent need for baseball in March
- Peacock, for old Battlestar Gallactica
- HBO Plus, to watch competitive ceramics
- Apple Plus, because I bought an iPhone
- Disney Plus, because baby Yoda
- Hulu, because at least it isn't Hulu Plus
- I think I needed Roku to watch Apple Plus
- Maybe there's some other subscription kept on the down low
Now, how many news subscriptions do you have?
I have the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Block Club Chicago, New York Times and Washington Post. I have work accounts for quite a few more sites, which sometimes means when I log in the website gives my boss a cheery welcome.
I may be an outlier because I'm willing to pay other people for what they do. Most people heard the phrase "information wants to be free" and didn't think it was about censorship. They thought, yeah, I like free stuff!
So getting something for free is now the business model for the internet, as well as trade show exhibits, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The strategy doesn't hold up well.
As a boomer of course I'll admit I had a hand in every bad situation. My college newspaper experience was to go to the lunch counter at Rennebohm Drug, get a cup of coffee and ask if someone else's newspaper is stashed behind the counter. When I built websites in the 1990s, this was the experience I was trying to recreate.
The birth and death of online news
On paper, it seemed like we could. The 50 cents we were charging for the 5-Star Sports Final edition basically covered newsprint and printing costs; advertising paid for the actual newsgathering. What we didn't fully appreciate was that we'd never be able to charge as much for ads online. The Tribune's competition was not the Sun-Times but the internet. The entire internet.
Google was all too happy to compete on price. Google ads took off, then paid newspapers a fraction of that price to sell space on newspaper websites. A car dealer could decide the Tribune ads were too expensive, and instead buy Google ads on the Tribune website. (In theory we could block these ads, but they got through.)
We weren't making as much so we had to add more ads, which accounts for the obstacle course you now see on most news sites. Subscriptions were the only way out. If newspapers are growing (and most aren't) the successes are due to the subscriber who wanted to throw back to a reading experience that didn't make their brain hurt.
Google was all too happy to compete on price. Google ads took off, then paid newspapers a fraction of that price to sell space on newspaper websites. A car dealer could decide the Tribune ads were too expensive, and instead buy Google ads on the Tribune website. (In theory we could block these ads, but they still got through.) We had to add more ads, which accounts for the obstacle course you now see on most news sites.
Subscriptions were the only way out. If newspapers are growing (and most aren't) the successes are due to the subscriber who wanted to throw back to a reading experience that didn't make their brain hurt.
A blogger blocked me on Twitter for questioning his nostalgia for the days of paying pocket change for news. I only want to read one article from the Peoria paper, not subscribe; why can't I just pay a buck and be done with it? But most people no longer carry pocket change, and like my student self they'd scrounge to avoid paying anyway. Only pay for what you need is a popular insurance pitch, but coverage is closer to a subscription. Otherwise you'd only pay for the day you got in a fender-bender.
We seem to accept entertainment subscriptions, though there are some that I don't have, and subscription news is just a thing for news junkies. We'll scroll through our feeds for hours (till we all block each other) and think we have no right to encounter a paywall. We're not consuming Facebook as much as Facebook is consuming us. As a business model, this works for Facebook, and of course Google, because of the gobs of screen time we're willing to spend on their ads. The feed is not the product, we are.
From tip line to tip jar
There are alternatives to paying monthly or quarterly for news, but none are very satisfying. Newspapers have a continuing interest in micropayments, where you run a meter like a cab ride. Publications that attempt micropayments are notoriously unsuccessful, though, so it's unlikely to play in Peoria. Credit card or PayPal fees would take a large cut. The Winnepeg paper has a pay-as-you-go plan, at about a quarter per article. At last report it doesn't generate more than a five-figure revenue but it helps sell subscriptions as an easier way to ante up. A startup called Blendle (with the New York Times as a backer) developed a digital tip jar, but then shifted toward, you guessed it, premium subscriptions.
There are alternatives to paying monthly or quarterly for news, but none are very satisfying. News sites have a continuing interest in micropayments, which run a reader meter like an Uber ride. Publications that attempt micropayments are notoriously unsuccessful, so it's unlikely you could convince Peoria to take a chance. Credit card or PayPal fees would take a large cut. There's an argument that Bitcoin would resolve that problem, but most readers wouldn't find Bitcoin one bit easier.
The Winnepeg paper has a pay-as-you-go plan, at about a quarter per article. At last report it doesn't generate more than a five-figure revenue but it helps sell subscriptions as an easier way to ante up. A startup called Blendle (with the New York Times as a backer) developed a digital tip jar, but then shifted toward, you guessed it, premium subscriptions.
Knowledge is a Plus
The other alternative is a subscription more like a cable TV bundle. Apple News Plus (there's always a plus) includes Bloomberg, the New York Times and more publications that usually require a subscription. Apple keeps half the money, so likely it's happy with this setup. Still, the service is now just another tier in a bigger package that includes (what else) Apple TV Plus.
So what have we learned? It's fun to be entertained, but worth paying to be informed. We can learn on our own, thank you, says QAnon. No paywall here on John Podesta's pizza orders! Looking back on it, subscriptions seem like a good way to stay focused on the big issue of the day instead of, say, electorial integrity. But it wouldn't hurt to have more news about baby Yoda.
