David HoNov 28, 2024

Can’t help but think there might be a relationship between people complaining about paywalls and newspapers being bought by billionaires. We should be willing to pay for news because that’s how journalists get paid.

On the other hand, I'm 100% against paywalls in scientific journals. Research is almost entirely publicly funded, and scientists do all the work (have ideas, get money, research, write, review). Plus, we pay publication charges. All scientific journal articles should be open access.

Show threadBrianKrebsNov 28, 2024
@davidho I was noodling on a similar toot. I see tons of people here refusing to boost informative, timely stories just because they're behind a paywall. That seems incredibly short-sighted, for the reasons you mentioned.
Show threadRich Stein (he/him)
@briankrebs @davidho
Business model idea to boost much terrific "under the radar" (i.e., not nationally recognized) reporting: collective/cooperative model for news media other than national papers/networks to join. Subscriptions sold allow a finite n articles to be read from across news outlets per subscription pay period — can read the great article from Duluth while also regularly supporting the local paper. I thought some of the nonprofit news models might head in that dire — but not yet.
Nov 28, 2024 at 2:13pmMoshidon
Show threadBrianKrebsNov 28, 2024
@RunRichRun @davidho Yeah, it's a compelling idea that gets tricky in the execution. But I could see like a series of passes that get you N number of stories at any number of publications that normally require a paywall. Like, you buy 10 credits for $10 or something, and they're good for however long to read any story at the participating local news sites.
Show threadRich Stein (he/him)Nov 28, 2024
@briankrebs @davidho
Right. There are plenty of permutations to think about — annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, one time purchase, etc. There's also the opportunity on the news/media side for collaboration on big, investigative pieces across individual outlets. Some of the latter already occurs under particular umbrellas – e.g., data sharing/journalism collaborations.
Show threadDemianNov 28, 2024
@RunRichRun @briankrebs @davidho intriguing idea. Do you know if it’s been explored in more depth?
Show threadRich Stein (he/him)Nov 28, 2024
@dgodon @briankrebs @davidho
I do not. I've looked at some of the articles on nonprofit newsroom/newspaper conversions. Have not seen anything like it. Not sure that it interests tech bro billionaire media moguls. Too plebian – also it's an idea to rescue local newspapers, not make billions.
Show threadDemianNov 28, 2024
@RunRichRun @briankrebs @davidho yeah, has appeal as someone who would love a way to support many local or smaller newspapers but is not inclined to separately subscribe to them all.