Windy city

I have never come upon a paywall while casually browsing the news and thought, "Let me get my credit card out."

It's always, "I don't need to know that badly."

Mar 4 at 5:10pmWeb
Show threaddotmavriqMar 4
@pheonix
Same
Show threadAndrew PontiousMar 4

@pheonix @catdad Yup!

I mostly find out world events from someone I know mentioning it on social media, anyway.

Show threadWill Mar 4
@pheonix @minego In a few months, my very affordable digital subscription to my local newspaper will jump to over $20 per month. It often has news I haven’t seen elsewhere, but my dude, that price seems excessive for what it is! Streaming services are almost half that.
Show threadloucoveyMar 4
@AncTreat5358 @pheonix @minego either you get your news subsidized by advertisers or by readers. Can you think of other options?
Show threadWill Mar 4

@Loucovey @pheonix @minego No it does make sense to support news. It is more of sticker shock for someone on a small fixed income that still wants to know what is going on in the community.

It’d feel better if it were still a local paper, but it’s part of a large conglomerate.

Show threadFlesh & bone by the telephoneMar 4

@AncTreat5358
@Loucovey @pheonix I agree, paying a subscription is reasonable.

Paywalls, constant popups, and ads all over every page are not reasonable.

Show threadWill Mar 4
@Loucovey @pheonix @minego I wish there was an option to pay per article read instead plus overhead. I recall that was a thing a few decades ago.
Show threadloucoveyMar 4
@AncTreat5358 @pheonix @minego there are options like that. Depends on the publication. I find subscribing to Apple News gets by most of them. But I get more annoyed by opinion articles behind paywalls. I don’t think most opinions are worth 2 cents
Show threadWill Mar 4
@Loucovey @pheonix @minego Totally concur on opinion pieces. Apple News subscriptions give a lot of value, but I wish they’d dial down the in-interface ads if you pay.
Show threadloucoveyMar 5
@AncTreat5358 @pheonix @minego Of course, Apple rapes the news providers monetarily, but at least they get something
Show threadStryder NotaviMar 5

@AncTreat5358 @Loucovey @pheonix @minego This.

There's too many news sites out there for subscribing to all or even most of them to be a viable option.

Let me pay per article. If you want me to consider a full subscription give me a way to see how much I've spent on articles from you to date - a subscription becomes a lot more compelling if I already know your reporting is solid.

Show threadWill Mar 5
@StryderNotavi Great idea of being able to see article purchases over time.
Show threadStryder NotaviMar 5

@AncTreat5358 A related idea would be the ability to pay a bit after reading the article to create a gift link.

Since people will want to share good reporting, the outlet benefits both monetarily and in reputation from good articles / coverage

I suspect the harder nut to crack will be administering the micropayments themselves. Presumably you'd need some intermediary where people pay into a "wallet" and can then nominate sites to pay (with the actual payments being batched to manage transaction costs).

Show threadloucoveyMar 5
@StryderNotavi @AncTreat5358 you don’t need to subscribe to all of them. Pick one. You will get what you need
Show threadStryder NotaviMar 6

@Loucovey True, but there's two challenges here:
* Figuring out which outlets are doing good quality work that I should consider subscribing to (vs those who aren't doing proper fact checking and/or are just cribbing from others original reporting).
* Sometimes theres a single article that's of interest but the outlet in general isn't relevant to me (mostly covers a different geographical area, or focuses mostlt on topics that I don't have an interest in).

In both cases, some way of paying a small fee for a single article would be quite useful.

Show threadloucoveyMar 6
@StryderNotavi can’t disagree, but that’s why I use Apple News and ground news. That gives me variety and comparison. I also get Al Jazerra and Sky News.
Show threadWill Mar 6

@StryderNotavi These are great ideas. I like the suggestion paying a certain amount for gift links that will also benefit the newsfeed.

And the micropayments does sound tricky. If not done properly, they could easily lose money from the transaction fees imposed.

Show threadloucoveyMar 4
@AncTreat5358 @pheonix @minego ground news is a good option. $5 a month and you get distillates and bias reviews of multiple views
Show threadFlesh & bone by the telephoneMar 4
@Loucovey
@AncTreat5358 @pheonix Do they show ads if you subscribe? I've heard good things about them...
Show threadWill Mar 4
@minego @Loucovey @pheonix They do. It seems as many ads as elsewhere, except it unlocks a huge number of articles, which are peppered with small ads.
Show threadWill Mar 4
@Loucovey @pheonix @minego Thanks; will check it out!
Show threadWill Mar 4
@Loucovey @pheonix @minego One interesting thing is that a perk of my library is to have unlimited access to this paper. But it didn’t seem to work. I think I’ll follow up to see if I misunderstood.
Show threadWoozle HypertwinMar 4

@pheonix ...and, like, maybe I might decide to subscribe, if I think they're a good news source -- but then there are ten other sources that also charge. Am I going to subscribe to every single one of them just so I can read an article now and then?

I have to wonder why they haven't gotten together to offer group subscriptions for people who aren't daily readers.

Show threadAaronMar 5

@woozle

I was actually just wondering about this earlier today. I might actually be willing to pay for a multipass now that I have a regular paycheck. I definitely won't pay for them individually, though.

This also got me thinking... Are poor people just expected to not know what's happening in the world? Isn't that part of how we ended up with Trump?

@pheonix

Show threadIanto JonesMar 4
@pheonix exactly. "I'm not that interested," and immediately move on, without exception. Have often wondered what percentage of visitors do the same and whether the assorted site owners are attentive to the ratio.
Show threadLiohMar 4
@pheonix for me it's the same, just with cookies 
Show thread0megaMar 4
@Lioh @pheonix
Site: "Hey, wanna give me your personal data in order to see the content or would you rather choose a paid subscription?"
Me: "Sigh okay here you go. Now please show me the content."
Site: "Jokes on you! You've got to pay me $12,99 to see the article 🤡"
Me: "​​"
Show threadfan boy 🪭Mar 4
@pheonix
But the Internet is supposed to be free!
Show threadBruno GirinMar 4
@pheonix same
Show threadThis is HellMar 4
@pheonix @redsad 💯💯💯
Show threadRusty KnightMar 5
@pheonix I hate those websites that won't let you read news unless you disable your adblocker, I just close them and find somewhere else.
Show threadSpace Burger Steve 🌌🍔🤪Mar 5
@RustyKnight07 @pheonix Ditto. I don't even have an adblocker, I specifically leave it turned off. I block trackers though, funny how they don't say that's a problem...
Show threadgovinda hari dasaMar 5
@pheonix
I've been getting enough propaganda free all my life, I'm not going to pay to get more.
Show threadNazoMar 5

@pheonix The few times I thought I needed to know, I found another way. Archive.ph/whatever, other news sites, something. There's always another way without giving out private info or credit cards.

The sooner they realize this, the better it will be for everyone...

Show threadChookMother 🇦🇺🦘Mar 5
@pheonix Same.
Show threadmillennial fulcrumMar 5
@pheonix "let me get my close tab hotkey out"
Show threadbaffiMar 5

@pheonix
The same here.

But: In Germany we have a newspaper-website which take a different approach.
Everything is free to read, but you get the chance to pay for an article after reading without the need to subscribe.

I´ve paid 1 or 2 Euros several times to this news-outlet.

Show threadWindy cityMar 5
@baffi I like this idea!
Show threadNitin KhannaMar 5

@pheonix @baffi

The Brit paper The Guardian also has this approach. Asks for 5-15 dollar monthly "support" at the end of the article.

Show threadJack Yan (甄爵恩)Mar 5
@baffi @pheonix Can you please show me a link? It would be great to adapt this idea.
Show threadbaffiMar 5

@jackyan @pheonix

There it is:

https://taz.de/taz-zahl-ich/all-you-can-read/!v=1de02231-6e4e-4740-968a-5a7cbe5495a1/

All you can read

Niemand muss taz lesen. Aber wer will, kann. Unser Journalismus ist nicht nur 100 % konzernfrei, sondern auch kostenfrei zugänglich. Texte, die es nicht allen recht machen und Stimmen, die man woanders nicht hört – immer aus Überzeugung und hier auf taz.de ohne Paywall. Das ist dank Ihrer Unterstützung möglich!

TAZ Verlags- und Vertriebs GmbH
Show threadJack Yan (甄爵恩)Mar 5
@baffi @pheonix Wonderful, thank you so much!
Show threadSteve HoldenMar 10
@baffi @dibi58 @pheonix Sounds a lot more creative than “pay us, or we’ll show you ads.”
Show threadbaffiMar 10

@holdenweb @dibi58 @pheonix

There are Ads, obviously.

But no "special" Articles behind Paywalls like at many other Media-Outlets.

Show threadIncident Creator ❎Mar 5
@pheonix
It has its uses. Makes people search for the original source...
Show threadBerg am Laimerin (v2)Mar 5

@pheonix

I pay regularly (via SEPA transfer) a small amount to a good news paper which allows everyone to read freely without paywall or a lot of ads.

My parent has a digital subscription of another newspaper which has ads and a lot of articles paywalled. If you are logged in, you still see ads, recently the ads did overlay the articles partially hiding them.

I prefer the first model... (even if the second one allows to have family members logged)

Show threadScript KiddieMar 5
@pheonix - I always think my "Remove Paywall" add-on for Firefox is a very nice tool ;)
Show threadKeith MilnerMar 5

@pheonix for me it's " that's a site to remove from my feed".

If I felt the need to pay for news, I would be more picky about the sources.

I certainly wouldn't pay for about 90% of the sites I see which are either plagiarising articles from other sites or clickbaiting (one of my local newspaper sites does that).

Show threadWylieCoyoteUK Mar 5
@pheonix
This is happening more and more, from local "news" sites that are mainly clickbait slop, to Recipe sites and even a TV listings site FFS!
I like the Duckduckgo button to remove that domain from search results.
Show threadNitin KhannaMar 5

@pheonix to everyone in this thread... I was reading a thing recently where people were comparing not paying for news to not paying for church. Thoughts?

The article also dissed on the idea of micropayments, because so few people actually do that, according to the author.

Show threadEd DreistadtMar 5
@pheonix I give it one shot with removepaywalls.com and then move on
Show threadSteve DowneyMar 5
@pheonix
My email address is too much to pay.
Show threadFreediverXMar 6
@pheonix
Archive.is