Media Websites Battle Faltering Ad Revenue and Traffic
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
From what I read (even on HN) these people aren't just happy they can currently get most content for free – they actively loathe the so-called 'traditional media', to the point where they'd welcome the bankruptcy of the NYT or WSJ. It's going to be a dark future if we're to rely on tumblr to keep us informed. Donald Trump may one day represent the index case for the plague that killed the US's civil society.
I'm still hoping for media to find sustainability online. I don't quite get why there's no Spotify for publishers yet. I feel like I'm grossly underpaying for my media consumption – yet I'm not going to pay >250$-800$/yr to any single publication for the 4 or 5 articles I read per month. There must be millions of people who'd gladly pay 500$/yr for universal access.
If 1 cent looks too low, divide the price of a newspaper by the number of articles it contains.
And I want the privilege to read with an adblocker, to be fairly sure not to be tracked and spied.
And if pay per read will ever happen I'm quite sure we'll read less than now and we'll privilege free (as beer) information. After all I used to read only one newspaper and watch one or two tv news programs. Having to pay will make many people go back to that. That was sad too and people were easy to exploit by scarcity of information.
It won't be at <price of newspaper>/<articles per issue> because nobody reads every single article. There's also the slight complication that newspapers used to get about half their revenue from ads and classifieds and that's pretty much gone. We should find out in the next decade if there's an econmic model for journalism. If it turns out that there isn't, and if some sort of disruption hits TV as well... It's at least going to be interesting.