Hacker News Reader

Comment by chris_l | Hacker News Reader

Not sure about the decision to charge for the pdf, considering that they're reusing free content.

The free content is still on the internet, you're paying for the presentation and the format.

From a business point of view, it may be good or bad. I wouldn't like to guess.

On the one hand, they might sell more copies. Without a free PDF cannibalizing sales, it will be much easier to convince people to buy something. On the other hand, it will decrease their circulation, which will devalue their ads and job listings.

It will be interesting to know how the circulation numbers have changed after PDFs have been made paid.

Actually now that I think about it, given the nature of their readership, the marginal value of the ads should be above the $3 they charge.

Decreasing circulation doesn't necessarily devalue their ads or job listings. Why do you think so?

Well, for one, the 'reach' reduces drastically.

Yeah that caught me off guard as well. I'd be upset if I were an advertiser because it means not as many people are viewing my ads.

I always looked forward to the beautifully laid out PDF version.

But now the people viewing your ads are the type that are willing to pay for things. The Wall Street Journal isn't free but commands a premium for ad space.

The wall street journal is huge in comparison both in readerbase and content.

Before the charge for pdf version there were a large amount of downloads which bearswithclaws used to appeal to advertisers now he doesn't even release numbers openly on the site so I would assume it went down quite a bit.

Edit: it also gets less traction on hacker news, and comments are far more negative, where before it was praise and discussing the content and quality.

Perhaps the leading article next time will be "Why paid plans don't work". (This months was 'why free plans don't work').

It's value-based pricing based on the presentation. This makes perfect sense to me.

I don't understand how they can print articles from online publications for resale. That's an outright violation of copyright law isn't it?

You're assuming this is put together by incompetent schlubs or Internet assholes, then? Give people some credit when it's due. I've read a couple issues and found the presentation and curated nature of Hacker Monthly leads to me more fully reading and digesting the content of the articles. When reading them on HN I tend to skim or read them to pass the time. Reading a print edition or PDF on my iPad is such a different experience, the work put into it and the nominal cost, to me, seems justifiable.

We obtain all permission from the authors before reprinting.

Thanks. That's what I was asking about. Not sure why Ja2ke assumed I was complaining about presentation. That's unfounded. I actually really like it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com