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Comment by mrwh | Hacker News Reader

I had to read the email I got about this several times because it didn't seem to make sense. Hang on, my New York Times subscription is going to end in September and then... that's it? The Kindle is wonderful for reading newspapers on, and now - what? And why? I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change. I'm also sure that I've never seen a deprecation so poorly communicated.

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Amazon doesn't want you to have a subscription to the New York Times. Amazon wants you to have a subscription to Amazon Unlimited, which would include access to the New York Times. Amazon would then pay the New York Times and all other periodicals an amount that Amazon thinks is fair based on how many people are reading their articles, like Amazon Unlimited books.

This is very bad for big periodicals with many subscribers. Under the current model, they get a predictable amount of income and are motivated by keeping the bar high for their content, lest they lose subscribers. Under the new model, their income is entirely based on how many people pick up that issue and read it, which makes it very hard to budget. It also likely means an inevitable slide into "politician SLAMMED other politican, and you'll NEVER BELIEVE what happened next" headlines, since extra clicks are very directly your periodical's source of income.

This is very good news for Amazon because it gives them far more bargaining power against publishers. Right now, if The New York Times decides that Amazon's terms favor Amazon too strongly, the Times walks, and Amazon doesn't get any more money from Times subscribers. Under this system, if the Times walks because Amazon terms favor Amazon too strongly, Amazon keeps the subscribers.

This is moderately good news for customers who read a bunch of stuff on Amazon Unlimited. You now get to read whatever you like for probably around the same cost, and the stuff you naturally choose to read will end up getting a bit of money from it. Yay.

This is probably moderately good news for niche, popcorn periodicals. If you have a "Werewolf Romance Weekly Short Fiction" magazine or "DIY Productivity Tip Of the Week" newsletter, you'll quite possibly make way more money by attracting idly browsing Amazon Unlimited customers than you would have been able to if you had needed to convince people to subscribe to your service.

At the same time, having to subscribe to specific periodical keeps me from doing it all. I see the these subscribe pop-ups every time I visit a newspaper, at least 5 different newspapers per day. It is just not affordable to have 5 subscriptions, so I end up subscribing to none.

Having the option to do either seems like the better approach for a consumer.

Worded differently, removing one of two options is worse for the consumer.

But that's not the current reality, as basically no newspapers are on Kindle Unlimited.

Or even worse is Apple News where it's pieces of major newspapers like the WSJ and then dumbed down newspapers like USA Today and nothing of the caliber of Financial Times.

What I want is an app/site that has all the news, strong blocklists so I can get rid of junk (USA Today), stuff I'm just not interested in (Wrestling Today if such a thing exists), and get more stuff that I didn't know existed (Upper Siberian Mining Monthly :-))!

https://www.pressreader.com might be worth a look. I only have limited access through my German library card, but what I've seen so far I liked.

None of the libraries I’m currently a member of has it, but the next city over does, so I’ll see if I can join that library - thanks for pointing this out!

I like the reading experience of it using its app. It combines the physical and "digital" views well.

Whoa.

Where has this been all my life?

Reasonable price, great selection of periodicals and newspapers.

Definite value.

I pay something like €5 to The Guardian and $2 to NYT (which I read very occasionally) every months. And then another €15 to a Swedish newspaper. That is very cheap to support independent journalism.

Wow, $2 is a good deal. I feel I paid that little to start, but now NYT charges me $20 CAD a month. I regularly debate whether it’s worth it or not, and it definitely stops me from subscribing to other publications.

Good luck canceling that subscription.

This really isn't a big deal if you use credit card policy to your advantage.

When I canceled a subscription to a local paper (Dallas Morning News), their policy said I had to call to cancel. Instead, I sent an email informing them I was rescinding authorization to charge my credit card.

They initially responded stating that I had to call to cancel my subscription. One more email reminding them that charging my card without authorization would be credit card fraud turned out to be enough to have the phone call requirement dropped.

They have made it easier. It used to be that you had to call, but now you can do it on the web.

I had nine months of chargebacks before I finally got NYT to stop charging me.

They have made it easier [by law] for subscribers [in California].

Paypal has a one-click cancel option for any recurring payment.

They always increase the price after a year, and I go through the cancelling forms in their website until they offer me the lower price again. I guess that they know how little I actually use the subscription, so it’s no point in trying to get more money from me.

I hope your calling The Guardian and especially the CIA... I mean the NYT "independent journalism" is an elaborate joke.

The Guardian is one of the best examples of independent journalism. It's owned by the Scott Trust. It was set up by the original owner in the 30s to ensure editorial independence. People do sometimes confuse "editorial independence" with "taking an editorial line I personally disagree with", however.

Why do you think so?

Because publications like the NYT depend on access for their "journalism" [0]. Independent/investigative journalism requires an adversarial relationship to power, and looks more like [1]. In past decades, the establishment was occasionally forced to grapple with this [2] [3] but at this point the public discussion is so captured, it's no longer necessary.

Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent lays it out in depth.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/corres... [1] https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/releases/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee [3] https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/27/archives/cia-established-...

Not the original commentor.

As a longer time and now former NYT reader, it has definitely fallen off. It's abandoned balance and objectivity for trite left-leaning talking points. The breakup came when I realized I could not longer trust it to inform me to the depth and breadth I needed.

At this point, it's an average news publication - notice I didn't say journalism - riding on the fumes of its history. It's not bad. But every since the internet its become more and more generic.

You could try readly.com. It's around 12 USD/month for a huge amount of magazines and news papers.

These aggregators usually do not include 100% of the papers's content.

The magazines you can read on Readly are the full prints at least. Like a pdf-version of the hard copy magazine. I tried it for a couple of months and I did not see any difference or pages missing.

Just pick one to support. You can still visit all 5.

Preferably a local paper.

Thank you for the thoughtful explanation. I never thought about it from that angle before, that is such a powerful move from Amazon that I believe most of us can learn something from.

It's also known as "commoditise your complement": https://gwern.net/complement

"I'm sure we could learn something from how Amazon contributes to the destruction of something already both so fragile and crucial, the press" isn't exactly a good look, but go ahead.

> that is such a powerful move from Amazon that I believe most of us can learn something from.

I don't think that was the intended message here.

Except customers will just leave Amazon. Like they are doing with Music, and Video, and Prime. This move disadvantages everyone except Amazon. It should be investigated by SEC.

If customers leave Amazon surely that disadvantages Amazon too?

I've seen how they've made it harder and harder to download your entire music collection, as well as how they're pushing their music streaming.

At this point I'm just waiting for the same thing to happen to their ala cart music service, and it's very disappointing.

The NYT has held their quality standards up pretty well, but most of the newspaper industry had already raced all the way to the bottom by the time Amazon ever launched the Kindle newsstand.

That ship basically sailed away a long time ago. Newspapers gave everything away for free, raced the content to the bottom, and then after nearly 20 years of that finally realized it didn't work.

The content in your online newspaper needs to be very, very good if you want $20-30/month to read it versus the aggregated news services wanting $9.99/month to read news from a wide swath of sources. NYT is good, but it's terrible at replacing your local news sources.

I remember, that in Slovakia we had something like an "Amazon Unlimited", it was called Piano, but it ultimately didn't work. The problem was, that for large publishers it was not profitable, and the system more or less favoured small publishers. But after a few largest publishers left the platform, the whole offering was weak and not worth it.

If that's the strategy, it's weird that not even WaPo (a Bezos property) is on Kindle Unlimited when announcing sun-setting newspaper subscriptions.

Horrific to see another business model get put on rails resulting in a lowering of quality. Reminds me of MSN firing their news team and having AI journalists write all the articles. Now you get large walls of text with no overall message that often times are devoid of any conclusions.

> Amazon would then pay the New York Times and all other periodicals an amount that Amazon thinks is fair based on how many people are reading their articles

Presumably this would only happen after the NYT has first paid Amazon for access to the platform.

Aside from the NY Times and maybe Conde Nast this will be Amazon squeezing blood from a stone. Most publishers are barely treading water right now and are getting killed by off-platform news consumption.

> Amazon wants you to have a subscription to Amazon Unlimited, which would include access to the New York Times. Amazon would then pay the New York Times and all other periodicals an amount that Amazon thinks is fair based on how many people are reading their articles, like Amazon Unlimited books.

The "spotify model".

It's pretty bad for content creators. It is great for the distribution platform in the middle position. I think it's arguably pretty good for consumers, at least initially -- but generally the point is locking in consumers to eventually squeeze them, and I don't think it's great for _society_, which of course effects "consumers".

Giblin and Doctorow's _Chokepoint Capitalism_ is worth checking out. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/710957/chokepoint-c...

Is Amazon Unlimited a different product than Kindle Unlimited?

The headline based selection process you describe has been going on for over a decade now. And yes, the damage has been bad.

So basically they're transitioning to the "extinguish" phase of their business model?

Amazon shuts down subscriptions for me while saying Kindle Unlimited is not available in my country.

In other words they’re begging to be regulated.

For a bunch of reasons I'm done with Kindle. For a decade (~2010-2020) I've bought hundreds of books and read quite a few on Kindle. But from late last year when I started reading physical books again (Kindle version wasn't available) I've gotten to appreciate the physical form again. Nice fonts, ease of flipping pages, random access etc., And as an added advantage my kids now get to see my taste and maybe find some of books interesting just because they are on a rack. I'm back to building my physical library. Could also be due to me growing old. But I don't want to beholden to Amazon's whims.

I like this idea a lot, but the size of many of the books I read constrains me. I can slip the kindle into my pocket when going on an errand and read while waiting in line, etc. A physical book -- even a "pocket" book -- would necessitate some sort of carrying vessel.

Similar for magazines. I did subscribe to print issues back when I spent long times commuting on a train because I could just as well bring a print issue then. But now that I move a lot by walking or biking and would prefer to avoid bringing a bag of stuff -- I don't see it as equally likely.

How do you deal with that?

I'm not the person you're responding to but I'm the same as them, having gone back to physical books. I don't take books with me on errands, I read saved articles on my phone. Going on holiday I make a small selection and just have to live with that restriction. It doesn't feel like a particular problem because I've made the conscious decision to do it. There are trade-offs, but for me they feel worth it. The upsides beside the improved (for me) aesthetic are that your book doesn't run out of battery (I recognise that Kindle batteries last for a long time though) and no people or systems know what I'm reading, where I've read to etc. I find the gamification of reading on Kindle - certificates, streaks etc - extremely off-putting. I also like having physical books on the shelf, as it's a much more pleasurable experience than scrolling through the books on a Kindle and can be much more serendipitous. It's also a nice way of reminding myself of the books I still have to read. There's a nice article on that here: https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/do-i-own-too-many-books/

These are more or less exactly my reasons.

Last decade I more or less binged on books. I was chasing some useless metrics like number of books read. But COVID induced mass isolation made me take things easy and go slow. Since then I've learned to enjoy the process of reading and I realised physical books enable exactly that. So I don't feel like losing out if I'm not reading when I'm on an errand or I've some free time on my hand. Now when I step out I just absorb the surroundings and if I've to wait out somewhere I just wait without doing anything.

Also, I've reduced my range of interests from about 10-12 to 2-3 and I simultaneously read 3-4 books to get different viewpoints. And I take it real slow. I go a few days without reading any page it's totally cool. It helps me absorb and internalise the content slowly and thoroughly.

And I'm really enjoying the process of re-building my physical library because this time I'm doing it more deliberately.

Yes, totally agree on the more mindful rebuilding of my physical library.

The cost of buying both the physical and kindle version ain't much more.

Or if you sail the high sees under letters of marque, you could buy the physical and "obtain" a digital copy.

If I read a book I constantly jump to the same line. With adjusted fonts, font size, line spacing I do not have these issues. My kindle is jailbroken and runs KOreader. Even more funny the lowest brightness setting 0 would still have backlight on (stock FW - Kindle PW3). This isn't the case anymore. I read in bed on the sides and nothing is more annoying than a big book to hold.

If I want to read fast I prefer one word on the screen at 250-450 words per minute.

Not to mention that the ebooks are not cheaper, or if they are not by much.

This was mind blowing to me. I can understand games did not become much cheaper by being electronic-only (though it did give rise to much cheaper indie games) but like 16 years ago when Kindle came out, I thought paperless books would slash the consumer prices by at least half. Turns out the publisher just increased their margins.

This is where used books win, and why physical books need to exist. I will never purchase a digital file for $9.99. I have however purchased PDFs directly from the writer's website, usually for no more than $5, which is OK.

>I will never purchase a digital file for $9.99.

License

While the author's share has not increased at all.

The cost of printing a mass-market paperback is under a dollar if you're doing a large run. A hardback is a few dollars. Producing the physical book has a negligible effect on the publisher's costs.

The moment you want to lend a friend a copy they are more expensive.

Lately I've taken to reading almost only classic literature; since books published before 1923 are in the public domain, the ebooks are very cheap indeed (i.e. completely free via Project Gutenberg).

The other advantage of this approach is that classic works are better than the books I was reading before, and there are enough of them to last me several years at least.

I only use my kindle to read books I didn't pay for.

There are plenty of books from the past without copyright restrictions! Think about all the catching up you could do!

Also, you can read pirated books on your kindle device.

I refuse to go back to physical books. The Kindle is far easier to hold than a physical book. Ultimately it is more portable, because all books are the same size, no matter how many pages they have, and I can read them on multiple devices. The fonts are adjustable, which my eyes are not. I can have thousands of books in my library, which I cannot contain in my house.

The advantages of Kindle (or similar eInk readers) are overwhelming to me. Are the prices too high? Maybe, but if they're the same as print prices, what am I losing? (Ignoring the question of DRM and whether or not I own my digital editions or not.)

From reading the article and its subsequent links, it sounds like they're trying to transition from a la carte purchases, to an all-in-one Netflix model. It's probably just a power play against publishers - swap to Kindle Unlimited and take a [presumably] smaller cut, or get nothing at all. And I'd expect it to work.

I've had a Kindle subscription to The Atlantic for a long time. I only look at it from time to time, but the price is low, and I don't feel guilty when I read their website for free. I couldn't quickly find out if they're even on Kindle Unlimited, and I don't read enough to make KU worth it.

"I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change."

Call me jaded, but the older I get the less faith I have that this is actually true.

Oh to be clear, I'm including "VP responsible gets a bonus". I certainly don't mean necessarily a good reason for the rest of us!

Absolutely agree on it being poorly communicated, only heard about in this thread!

In terms of alternatives, buying an Android powered E-reader and subscribing to the publication via the app or the e-newspaper service could work, although it will not be as optimized for E ink of course. The advantage of Boox and other Android E-readers is that you can access whatever you want, and the browsing experience for text heavy websites is decent.

Exactly! Especially since most mobile browsers have a decent reading mode these days.

Does Calibre still do a good job of fetching the entire NYT and emailing it to the Kindle each day?

I used to use that feature heavily for a good handful of news sites.

Basically Amazon went Spotify on Prints ass.

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