Never thought I'd see the day where a Playboy article is on the top of HN. Great read.
I'm starting to think we need a curation platform for long-form content. Preferably a subscription service that can solve the paywall problem elegantly. I don't use music subscription services because I want to keep the music, purchasing a file makes more sense. But I never save articles, I don't have the time to re-read them. Subscription seems perfect.
How much would I pay for such a service? Potentially a lot. If it could get me past any paywall or even just the most common ones I run into, I might pay a hundred bucks a month for it. I can consume a lot of long-form articles, many many more than I can books or movies. Subscribing to a magazine has too little signal-to-noise, I'm not looking for just any article to read. Nor do I have enough time to read a whole magazine.
Mostly free, but if you subscribe you will get lots more (great) mostly long-form articles, and in cases where the article would normally be behind a paywall, they will do a special version for thebrowser's paying customers.
I find glancing through the medium.com homepage works pretty well if I'm just looking for one or two stories to read.
If you keep an eye on vanity fair, the atlantic, new yorker, the sunday times and a few others, you're likely to read most of the good stuff.
Better revenue streams might increase the supply. You are right that a model similar to music is needed – I'm not going to pay 100$+/year for a magazine subscription, but I'd gladly pay 40$/month for 'the netflix of journalism'. I've also seen quite a lot of writers publish kindle shorts which could become 'the itunes of journalism'.
Actually, I think the free comments are what make HN great?
>Jobs: If I want to tell you there is a spot on your shirt, I’m not going to do it linguistically: “There’s a spot on your shirt 14 centimeters down from the collar and three centimeters to the left of your button.” If you have a spot—“There!” [he points]—I’ll point to it. Pointing is a metaphor we all know. We’ve done a lot of studies and tests on that, and it’s much faster to do all kinds of functions, such as cutting and pasting, with a mouse, so it’s not only easier to use but more efficient.
Amazing. Thanks