No Advertising journalism

[Sheilbh]

One interesting point I've seen on the UK right is that they wonder if they're losing the "battle of ideas" because the right-wing papers are all paywalled and used to have quite vibrant and free comment/blog sections. By contrast the Independent is funded by ads and the Guardian have subscribers (who "support" the Guardian's journalism) but no paywall.

Among the many way it sucks, is that the user experience is terrible. The ads are annoying.

Yep. There are a number of local papers in the UK that are barely useable because of the ads.

Also from an EU perspective there is a big question of whether the current ad-tech environment is legal.

[Berkut]

The primary target audience, IMO, is people who right now subscribe to one of the main pay subscription news sources. I think I pay $10/month to the NYT. I would be willing to pay double that, if I can get access to all of them.

I don't know if $25 is too much, but I am thinking that would be the minimum to make it viable. I'm not sure that is true - maybe it could work at $20?

Maybe it cannot work at all. I don't know if the NYT, as an example, would be interesting in risking losing the people who are paying the $10/month.

[Berkut]

If they charged per article you'd still need to click an authorization to get to the article (after the fixed time cost of setting up the payment information).  How is that any better than clicking out of a pop-up?

I would set it up so that you pre-approve a certain amount of expenditure that you would not have to click per article. Maybe you buy a bulk number of credits, so no need for a per article authorization.

The advantage over this than just going to CNN.com is, like I said, the CNN.com content without any ads, anywhere. Basically, you pay CNN directly, instead of indirectly through an advertiser.

Ideally, something like this would become pervasive enough that maybe we could get out of the advertising model for journalistic income entirely.

[viper37]

There is press reader, 30$/month, IIRC:
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/le-journal-de-montreal/20191112

You can see a lot of newspapers in their "scanned" version.



There are "hotspots" in some public places, like libraries, where you can use it for free.

It is not what you are specifically talking about, but it is a similar service.

[The Minsky Moment]

On a somewhat related topic, Jimmy Wales launched a social networking site to compete with Facebook and Twitter that operates on donor supported, zero advertising model.  Will not be affiliated with Wikipedia but the funding model will be similar.

[saskganesh]

They are not just newspapers anymore, they are branded multimedia platforms, with print, video, podcast and social media annexes (among other things). Reach is global. More people outside the UK consume the Guardian then domestically. Just for example. CBC, BBC, NYT, Al Jazeera, WSJ, many others of course, in the same boat.

Some of the best newspapers don't even have print editions, which is a huge legacy cost. Online start ups like Canadaland fund everything they do on Patreon. But the Globe and Mail has a printing contract they cannot and will not break, and a core of loyal and intelligent but aging readers who read every word of the dead tree pulp that arrives at their doorstep every morning. G&M cannot afford to lose those readers for another decade.

I agree a nonprofit model is the best way to go. But the revenue has to be high enough to pay journalists to do the work, notably the investigative side, but also to sustain knowledgeable beat reporters. Yadayada. It's a tough business, lots of competition, all trying to figure out how to make the internet pay for them.