I started to notice that more sites are turning into paywalls, and I don’t like that and would prefer ads over subscriptions.

I am curious, what does the general community think about that?

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    51 month ago

    You realize that if newspapers offered a federated service (pay once, you get them all), they’d make money hand over fist?

    But noooo…each newspaper wants you to pay.

    I’d pay upwards of $20 a month if that guaranteed me access to the major newspapers (NYT, WaPo, LA Times, etc.) and my local one with one subscription.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      141 month ago

      Your local library might give you free digital access to most (or all) of those, if you haven’t checked.

    • @athairmor
      link
      61 month ago

      I’m not saying it’s a bad idea but it’s interesting how similar that is to cable TV.

      Of course, cable TV was largely ad-free at first then you ended up paying for it and getting ads.

    • Prison Mike
      link
      fedilink
      21 month ago

      I do this with Apple News. Not sure if anything like it exists, but what worries me is Apple cut their News development staff recently which makes me think people (at least Apple users) don’t value journalism enough to support it.

      • Swordgeek
        link
        fedilink
        21 month ago

        Apple is worth THREE AND A HALF TRILLION DOLLARS!!!

        Say that again. Three and a half trillion dollars.

        They have cash-on-hand reserves of in excess of $60bn. They could give every single employee $200,000 and still have half of it in the bank.

        Tim Cook is a relative pauper in the CEO game, with a net worth upwards of two billion. He could personally pay a team of a three thousand reporters with full benefits and remain a billionaire.

        It’s not people refusing to pay for journalism, it’s robber barons refusing to pay journalists.