zlacker

>>uptown+(OP)
Although it's regrettable that Reuters' content will be harder to access, it's a positive trend for the news ecosystem to generate increasing revenue through a subscription-based business model rather than selling ads.

The more money that comes from subscriptions, the more that news coverage will reflect the interests of subscribers rather than advertisers.

>>rectan+4d
If subs-only model improves reporting and rids the pubs of propagandizing, I’m all for it. The price we pay now for free news is too high -click bait, us vs them, persistent shallow dives into inane subjects is taking its toll.

>>mc32+7e
Do you think the average man is going to rely on a news provider like Reuters after this change?

My father reads a lot of third party news but actually fact checks on Reuters. A lot of friends and colleagues skip third party news and read directly from Reuters, because it is free. With this change, I doubt a great many of them will continue with Reuters as a source, and would rather stop at a third-party localized news outlet.

Reuters provides facts, and very little opinion. People believe that facts ought to be free, and only worthy opinions are worth paying for.

>>fakeda+Uk
I don’t know.

People used to pay for newspaper subs before. In real terms, this price is relatively cheap. Gathering facts requires time, money and able reporters.

I know people got spoiled for a while with free news. It’s time to go back to reality and pay for good news reporters.

>>mc32+nn
Except that's not going to happen. Nearly every relative, friend and acquaintance of mine was a paying subscriber of the news before, but all have since moved to free digital, even though all of them can easily afford to pay for the rounding error. Expecting that whole set of people to go back to paying for news after more than a decade though, is going to be hard. People don't feel that news should be a paid commodity, simply because it's a commodity now. If they Google a topic and arrive at a pay walled site, they'll simply move onto another site that gives it for free. And this is in a world where 50%+ of the audience gets their news third party from social media, and not even news websites in the first place.