zlacker

>>ra7+(OP)
I sympathize but it's hard for me to avoid the conclusion that this has already been decided.

Real journalism will be paid for and appreciated by the elite, and the public, the masses, will have to live with bad clickbait.

>>julian+Ii1
There is no law which says that it has to be this way

>>DarkNo+1H1
except nobody is willing to pay subscription fees for newspapers like we used to.

including myself, which im kind of ashamed of

>>saargr+tO1
I had the same comment in a previous HN thread and somebody responded noting something along the lines of, "I remember seeing free newspapers and magazines everywhere, especially in coffee shops." There are a few nits to pick about that but it stands that it was possible to get free news back in the day. If we did put subscriptions on most news then would places like coffee shops be able to offer those sources for free, maybe tied in with their wifi?

Also, and I hate to say this because nobody likes this model, but what if news took on a cable TV model where you pay $20/month and subscribe to a few different pubs, maybe even allowing you to make your own bundles? What if it was a box we could tick on our internet bill?

btw I subscribe to a few local news sites and the horrible thing is that it's becoming a slippery slope. Now even though I only hit science.org once in awhile for instance it's like, guhhhh I feel guilty for blocking all their trackers and ads, and I should pay something.

All the subscriptions I've seen deeply outweigh the cost of delivering the content to me. The Guardian had an interesting CTA where they asked me to subscribe for $13/month because I've read 20 articles this year. That worked out to about $1 per minute of reading time, which doesn't reflect the value of their work (and I think their work is pretty good!). If they had more subscribers would they charge less? And why does serving electronic content now cost so much more than a paper version?

>>troyvi+6n2
> Also, and I hate to say this because nobody likes this model, but what if news took on a cable TV model where you pay $20/month and subscribe to a few different pubs, maybe even allowing you to make your own bundles?

You're describing the New York Times subscription model, fwiw.