Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Ads, actually.
By all appearances, ads are a lot like DRM; those that dislike them hate them with a vengeance but the vast majority of readers don't care enough to do anything about it.
The business has more or less stabilized on a two tier hybrid system with some content free, with a few *non-intrusive* ads for passers-by, and subscriptions/donations for the serious followers.
A sort of detente.
You see much the same thing with Youtube. A few short ads here and there, a few patreon supporters, a lot of free subscribers and "likers".
It's all about volume and the online audiences are really big these days. (Which includes pre-crisis.)
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So continue to do what they are doing which is already not working?
Before paywalls go up there tends to be pay cuts and staff reductions. That is why so many local papers have already closed.
What I was trying to say in my earlier post was that newspapers would have been better off if they had adopted paywalls right from the get-go. I remember listening to a podcast a while back about what the internet, news aggregators and Craigslist have done to their revenue. There were fights in the newsrooms about posting their content online for free in the early internet days. But the folks in charge just didn't understand how the internet would grow and take over.