Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/11/asking-members-to-support-its-journalism-no-prizes-no-swag-the-guardian-raises-more-reader-revenue-than-ad-dollars/

by gk1 • 9 years ago

841 349 9 years ago

niemanlab.org

JeanMarcS• 9 years ago

Does members having a tracker free access ? Because it seems fair that if you pay you are not in the "if it's free you're the product" anymore.

It's important to move to this model.

xxs• 9 years ago

Well, how do you get tracker free if you are already logged in. Tracking user action on its own is not a sin as business should know what customers are interested in. Selling the data to 3rd parties (and organizing the entire operation to support) is the dirty gray area.

floatboth2• 9 years ago

Third party scripts is what everyone is talking about, yeah.

Good example: MetaFilter does not show Google Ads to logged-in members.

cJ0th• 9 years ago

At least they promise an ad-free mobile experience. So there's a small chance they don't release the trackers on you.

https://membership.theguardian.com/eu/supporter?INTCMP=NGW_F...

Cthulhu_• 9 years ago

If you want tracker-free, just install the relevant blockers; you shouldn't have to pay to have those removed if you don't want them, and likewise / on the other hand, the Guardian will want to gather usage statistics from unsubscribed and subscribed parties both.

So if you care about trackers, enable do-not-track and set up your tracker blocker.

untog2• 9 years ago

It would be difficult to implement a membership model that doesn't have some tracking of whether you are a member or not. Exemption from third party trackers I totally agree with though.

dullgiulio2• 9 years ago

I think that could be done with anonymous tokens, like PrivacyPass.

amriksohata2• 9 years ago

The physcology behind this is more political than business, the guardian is a lefty newspaper and is getting political support

radmuzom• 9 years ago

While this comment is down-voted, it is not necessarily wrong. As an Indian, I was so exasperated after Americans voted a criminal as the President that I subscribed to multiple organizations which are considered left-wing by American conservatives or libertarians. These include regular fees to NY Times, Propublica and Guardian with occasional donations to various organizations in the United States.

netsharc• 9 years ago

The danger is that "leftie" journalists hang out with leftie friends and they tell themselves "All my friends are voting Hillary/Remain, Trump/Brexit will lose". and then we lefties get shell-shocked the morning after.

At least these papers are intellectually honest and admit mistakes, one trait of the right-wing, and their press, is the metaphorical putting fingers in ears and going "La-la-lala!".

floatboth2• 9 years ago

NY Times is far from "considered left-wing". It's currently heavily criticized for publishing terrible articles sympathizing with and humanizing literal neo-nazis.

otalp3• 9 years ago

NYT and The Guardian are not "left-wing". They are establishment liberal and have supported every major war the US has been involved in. They regularly slander anti-establishment and left-wing intellectuals[1][2] and for the most part hate or ignore people like Corbyn and Sanders.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/23/noam-c...

Chris20486• 9 years ago

I was so exasperated after Americans voted a criminal as the President

The other candidate was Hillary, so the Americans had no choice in voting for a criminal.

amriksohata2• 9 years ago

Don't know why this got downvoted, it's the same as dailymail or the sun, or times, they have right wing donors and subscribers

dullgiulio2• 9 years ago

Just they often happen to be a few billionaires that use the media platforms to push their agendas to get beefy returns.

I'm not saying all, but as a general trend.

otalp3• 9 years ago

There isn't a single left-winger I know who thinks the Guardian isn't mostly garbage. They are filled with Blairites, have long hated Corbyn, barely covered Sanders in their US edition and openly libel even moderately left-wing intellectuals before they are forced to retract their articles after their egregious reporting is pointed out.(eg: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/23/noam-c... and https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/nov/17/pressandpublis...)

The Guardian is for the most part the paper of liberals and Hillary Clinton fans.

Arnt3• 9 years ago

You're making an unsupported assertion that people pay for leftist writing rather than for quality writing.

Please supply arguments to support that.

Chris20486• 9 years ago

Assuming "quality" means accuracy/truthfulness, how can the average reader rate the quality of any writing?

f0553• 9 years ago

This. Years ago it was obvious to most newspapers that paid subscribers are their lifeline. Advertisers come and go, daily sales come and go, but long-period subscribers keep you afloat. Somehow, when the respected newspapers moved to the web, they forgot that, and kept pumping ads like crazy. This, in essence, moved the sense of their product from quality content to clickable content - these two don't mix. Consequently, this eroded quality journalism, investigative, explanatory view of the world (and let's face it, TV could never replace that void, as they are solely relying on ads to survive). And then, a lot of bad things happened with peoples' opinions and understanding. I am glad many outlets are now seeing the correct path. The best news source in Poland nowadays is a wealthy, but niche, "Dziennik Gazeta Prawna" ("Daily Law Newspaper") with great, balanced content on serious issues - that relies mostly on subscribers. The best English periodical I have found is Foreign Affairs, also a very subscriber-focused outlet. Note that both of these seem to offer much better content in their paper issues than online.

ghaff3• 9 years ago

My understanding is that paid subscribers (and newsstand sales) largely went into paying for printing and distribution while ads paid for basically everything else. Therefore, I expect that part of the thinking was that ads by themselves could pay for digital content creation and delivery.

It's also the case that most people assume that an outsized percentage of costs goes into the physical copy of things. At one point, this came up a lot when eBooks were getting big--though, in that case, the publishers ended up being able to hold the line fairly effectively.

Finally, there just aren't that many pubs that can really command a viable subscription price online--or really any at all. That the WSJ, NYT, and apparently the Guardian can isn't necessarily a recipe for a broader subscription model.

asfdsfggtfd2• 9 years ago

in that case, the publishers ended up being able to hold the line fairly effectively.

By effectively you mean steadily declining sales as people return to printed books.

Nursie5• 9 years ago

> t one point, this came up a lot when eBooks were getting big--though, in that case, the publishers ended up being able to hold the line fairly effectively.

I still get miffed when the e-book costs more than the paper copy. It's not like I expect them to be free, but when I'm buying the same product without the physical distribution, I would expect it to be <= the paper price.

wjnc• 9 years ago

Totally agree. Even my favorite subscription (The Economist) had a time where I as a subscriber felt too much content was given away for free online. They luckily turned that back and kept the ecosphere going.

psergeant• 9 years ago

The number of ads in The Economist is pretty irritating for paid content

drinchev• 9 years ago

Note that Guardian is successful, because of "supporters" and not >subscribers<. It's different than WSJ, where they lock the content, until you pay. The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one.

aleph_naught• 9 years ago

I really like the wikipedia model, but I know it wouldnt work for every outlet. I’ve contributed more to public radio and wikipedia than any other news service subscription.

Ideally, nytimes/wapo/economist would be completely open, and one would be able to ‘donate’ with a single press of the apple pay button.

I prefer that over yet another username password combo + subscription + app echo system I need to maintain.

Or best of both worlds: single click of apple pay button sets a cookie for 30 days of access; sends a courtesy reactivation email with a link in case you clear your cookies.

icc972• 9 years ago

Indeed, here's the relevant CEO quote in the article:

"We recognize we have to get more direct-to-consumer revenue over time, and the way we will do that is through membership-type propositions, but it’s going to be much more than a paywall. A paywall is to me an inverse loyalty scheme, where the more you consume the more you pay, which doesn’t seem to work."

harryf• 9 years ago

The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one

Have any newspapers experimented with crowd-funding stories? This Niemanlabs report suggests none of the big names had as of Sept 2016 - http://niemanreports.org/articles/crowdfunding-the-news/ - wonder if that's changed?

alva• 9 years ago

Important to note that the Guardian is not actually financially successful at all. They have been suffering heavy losses for years

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/01/heavy-losses-...

te_chris4• 9 years ago

Also worth noting: Jimmy Wales is on the Guardian's board.

beojan• 9 years ago

This, in essence, moved the sense of their product from quality content to clickable content

The same problem exists with paid subscribers / buyers. Just compare the circulation numbers of British tabloids to those of high quality British newspapers (which don't really exist anymore. Even the Independent and (to a lesser extent) the Guardian have moved toward pandering to their audience.)

bryanlarsen• 9 years ago

Back in the day, a typical newspaper made about 80% of it's revenue from advertisers (including the classifieds), and about 80% of its costs were printing & distribution. So free Internet distribution should have been 80% of the revenue at 20% of the cost... :)

jopsen2• 9 years ago

There is probably not as much money in ads as there used to be.

In the good old days there was no alternative to print media ads. Today there is so much more ad space available.

CaptSpify• 9 years ago

How much have production costs dropped from print to the web? I'm guessing it's not 80%, but it should be a fairly substantial amount.

skinnymuch4• 9 years ago

How much were the classifieds pulling in before in that 80%, do you know? I know classifieds used to be huge.

Craigslist could probably pull in multiple billions a year in profit and 10 figures in revenue if they went for revenue a lot more. Company value would probably be close to eBay level.

mtgx• 9 years ago

Also, unlike ads, which make you chase page views at all costs, paid subscribers will incentivize you to keep writing quality content, otherwise they will quit. Even if they sign-up because of a few sensationalist articles, they will eventually get bored with them, when they'll realize that 9 times out of 10 the headlines are just clickbait.

guelo• 9 years ago

If you make your content only available for paid subscribers than it doesn't get talked about. If you don't get talked about you lose the importance of being the so-called "newspaper of record". And if you don't get talked about you lose the new subscribers that come from word of mouth. In the old days there was just a few options available in a city and a handful of national papers. Today there is an almost infinite selection of available content. They also had the classifieds. This allowed business models that are not possible today.

JumpCrisscross• 9 years ago

If you make your content only available for paid subscribers than it doesn't get talked about

This doesn’t seem to apply to the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal.

VeejayRampay• 9 years ago

Also, individuals paying for a subscription have no effect on the editorial line of a given newspaper. There's been a case recently in France where a billionaire was involved in the infamous Paradise Papers. Some newspaper wrote a lengthy piece about it and it turns out said billionaire pulled 600.000 euros of ads from the outlet a few weeks later. Totally coincidental of course :)

That cannot really happen with actual subscribers. They can pull their subscription en masse if the editorial line doesn't please them, but they cannot endanger the livelihood of the newspaper as one fell swoop like that.

combatentropy• 9 years ago

37Signals said the same thing about applications. Better to have 10,000 users at $30 per month than 100 at $3,000 per month.

If a single customer is paying a lot, then you are tempted to make whatever changes they ask for to your application, and it's harder to stand up against featuritis or illogical design.

eli_gottlieb• 9 years ago

Mind, it would really help if I could get the newspaper I actually want delivered to where I live. Call me snooty, but I want to read the New York Times, not the Boston Globe. The Globe isn't local enough for those of us living outside Boston proper, but it just doesn't have the national- and global-scale content of the Times.

dalbasal• 9 years ago

I agree that content quality and revenue source are related in this way. There are bunch of analogies online, that I think help fill out this picture.

Youtube “monetisation” spawned a bunch of clickbait-driven spam. Patreon produced good quality content, acting on the same platform, at the same time. This is somewhere between a subscriber and supporter model. A lot like some newspapers. Almost a natural experiment.

In terms of operational scale, patreon’s “creators” are kind of similar to journalists. It takes similar sums to support the work, and they’re on similar timescales. This makes me think a similar model might work for journalism, though maybe not for newspapers.

Podcasting is another possibly useful comparison. Very little clickbait (earbait?) ever crosses my radar. Podcasts are usually ad supported, but there’s still no way to SEO or clickbait your way to a win. To succeeds a podcast needs subscriptions, usually free. Even @ free, the need to attract a dedicated subscriber base encourages the same sort of focus on the same audience. Slow & steady growth. Win more subscribers than you lose…

This example is messier, but I think it shows that the rules are rules of thumb.

Basically, the path to success needs to depend on quality for quality to be likely. Subscribers are generally quality sensitive. I dunno how to formulate a principle exactly, but it feels like there is something here somewhere.

teemu47• 9 years ago

I've been working on making this model for journalists a reality https://www.demotico.com. So far, I haven't found excited journalists but that may just be me being a poor marketer.

digi_owl• 9 years ago

Sadly at this point i wonder if "clickbait" is ingrained into the corriculum. I see even national broadcasters adopt such headlines, even though they do not rely on ads to fund their services.

gumby• 9 years ago

Years ago it was obvious to most newspapers that paid subscribers are their lifeline. Advertisers come and go, daily sales come and go, but long-period subscribers keep you afloat.

[Citation required]. In the era of paper newspapers advertisers were the bulk of revenue. Hi subs were needed to show advertisers that the publication was worth advertising in. It's not like the idea of CPI is a new one!

b0rsuk3• 9 years ago

As far as Polish media go, I really like:

oko.press - the best investigative journalism in Poland. They proclaim to focus 2/3 of their coverage on ruling party and 1/3 on the rest. Time will tell if they are honest with that. The strategy makes sense, because government has the most power.

wp.pl - while it has very clickbaity headlines, it's surprisingly balanced when it comes to point of view. Polish political scene and society is currently very polarized. I determined that wp is quite balanced by the fact that they cover both opposition and ruling party news. They carry articles critical of both ruling party and opposition. Make no mistake, WP is a tabloid, but it also has occasional very long articles and interviews, and those are quality journalism. On the other hand, they reprint kremlin propaganda from rt.com like Ukrainians who crucified children in Donbas without fact checking.

The bottom line is I use wp.pl for quick news (it acts as a front guard) and oko.press for fact checking.

As far as paper newspapers, Angora is my favourite. It shamelessly reprints articles from not just Poland but often from foreign papers, and it's interesting to read about Poland from a foreign point of view.

f0553• 9 years ago

I had high hopes for oko.press but since they seem to have 3/3 negative coverage of the ruling party, and not in an investigative way, but kind of sensational in headlines, I got disappointed. But Angora is an outlet I forgot about but remember very positively, I need to check it out again.

dom96• 9 years ago

Slightly off-topic, but I just went on http://www.gazetaprawna.pl/ and was rather turned off by the auto-playing video/audio (that I could not find the source of).

f0553• 9 years ago

Hmm I use a browser that disables auto play by default. I bet there’s an add-on for that.

ouid5• 9 years ago

in a society with such dramatic wealth inequality, subscription can never be a viable business model for journalism. If you aren't charging people more based on how much they have, You're not going to be able to make it up on quantity, since most people have zero disposable income.

Donations, however, scale with the inverse of the "marginal utility of money". Even though donations are completely voluntary, because they scale with wealth, at some level of wealth inequality, they become more profitable than a subscription service at any price point.

(ad revenue also ostensibly scales with wealth, but not as well, since consumption doesn't scale very well with wealth)

kakwa_• 9 years ago

I completely agree.

Here in France, there are few truly independent newspapers, all the big ones like Le Monde, Liberation, Le Figaro are owned by billionaires like Niel, Drahi or Dassault. It's quite dangerous as it breaks the independence of these newspaper (for example Niel declared in 2011: "When journalists are bothering me, I buy a share of their fucking newspaper, and they leave me alone").

It's quite dangerous.

The quality of these newspaper also tends to go to "click-baity" contents and it's really annoying. A few years ago, I interviewed for a position at Le Monde (as a sysadmin, not as a journalist), and from what I understood, there was rampant tensions in the redaction between those coming from the web publication and those coming from the "paper" one (the two were historically separated), no wonders...

They still reveal major scandals from time to time (ex: Le Monde and the Panama Papers), but it is rarer than it used to.

Fortunately there are a few independent newspapers, the 2 main ones in France being "Le canard enchaine", which is still "full paper", no website (it's a weekly however), and the other one being Mediapart, which is an online only, ads free, subscription based newspaper.

I subscribed to Mediapart a few years ago. It was at the time a complete emotional reaction after Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. But more than 2 years later, I still subscribe to it, and keep reading it daily. One of the big dimension of why I keep paying for it (it's around ~10 euros/month) is that it's a way to support a free and independent press (the other being simply to stay informed).

There is clearly room for an independent and quality press. It doesn't take that much subscriptions to maintain a decently sized newspaper, 100 000 subscribers at 10e/m gives you enough revenue to sustain around 100 employees.

The press is a powerful counter balance of the political. It should remain that way. It will if a somewhat large number of individuals agree to pay for it.

dreamfactored• 9 years ago

US and UK publishing businesses are radically different in subscription revenues. They have traditionally made up a tiny proportion for UK publishers.

Theodores• 9 years ago

I thought the begging letter was shown just because I had an ad blocker on. The site works well for the ad blocking crowd, maybe they make it so deliberately, so at least they can send you the begging message.

calcifer15• 9 years ago

begging letter
begging message

I keep seeing this in many online spaces and for the life of me, I just can't understand how asking for money in exchange for value (journalism in this case) is considered begging.

Seriously, this [1] is their ask, can you (or anyone else) show me exactly which part of it is begging?

[1] http://www.niemanlab.org/images/guardian-membership-ask.jpg

throwawayyx963• 9 years ago

It's not so much the message as its persistence, timing and size. It shows up every time and takes up half the screen. It would also be nice if the reader was given some time to read actual content before being blasted with the message again. Feels like one of those many many sites that immediately ask you to fill out a feedback form before you've even browsed anything. If it's not a beg, it's most certainly a nag.

losteverything• 9 years ago

People within the "journalism" ecosystem can support itself with creative and different financial remedies. They strongly believe in their cause and benefit to humanity.

I would focus fundraising efforts to parties that economically rely on a free or paid press.

caoilte2• 9 years ago

That certainly highlights the importance of the right UX, but I wish they had invested in Patreon style features to allow support for specific authors.

I would pay £5/month to the Guardian and be happy for them to take a 30% administrative cut if they ring fenced the rest for writers I want to support.

The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely independent. Only experimenting with democratisation of commissioning and hiring is going to break it out of the nepotist trap it has fallen into.

zoul• 9 years ago

The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely independent.

What makes you say that?

calcifer15• 9 years ago

The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely independent.
nepotist trap it has fallen into.

Would you care to elaborate on these a little bit? I'm a long time supporter of Guardian and this is the first time I've seen a nepotism complaint.

gadders8• 9 years ago

I guess it's Alan Rusbridger employing his wife and daughter: http://www.anorak.co.uk/393065/reviews/nepotism-watch-the-gu...

monksy4• 9 years ago

I would agree with the concept of only supporting the writers that you like. I used to like the Guardian because they had good journalism. However, the opinion pieces are absolutely atrocious and detract the quality of the paper.

For example, there was an article in my google now articles recommended from the guardian that was "Milo Yiannopolous has huge support in Australia, men must call him out."

calcifer15• 9 years ago

That opinion piece is titled "If Milo Yiannopoulos has huge support in Australia, men must call him out".

I wasn't aware of the article before your post, but now that I've read it, I don't see anything controversial (much less "atrocious") in it. Care to elaborate?

Supernaut• 9 years ago

I too find some of the Guardian's columnists truly exasperating. However, isn't it important that they be given space to voice their opinions? Very occasionally, they give me pause for thought, and that's important. We've seen what happens (Trump, Brexit, etc.) when large sections of society retreat to personalised echo chambers.

boyce2• 9 years ago

Pretty standard Guardian opinion piece, well in line with prevailing centre-left views, moderate feminists etc. No idea what is atrocious or poor quality about it

That isn't to say the Graun doesn't do things badly some time but this sort of article is precisely their raison d'etre

ChrisSD• 9 years ago

Ring fencing a percentage for specific authors sounds like a good idea but in practice you end up giving a portion of editorial control to wealthy donors. This is not good for any independent news media.

caoilte2• 9 years ago

Theyre already doing that with the sponsored content section and some really worrying companies (eg Facebook).

Individual contributions towards specific causes could very easily be capped if they were worried about distortion.

In practice, as the UK Labour party has shown - create the right structures and you can drive out mega donors. The UK Labour party has gone from majority funded by millionaires to majority funded by small donors. The guardian could very easily take up the same democratic clarion call.

But they don't want to.

gadders8• 9 years ago

The Scott Trust was created to avoid the paying of inheritance tax.

vanderZwan• 9 years ago

That certainly highlights the importance of the right UX, but I wish they had invested in Patreon style features to allow support for specific authors.

They undoubtedly keep track of which articles generate most clicks. Then again, clicks are a terrible metric.

elorant• 9 years ago

The way I see it this model can only work for mediums with international readership. Say for example you have a newspaper in a small country with 10M people. Let's assume 5% of general population reads a newspaper and you have 5 major ones. That's roughly 100k readers per newspaper. Now how many of those could you convince to subscribe? Even if we assume an optimistic 10% that could hardly keep a newspaper afloat. You need readership in the millions to make this model viable, or a more loyal audience like the one Germans or Japanese have.

DamnInteresting• 9 years ago

You need readership in the millions to make this model viable

Not necessarily; for primarily online publications, operating costs rise roughly linearly with readership. I operate a donor-supported publication with a much smaller readership than the Guardian, yet we have stayed afloat for years via donations because our costs are much lower. It's a model that can work for practically any size of publication.

TheCoelacanth• 9 years ago

Your publication cost are roughly linear; your content creation costs are more or less constant with an increase in number of readers. I would assume that your content creation costs are vastly lower than the Guardian's which is why you can get away with fewer readers. You wouldn't be able to produce content like the Guardian on your budget, though.

wccrawford2• 9 years ago

Then why would ad-supported work instead, under the same readers?

If you can pay the bills with ads, but not your readers directly, you probably aren't providing enough value.

return02• 9 years ago

Imagine if browser vendors added some form of online payment directly into the browser (like , i don't know , bitcoin).

r3bl• 9 years ago

Try to convince every website owner ever to accept the same payment methods.

Both Brave and Flattr are attempting the same, both have little to no success for that simple reason.

return02• 9 years ago

To be fair those are not major browsers. Firefox would be an obvious experimental vehicle, and the choice of bitcoin would be the least objectionable payment method (of the alternatives).

criddell• 9 years ago

Really? You want your bitcoin wallet online?

mirimir2• 9 years ago

You can have many Bitcoin wallets. And yes, at least one online, to pay stuff from. But you don't keep substantial balances in them.

Brakenshire3• 9 years ago

Web Payments API is on the way.

peeters3• 9 years ago

I think that most media outlets make a wrong assumption about online content. They think that everybody wants content that's free above all else, so they swamp their content with ads.

But I think it's more that people want diversity. I'll happily support news outlets financially, but at $300/yr for Globe&Mail and $260/yr for NYTimes, etc, the cost is just ridiculous.

I WANT to support good journalism, but I want to pay a set price and have it be divided by my actual consumption. If I subscribe to two newspapers my consumption doesn't double, so I don't want to pay double.

The salable entity in the internet era shouldn't be a subscription to a newspaper, it should be an article.

calcifer15• 9 years ago

For me it's the other way around. I pay for the Guardian because I think they do important, much needed journalism in many areas - including ones I'm not personally interested in. I like the idea that my money helps pay for articles that wouldn't get funded if it depended on a popularity contest.

peeters3• 9 years ago

For some publications I might agree. But many of them have comedy, sports and pop culture sections that I think blur their focus. I don't feel the need to spend a single dollar on supporting that content, I'll find better elsewhere if I want it.

ethagnawl• 9 years ago

The salable entity in the internet era shouldn't be a subscription to a newspaper, it should be an article.

I think this is spot-on. My guess is that a browser based micropayment solution/ecosystem will emerge (a la Brave and its Basic Attention Token).

peeters3• 9 years ago

My guess is that a browser based micropayment solution/ecosystem will emerge

I think so too, I think it's just a question of outlets realizing that the lost profits from cannibalizing their subscription sales does not compare to the income from allowing consumers to buy pieces of your publication.

int_19h• 9 years ago

Take a look at Blendle. It does exactly this - pay-per-article - and aggregates quite a few popular publications already.

dredmorbius2• 9 years ago

Unlikely.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4r683b/repudia...

https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft

scandox3• 9 years ago

I sometimes feel like there isn't much alternative to The Guardian - on the other hand the opinion pieces are often wearisome and at times the whole thing starts to feel like a parody of itself. It is as if, in becoming "worthy" of "support" it has to crank itself up to an insane degree...just as sugary drinks become more sugary over time to retain their core drinkers.

This is especially noticeable when ludicrous lifestyle pieces sit cheek-by-jowl with slightly overwrought culture wars content. I can't find an example today so I'll make one up:

- Is enjoying the movie Chinatown an act of molestation?

- Why Colombian hemp chocolate makes for the best edible luggage

I mean I both think Polanski should be in jail and that Colombia tourism should be encouraged...but this stuff isn't news.

lclarkmichalek• 9 years ago

What about the recent editorial condemning Taylor Swift: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/the-gu...

scandox3• 9 years ago

See my problem here is not the analytical over-reach - it's an editorial that mentions Taylor Swift...

stfu6• 9 years ago

Wow, I haven't seen that before! Just stunning how distorted the Guardian's editorial board has become.

Their hatefulness must have become so deep seeded that they are unable to tolerate anyone out there who does not wanted to get instrumentalized by their 'either you are with us or you are our enemy' crusade.

m00g007• 9 years ago

Notice also, no byline, and no comments allowed. The Guardian often panders to culture war outrage bait then hides behind taking responsibility or criticism with tricks like this, and the fact that an occasional decent article exists.

Why again does this failing rag deserve support, and why is this obvious propaganda upvoted to the top of HN?

lin_lin• 9 years ago

What utter rubbish. Just when you think it's already reached "Peak Guardian", they come out with that.

librvf2• 9 years ago

I sometimes feel like there isn't much alternative to The Guardian

I stopped reading The Guardian years ago. A little part of me dies inside every time I see some piece of completely off-topic Guardian propaganda make the front page of Hacker News and nobody seems to care.

gadders8• 9 years ago

Some good examples collected here: https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2017/08/22/guardian-columns-look-l...

nottorp• 9 years ago

Funny enough, the linked site praises the Guardian's approach then hits me with a popup to subscribe to their newsletter...

Jedd2• 9 years ago

As much as I enjoy the quality of journalism from them, claims of The Guardian struggling, or being without sin (in the context of throwing stones around tax avoidance, especially post-Panama & Paradise papers, and at the risk of being labelled a whatbouter) should be considered in context.

That context is that they've got some pretty serious claims of tax avoidance in their not-too-distant past.

The Spectator ran a story [1] the middle of last year on the subject, though they've clearly got some fiscal & political views that could best be described as orthogonal to the Guardian.

The Independent ran their own story a few years earlier [2] that went into a bit more detail on the somewhat regrettable ratio of profits to domestic tax paid.

[1] https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/will-the-guardian-now-...

[2] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/guardian-med...

calcifer15• 9 years ago

The Guardian responded to various such claims over the years in quite a bit of detail [1].

A choice quote:

The Guardian's current position on tax is not immensely complicated, not least because it is not making any profits. When GMG makes taxable profits, it does of course pay full corporation tax. It is officially regarded by HMRC as "low risk".
When we did our series on tax avoidance in 2008, we commissioned Richard Murphy, the scourge of tax dodgers the world over, to cast his eye over GMG's accounts.
This is what he wrote:
"Now let's be clear: what this shows is that on trading, the effective rate of tax was 46%. If goodwill were added back to profit the rate would be about 21%, a rate that is low largely because much of the profit came from the disposal of assets. If that were adjusted for then [year ended 30 March 2008], the rate would be above the statutory rate. There is nothing abnormal to comment on as a result.
The low charge is on the exceptional part sale of the Auto Trader group. No complicated planning was needed to produce a low tax-charge: the government allows for tax to be deferred in this case if funds are reinvested.
The Guardian did reinvest the funds. That's not artificial, offshore, or complex. Indeed, it is tax compliant: the company is doing what the government wants, and for which it provides a relief. So let's stop the nonsense about low tax rates now: it's just wrong."

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/22/...

Jedd2• 9 years ago

Indeed, it's a tricky area.

With Panama / Paradise papers as well, most players are acting just within the letter of the law, though arguably not the intent, or at least the spirit, and outside observers (typically those without access to the expertise necessary to construct their financial affairs with such tax-minimising efficiency) are going to be frustrated by the brazen appearance of unfairness.

As I noted, Spectator and other publications are going to be strongly partisan around any review of the Guardian's affairs.

OTOH, articles published by the Guardian, about the Guardian, asserting the Guardian has done nothing wrong, are going to struggle to appear impartial.

edpichler• 9 years ago

Anyone knwos about more successful examples of this business model?

foobarbazetc• 9 years ago

I pay them because it’s the only news source I actually trust.

Their live updating event pages are really great too.

They don’t always get it right with tech articles (they pissed off Pinboard a while back — they fixed it eventually) but still a great source of international news.

GunlogAlm• 9 years ago

Their journalism generally is very good, certainly better than the majority of British newspapers and tabloids. Their opinion articles, however, range from decent to atrocious - I tend to ignore the 'Comment is Free' section now, unless I'm familiar with a piece's author.

squeeeeeeeeeee• 9 years ago

Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian - I'm sorry, is this a joke? Buzzfeed (yes, that Buzzfeed... well when they're not making one of their retarded videos and actually do some investigative journalism) has higher journalistic value than The Guardian.

lkrubner• 9 years ago

It is important to remember that The Guardian is overtly and proudly a paper of the Left. I signed up and started paying in late November of 2016 only because Trump had won the Presidency. If Trump had not won the Presidency, I doubt I would have ever given my money to The Guardian.

It has been reported elsewhere that the ACLU and Planned Parenthood had very good years, in terms of fundraising. All of this is the anti-Trump effect. The success of The Guardian fits into that pattern.

b0rsuk3• 9 years ago

I have a twisted idea to appeal to people's sense of charity:

Each person that subscribes, sponsors "no ads" visit for a random stranger. The cookie could last for a day.

Spivak3• 9 years ago

That's just subscriber sharing links. Lots of papers do this. There's a bit of a 'free-trial' mixed in there but the important bit is giving subscribers the ability to share links guilt-free.

OutOfBrain• 9 years ago

campuscodi• 9 years ago

LOL @ the type of journalism The Guardian promotes... I'd rather burn money than support a publication that published articles to support my country's corrupt politicians. God forbid law enforcement investigate them. The Guardian always has their back.

JoeMalt• 9 years ago

What country is this?

stillkicking• 9 years ago

Now imagine how much more they'd make if they actually published quality material instead of culture war clickbait and freshman opinion pieces. 'Member when The Guardian was one of the outlets boldly reporting the Snowden and Manning leaks? I member.

Right now on their front page I can read how democracy is being undermined "by not distinguishing between fact and opinion". And you know what? They're right on this front. But they categorically refuse to point the fingers at all guilty parties, and instead stick to the targets that are politically opportune and which they are ideologically opposed to.

e.g. I have yet to see any mainstream outlet bother to mention that Reddit's default news and political subs turned into pro-Hillary/anti-Trump mouthpieces in the months leading up to the US election, an effect that was presumably related to the millions her campaign pumped into Correct The Record, and which had a _huge_ effect in creating and calcifying the "right wing hate subreddits" they now hysterically complain about.

e.g. I don't see anyone talking anymore about how the US pwned European infrastructure and broke into politicians' accounts (including Merkel's). But when Russia is said to be _attempting_ this, it is presented as akin to cybernetic warfare. Well in that case, America has been fighting WW3 under our noses, and they are equally reprehensible for doing so. Otherwise, this is simply how the game is being played, and all is fair in love and war. Which one is it? Because "muh russia" isn't a consistent stance on this. The response appears to be for suspiciously many people to start posting complaints about "whataboutism", in a spontaneous attempt at misdirection away from the hypocrisy. How curious.

cantrip• 9 years ago

I get your frustration but the answer is less money.

funkythingss4• 9 years ago

I agree. Ever since Snowden they have been going to absolute horse shit.

examples: https://somuchguardian.tumblr.com

most recent example: basically calling Taylor swift a white supremacist for being silent on politics https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/the-gu...

I can't take them seriously anymore, their editorial board has gone mad

fineline• 9 years ago

Thanks so much for that link. As a "progressive leaning" individual I have despaired at the descent of the Guardian, along with much of the formerly progressive media, into pure political-correctness-gone-mad, value-signalling nonsense, especially as I'm white, male and not getting any younger (apparently there are some demographics it's still just fine to build very negative stereotypes about...) It's good to counter that despair with the humour of collecting the maddest headlines together. Perhaps the Guardian really is just a clever, ironic, self-parodying send up thesedays?

jrs952• 9 years ago

I remember seeing an article from them arguing that we get rid of white emoji to punish white people for racism written by someone woman with pink hair and half her head shaved. Ever since then I've wondered if they're actually doing journalism, if they're actively trying to sabotage the left, or if they're really just that off their fucking rocker.

funkythingss4• 9 years ago

I can't say that's a surprising headline for them anymore

icebraining• 9 years ago

Meh, it's an opinion column, and fairly innofensive at that. In the same period, the NYTimes had an opinion article literally called:

"To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran"

I prefer the war on the white emoji, personally.

mayneack2• 9 years ago

The Guardian on "Correct the record":

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.theguardian.com+%...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/13/wikile...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/15/bernie-sande...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/17/when-is-a-ca...

dominotw3• 9 years ago

"Correct the Record, that is solely focused on defending her record."
“Correct the Record”, a rapid rebuttal unit

Portraying them as some sort of superhero warriors/defenders is precisely what OP was talking about.

jimnotgym13• 9 years ago

e.g. I don't see anyone talking anymore about how the US pwned European infrastructure and broke into politicians' accounts (including Merkel's).

The Guardian did, however, break the story of the connection between the Brexit campaign and Bannon and Cambridge Analytica and Mercer et al. See Carole Cadwalleder's long series on this

eighthnate• 9 years ago

Sure. But did they break the story on the connection between anti-brexit organizations? It's funny how the guardian mostly published anti-brexit propaganda.

khawkins• 9 years ago

Now imagine how much more they'd make if they actually published quality material instead of culture war clickbait and freshman opinion pieces.

Won't this crowdfunding potentially polarize journalism even more? In general, individuals are more passionate about their political opinions and social causes than for neutral, high-quality journalism which sometimes confirms, sometimes rejects their world-views. You also invite strong pressures from well funded special interest groups, seeking to borrow on the credibility of journalism to promote a particular world view.

At the very least, it's much harder to get businesses to openly profess a particular political view. Often those which do face huge backlash and more ill-will towards their brands than the good-will they're trying to foster with ads.

tsbertalan• 9 years ago

I don't understand. What you call "crowdfunding" I'd just call "subscription", which is how all journalism was paid for until fairly recently. You're really arguing that openly corporate-funded "journalism" would be superior, and have a lesser tendency to promote a particular angle, like, say, the capitalism-cures-all-ills mantra?

lostphilosopher• 9 years ago

It's "no win" right? Whomever the news source is financially dependent on they at the mercy of that funding source's interest in neutrality. And since journalism costs money it will always be financially dependent on someone/thing. While a business may be wary about weighing in on a politically charged issue just to attempt to foster supporters good will (for exactly the reasons you discuss) the calculus is different when that issue directly affects their business. I'm not concerned about advertisers biasing news about unrelated hot button political issues. I'm worried about advertisers biasing news in favor of their business interests: corporate tax rates, trade agreements, consumer and environmental safety concerns - etc. Things that could be good for making the business money, but not good for people. I don't have those same concerns about individuals, but I'd have the (similar) concerns you bring up. The question then is what bias are you more comfortable with?

Nursie5• 9 years ago

I have to agree, the Guardian has degenerated substantially. I think the stuff on the Panama papers is good, but a lot of the content seems to be loony-leftie territory, and very divisive.

Then there's the constant undercurrent of finger-wagging superiority.

The right-wing UK press have a superiority complex too, which I'd describe more as arrogant than finger-wagging. I'd generally rather read the guardian than most of the rest, but TBH in this day and age I'd be happy enough to watch them all sink without a trace.

Long live the BBC. Now if they can just clone David Attenborough and get the clones to read the news and pretty much any other factual programs, we'd be on to a winner.

sideshowb2• 9 years ago

The BBC has its own problems. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/04/Iraqandthemedi...

ouid5• 9 years ago

You and a friend go to a house on halloween and there's a bowl that says take one. You sheepishly take two, and your friend, after you, empties the entire bowl into his sack.

You ask of him, outraged, "How could you do such a malicious thing?!" and he responds, "Me?!?! what about you?!"

This is whataboutism, and yeah, you're guilty of it. Our right wing is at least two orders of magnitude more corrupt than our left wing. Pointing fingers at "all guilty parties" means pointing fingers almost exclusively at republicans.

hitekker5• 9 years ago

I'd caveat this by saying that corrupt democrats do exist; not every democrat is pure and truthful. Far from it, a good swathe of them are likely just politicians with their own self interest. The left is very much not sunshine and rainbows.

However, you are correct in noting that the parent commenter desperately wants to paint both sides as biased, guilty, and debased, in order to excuse the wrongdoings of the cause he fervently supports.

"If I can convince myself that everyone did what we did, then there's nothing wrong if we continue to do it!"

Ah, projection; the mark of the politically insecure.

ogre_magi8• 9 years ago

Both sides perceive the outgroup as the source of all evil in the world. You could replace left/right and republican/democrat in your comment and there would be people on the other side who sincerely believe it as much as you do.

Neither claim is accurate.

root_axis3• 9 years ago

Pointing fingers at "all guilty parties" means pointing fingers almost exclusively at republicans.

Almost exclusively? That's definitely an unhelpful exaggeration. I agree with the spirit of your analogy, but even invoking the term "exclusively" when referring to political behavior, qualifiers or not, is going to undermine your argument.

dominotw3• 9 years ago

Our right wing is at least two orders of magnitude more corrupt than our left wing.

How is that?

lucozade• 9 years ago

The Guardian is the only British newspaper that genuinely makes me laugh. Every now and then it gets so tied up in knots with its internal contradictions that it intellectually implodes.

Corbyn's been the main cause of that recently. Even the leftie journalists were starting to get a bit twitchy that he might actually do something leftie.

As I'm writing this, the UK edition is leading with Prince Harry marrying (presumably republicans can like royals). It's running alongside an opinion piece stating that the marriage will change Britain's relationship with race forever. Not entirely clear why other than there has to be a gender/sexuality/race angle (just because). So that story's shaping up nicely.

nicky02• 9 years ago

It's the Independent that was the overtly republican paper, I'm not sure if the Guardian is?

kibwen• 9 years ago

I have yet to see any mainstream outlet bother to mention that Reddit's default news and political subs turned into pro-Hillary/anti-Trump mouthpieces in the months leading up to the US election

Presumably because that didn't happen in the slightest, but I'll forgive your lapse of memory. Before the nomination, all the presumably "left-leaning" subreddits (like /r/politics) were firmly in Sanders' camp and out for Clinton's head. After the nomination the battleground only intensified, and the schism continued through the election. Meanwhile, the news subreddits like /r/news and /r/worldnews oscillated wildly between pro-Republican and pro-Democrat, major subs like /r/trees were vaguely pro-Trump (on balance, /r/TwoXChromosomes was vaguely pro-Clinton), and /r/all was completely overrun at all hours of the day by /r/the_donald's successful exploitation of Reddit's front page algorithm. Anyone claiming that Reddit was "pro-Hillary" must have been in a coma for all of 2016 (not that I blame them, I bet half of us here wish we had been too).

dv_dt2• 9 years ago

It's possible for a newspaper to publish a mix of quality material as well as more generally popular material... it might even be an objective to to that depending on your business model.

Red_Tarsius• 9 years ago

The Guardian is not different from any other Tabloid, except the viewership is the left higher class. The journalists still mispresent data and exploit racial/gender tensions to make bucks. I used to read it every day, now I only look at the environment section.

BadassFractal2• 9 years ago

I'd gladly pay for a publication that wasn't cranking out clickbait, outrage pieces and catering to their advertisers and their need to be associated with only politically correct partners.

wccrawford2• 9 years ago

Similarly, I'd pay for a publication that brought me news I was interested in and covered both sides of every debate, instead of obviously catering to one side or the other constantly. They'd have to cover each side well, obviously.

opportune• 9 years ago

This is the problem with modern media IMO, each side presents their own side to their viewers in a logical matter-of-fact way (almost dismissively, though, of finer details) but only picks the most egregiously bad logic / moral failings of the other side to show to their supporters. So each side thinks the other is crazy because they only see the ~1-5% of the other side that gets paraded around for their idiocy. Even which pieces each side chooses to cover are completely different: it's almost like they're not even reporting on events occurring simultaneously much of the time.

I only trust a very small number of publishers these days, such as the Atlantic and the Economist. Everything else is some sort of curated echo chamber

d23• 9 years ago

I'd love to be able to microdonate to individual pieces of content on not just The Guardian but across the web.

funkythingss4• 9 years ago

have you seen Flattr? Sounds like exactly that

GlennS• 9 years ago

I've been told that the paper newspaper has better content than the website.

Brakenshire3• 9 years ago

People always overplay the comment sections when they complain about the Guardian. In the physical paper comment makes up a handful of pages, but online because comment is free (to borrow a phrase) it can expand massively, and ad nauseam. They are silly, but the comment sections are also incidental to the rest of the newspaper.

I hope that being supported by subscriptions also means that they can dial back the sensationalism. I want to support papers which aren't screaming in my face all the time, and which support a better society.

stabbles• 9 years ago

Can't be happier with this! Proof that people are willing to pay for quality.

In The Netherlands we just got news that public service television etc sees an unexpected drop of income through ads (they're 60 mln euros short on budget in 2019). The quality of the online public news service is declining (clickbait titles for instance). Hopefully The Guardian sets an example!

GuB-42• 9 years ago

Quality? If the Guardian is considered quality journalism, the others are probably not worth the paper they are not printed on.

Most links to the guardian I see are opinion pieces clearly made with a certain audience in mind. It is an echo chamber: people pay to read what they want to read.

Does quality journalism exist at all? The only exception seems to be technical subjects, like science and engineering. And that's because there is a huge amount of effort being made to avoid bias at every level. And even that tends to be thrown out of the window as soon as it hits a popular journal.

Where are the journals where fact are analyzed from several point of views. Take net neutrality for instance, where are the articles that really talks about the pros and cons? My opinion is that net neutrality is a good thing, I don't need a paper telling me what I am already convinced of. No, I want a paper to first explain me what net neutrality really is, and what are the drawbacks and how it compares to the positive aspects. It may not change my mind but at least I will be more informed.

jimnotgym13• 9 years ago

A quick review of UK print media

1) The Times - Rupert Murdoch mouthpiece. Employs MP Michael Gove for £100k a year after he was sacked for being a backstabber.

2) The Mail - "The EU and immigrants want to kill your children and sleep with your sister and may even affect your house price". Billionaire owner too.

3) The Telegraph - "The Torygraph" former paper of the ruling classes, now mouth piece of two weird billionaire brothers who live in a castle on an island like particularly boring bond villains.

4) The Express - "Princes Diana wanted Brexit". Owned by billionaire Richard "not a pornographer" Desmond

5) The Sun - Rupert Murdoch's gutter mouthpiece

6) The News of the World - Rupert's other paper that had to close because they hacked the voice mail of a girl who was murdered, and therefore delayed the police investigation.

7) The Mirror - low grade leftism, but mostly celeb gossip

8) The Financial Times - Pretty good journalism and then pages of bond prices etc

9) The Independent. No longer in print. Billionaire Arab and Russian owners

edit: from comments there is a number 10

10) The i - a lower case Independent. Thinner, cheaper and still in print. This main use for the i seems to be to leave it on train seats when the Metro (a free paper they give out in railway stations) is just too cheap. The journalism seems OK. Owned by establishment media PLC

So if you didn't want Brexit, think immigration is helping demographics, think Princess Di should be laid to rest now and don't think the world is full of benefit scroungers, there is only the Guardian left.

edit: formatting and a sad inability to list numbers

nicky02• 9 years ago

You missed the i.

jraines• 9 years ago

Well, if we're doing quick parody headlines as stand-ins, it's actually impossible to out-Guardian the Guardian:

"I dread the day my daughter's poos get smaller" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/08/dread-...

"Tea is a national disgrace"

"Robots are racist and sexist, just like the people who created them"

In any case, good on them for proving out this revenue model, hopefully it's sustainable and we see gigantic yellow-orange beg-boxes on more online media (seriously)

arthur_pryor• 9 years ago

"Robots are racist and sexist, just like the people who created them"

to quote the simpsons, "it's funny because it's true."

(still, funny comment, i upvoted, fwiw)

tomarr• 9 years ago

I do normally love to hate on the Guardian, but that is from their 'comment is free' opinion section, rather than the main news site. BBC and many others have these, which are basically just magazine format and of little journalistic value (although to be fair they do not claim to be).

MarkMc• 9 years ago

My favourite: "How ancient lentils reveal the origins of social inequality"

https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/11/lentils-orig...

Brakenshire3• 9 years ago

The Telegraph's political editor resigned because (he claims) the paper spiked stories about HSBC, after they threatened to pull advertising. So there's that as well. Alongside Murdoch's control of the Times, it's a pity there isn't a more decent centre-right paper.

twic3• 9 years ago

As a literally card-carrying socialist, i'd pick the Financial Times over the Guardian. They write about stuff that is actually important, in what seems like an intelligent and even-handed way. And the pages of bond prices are good for standing your muddy boots on.

I grew up in a Guardian-reading household, and i want to like it, but it's too full of self-absorbed middle-class metropolitan smugness. And i'm a smug self-absorbed middle-class metropolitan, so i should know.

chickenfries• 9 years ago

As an American of similar political leanings, I feel the same way about NYTimes households. I also find myself reading FT, WSJ and Bloomberg for more "important" stories as well.

louthy• 9 years ago

Although not a newspaper, I find the Economist to have similar traits to your list for the FT. They'll also go properly in depth with many stories (multiple pages)

ygaf• 9 years ago

because they hacked the voice mail of a girl who was murdered, and therefore delayed the police investigation.

This sounds like a fabricated implication. Lots of people (famous ones) were hacked, and I can't find a sign that delaying a police investigation caused the NOTW to nosedive.

jimnotgym13• 9 years ago

I'm sorry, but rigorous logical argument seemed out of place in any discussion of the NOTW. I thought condensing their sad sad criminal behavior into one sound bite was absolutely in keeping with their style.

Wikipedia has a primer on the News of the world, Milly Dowler and Andy Coulson. I suspect a formal discussion over why the paper actually closed (popularly to save the criminal investigation from going upwards to the owners) could fill a very sad book.

hkmurakami• 9 years ago

FT is now owned by Nikkei fwiw.

drdrey• 9 years ago

I would love to see a similar review of US media (print or digital). Where is the good stuff?

sandov• 9 years ago

So if you didn't want Brexit, think immigration is helping demographics, think Princess Di should be laid to rest now and don't think the world is full of benefit scroungers, there is only the Guardian left.

So, we should only read newspapers that agree with our world view?

jimnotgym13• 9 years ago

I only read articles that

1) are not peddaling hate and devision

2) are not celeb gossip

3) interest me

I would be suprised if that made me more idealistic than the majority of HN crowd?

justincormack2• 9 years ago

Does the FT actually still print the share prices? I guess maybe the older demographic likes that. The majority of their subscribers are online now so I guess never notice. Their online only content makes the print edition much worse.

AndrewOMartin• 9 years ago

You sound like an ideal Private Eye subscriber.

Current affairs, investigative journalism, literary criticism, Commentatorballs, [That's enough. Ed]

Edited by the great, and clean, Ian Hislop.

rwmj• 9 years ago

Private Eye and The Economist are really the only titles worth subscribing to [I subscribe to both]. Private Eye is the only news outlet that takes investigative journalism seriously these days too.

jimnotgym13• 9 years ago

I love Private Eye! The last journalists

vonnik• 9 years ago

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo recently wrote about the crisis in online journalism and its ad-based model.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/theres-a-digital-media-c...

Basically, advertisers are asking/paying for more video content, but readers/viewers don't actually want it, which is a disaster waiting to happen.

Also, the market is flooded with VC-backed publications (Buzzfeed, Axios, ...) dumping free content on readers in an attempt to achieve scale, and those publications are also failing to hit their targets.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/buzzfeed-ipo-stymied-as-reve...

It's hard to compete against free...

asinno• 9 years ago

relevant https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking

rootusrootus• 9 years ago

I have reached the point where I think that if a respectable news organization went subscription-only (i.e. no ads, no clickbait, no free content at all), I'd jump on board. I want to be the customer.

mirimir2• 9 years ago

I would be happy to support The Guardian etc. But this persona does not have credit/debit cards. So I have no way to pay them. I do support GnuPG and Riseup, however, because they accept Bitcoin.

peterburkimsher• 9 years ago

I think that asking paywalled sites to support Bitcoin is a good way to stop them from posting provocative articles and could calm down the crazy speculative market.

I'd like Bitcoin to find its niche in payments for intellectual property.

dredmorbius2• 9 years ago

The digital equivalent of a postal money order would be nice to have.

lars_francke• 9 years ago

I have been on the Guardian support pages for at least a dozen times and I'd love to contribute but I don't find they make it easy.

There's a subscription for 14,99€/month (https://subscribe.theguardian.com/p/DBQ80F?edition=int) then there's the premium app which is also called subscription (https://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/aug/12/1) for 2,49 or so and then there's the Support thing (https://membership.theguardian.com/eu/supporter) for 4,99€/month. Some of these seem to include the other options...but I'm not sure. So I've just always given up. In addition Guardian Weekly doesn't seem to have a digital only version?

I've really tried. And I've also tried contacting their support but instead of answering my question they've canceled my subscription to Guardian Weekly. That was when I've just given up.

jimsmart• 9 years ago

In the UK we are given the option for a one-off contribution. It's quite an oversight if they're not offering that outside of the UK.

https://support.theguardian.com/uk

jchavannes• 9 years ago

Thought I'd mention yours.org [1] which has multiple ways of monetizing content. With micropayments it's much more feasible to support this type of model. See their FAQ for more info [2].

[1] https://www.yours.org/

[2] https://www.yours.org/faq/

vvpan• 9 years ago

Part of getting people to pay you is - how easy it is to pay. One of the things I think are exciting is that projects like MetaMask basically integrate cryptocurrencies into your browser, making transaction very easy, safe (as safe as crypto at least) and anonymous, no matter if the entities participating in the transaction are in Yemen or London.

rebyn• 9 years ago

I’m one of these new subscribers (from Viet Nam) that this campaign appeals to. The offer was too good to ignore ($1 for first 6 weeks, $4 each week after for the Guardian Weekly). There’s a bit of adjustment from my side because stories and writings in the print edition are different from my usually top-HN, popular-Twitter articles, but I’ve grown to it. Local expats in my place have no idea of this free int’l delivery, so for a long time they have been paying local importers/newstands a heft ton of money for these papers.

zerostar07• 9 years ago

Guardian is too opinionated to say that this is a good thing. Its contributors are more often "feeding their bubble" rather than supporting independent journalism. You can see that their quality has gone down rather than up during this time.

amelius• 9 years ago

One problem is that a big part of their ad revenue is going overseas.

The reason that most news sites can't run their own ads is that Google and co. are so incredibly good at tracking us, providing more value per ad.

thomaswang• 9 years ago

Will this be the future of online publishing? This is Medium's entire business model.

Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads

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