Blendle ditches pay-per-article service

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/06/dutch-news-aggregate-website-blendle-ditches-pay-per-article-service/

by m-app • 7 years ago

60 41 7 years ago

From now on you'll have to pay 10eur a month to access a small selection of old papers (i.e. not today's) and some magazines. Too much for too little, I feel.

m-app• 7 years ago

AFAICT, you can still read today's news, but the major difference being not being able anymore to browse through magazines and newspapers, but their team and algorithms determining what will be highlighted. I feel this is a major step back on an Internet that is already redacted enough on multiple feeds/timelines.

michaelt• 7 years ago

I was surprised, when I tried Blendle, that there wasn’t an easy way to jump from a free article on a newspaper’s website to the paid version on Blendle.

Instead, if I followed a free or paywalled link on HN, I had to copy the title and search on blendle’s website. Not the most frictionless way to make authors get paid.

vageli• 7 years ago

I was surprised, when I tried Blendle, that there wasn’t an easy way to jump from a free article on a newspaper’s website to the paid version on Blendle.
Instead, if I followed a free or paywalled link on HN, I had to copy the title and search on blendle’s website. Not the most frictionless way to make authors get paid.

Would have made a great browser extension.

flas9sd2• 7 years ago

publishers probably wouldn't like this feature. There's a dated small js bookmarklet effort (http://ronkeizer.github.io/blendle-bookmarklet/) that apparently still works for the given WSJ example link. Though for my own favourite newspapers there's no identifiable conversion scheme. Blendle maps by the issues date and article page position to the url, while the newspapers cms has arbitrary article ids.

andy_ppp2• 7 years ago

As I’ve found out; people say they want to pay per article for content, but they much prefer free in reality.

3bodyProblem• 7 years ago

I think a 10 euro subscription service is a lazy business model, only one worse is everything based on ad revenue. I loved the fact that you could buy articles instead of getting another subscription.

I tried to buy an article last year, I'm not 100% sure why, but I never succeed in reading the article that I wanted to read. I just wanted to pay like 10 euro's until i needed to pay the next 10. But they were already forcing you into a monthly subscription model.

Now they are just the dutch version of apple news, seems like a terrible spot to be in.

I didn't try the audio stuff yet, that might be interesting. I enjoyed the audio stuff from Audm, but I thought it was expensive to get a subscription. Also to much competition in the podcast space.

I think https://thecorrespondent.com/ is doing a better job at changing the world. It's clearer what you get for your money, and you actually feel like your supporting journalism. Not sure if I feel the same way about Blendle.

That said, i know some people who use it, but mostly because their jobs requires them to be up to date with most newspapers.

dmix• 7 years ago

Maybe they should’ve done a token system so you can sub to some and/or use a fixed amount of tokens for individual articles. Plus you can stock up on tokens or buy them in bulk when you run out.

Then they could do a reward system for referrals and other interactions to get free tokens.

microtonal• 7 years ago

I loved the fact that you could buy articles instead of getting another subscription.

I disliked the pay per article model, because it reinforces how expensive news articles actually are in the real world (outside ads-sponsored, click bait articles). I also tried their subscription model, but disliked it even more because you could only read the articles that they (or some ML algorithm) selected. It seems that they now offer unlimited magazine articles (but no newspapers), but magazines do not really interest me.

In the end we decided to take a newspaper subscription again. The price is somewhat steep, but you have unlimited access, and most of the money ends up where it should go.

gpvos3• 7 years ago

If I understand correctly, they also offer free newspapers, except for the most recent 7 days. So it's not for you if your job requires you to be up-to-date with most newspapers.

arnvald• 7 years ago

The problem with pay-per-article model is that every article you want to read is a separate purchase decision ("do I want to pay for this thing or not?". In order to make 10EUR from one user, they need to decide to buy 40 separate articles and that means deciding 40 times whether to pay for content. Maybe a subscription model based on credits would be better? For 10EUR/m you get 40 credits that you spend on articles, for 20EUR/m you get 100 credits etc. Similar to Audible, maybe that would work?

gpvos3• 7 years ago

Well, in the previous model you had a balance that you could top up, similar to what you describe. Not all articles were the same price though (generally between 20 cents and 1 euro).

Wehrdo• 7 years ago

I used Blendle regularly for a while, and noticed that their painless refund option really mitigated this "decision stress" for me. There were a few articles that just turned out to be garbage click-bait, so at the end of the article I could simply click "refund me", and immediately get refunded for that article. It didn't happen that frequently, but knowing it was an option made the decision to buy seem less final.

siscia• 7 years ago

Honestly I believe people, in general, just don't care about what the read online.

The reality is that either you believe at everything you read online or you understand that the world is so complex that it is too difficult to explain it in few capitols.

The reasonable middle ground of in deep reportages is disappearing because too complex anyway to be discussed with the "general public".

I wonder if it is possible to make people want to subscribe to in-deep articles with advertis, something in the line of: "The informed executive reads Blendle" (or something along the line) so that people who don't read Blendle are automatically considered morons or uniformed.

Is more a marketing stunt but it may be interested.

jillesvangurp• 7 years ago

I've been following them for as long as they've existed. Their business model with per article payments never made sense to me. And those 100K articles that they sold is a clear indication that this is not working. That's not users but articles sold for something like 25 cents. 25K in revenue in other words. That's nothing and they ve been citing the same number for years.

60K subscriptions is not nothing but of course not a lot of revenue either; though 600K/month does sound it should be able to sustain a small company and if you can grow that it can actually turn into substantial revenue. Of course, like with Spotify, a lot would flow directly to the publishers.

Blendle has always danced around the one thing they can't deliver which is a subscription service that offers access to all/most relevant news articles currently locked behind paywalls of the few surviving news papers that struggle to make money this way (most of them are failing or just getting by).

The likes of the New York times seem to be doing ok-ish because they are big enough to still be able to produce quality news and have a large number of subscribers. Most of the rest has given up on the notion entirely by either focusing on dwindling paper sales, or ad driven news on web sites, or like the Guardian calling for donations. It's a race to the bottom.

So, I hope they succeed but I'm pessimistic about their chances. This doesn't sound like a winning formula.

Tobias42• 7 years ago

The article didn't say that they sold 100000 articles, but that they have 100000 users that payed for individual articles. We don't know how many articles those users bought on average, but probably much more than one.

mobilemidget• 7 years ago

This discussion already started about a week ago in The Netherlands

For dutch speakers https://tweakers.net/nieuws/153570/blendle-stopt-met-verkoop...

tannhaeuser2• 7 years ago

I'm curious what exactly didn't work out. Maybe it was just the friction of signing up to read a single article? In that case, maybe what would've helped is sending the article anonymously via MMS and use carrier billing? Like 1990s ring tone downloads, though I'm not sure this model would even work today because Google's Stagefreight bug (or was it on purpose to close another channel not benefitting Google?) made telcos block MMSs. But then again, Blendle switching to a subscription model would indicate otherwise.

Freak_NL4• 7 years ago

How would MMS help unless you read Blendle on a smartphone? Hardly anybody uses MMS in the Netherlands in any case (Blendle is Dutch).

tannhaeuser2• 7 years ago

I was assuming most people read news on a smartphone. You do have those in NL, don't you ;) As to nobody using MMS, my point was that we've been "educated" (brainwashed) to use HTTP for everything, when MMS and carrier billing actually used to be a decent and widely accepted alternative for distributing digital media with a natural micropayment mechanism. Though Telcos are greedy af and take a hefty markup for carrier billing (I know since I've worked for them), the regulatory framework around Telcos and 3/4/5G in the EU at least takes care of monopolies.

Eridrus• 7 years ago

I signed up for Blendle, and even went there when I hit a paywall a few times. The problem is that news organizations value their content too highly, probably because they are very concerned about cannibalizing their subscription revenue, and it turns out I was never willing to shell out $0.50+ for an article.

55555• 7 years ago

People don't like microtransactions. Deciding if each article is worth a quarter is a bad user experience.

sgeisler• 7 years ago

The concept of micro transactions isn't the problem imo. The lack of automation is.

If there was a browser plugin that automatically paid up to x$ if an authorized website asks for it, but never more than y$ per month that would be a good compromise between subscription model and single article purchases. There would be the initial authorization, but after that no further interactions. The news website, instead of displaying a paywall, could talk to the plugin to facilitate the payment.

As long as you'd be fine of loosing up to y$ in case of a bug/hack/whatever this should work fine. If publishers were to increase prices they had to fear to cross the yolo-line of x$ and the user being explicitly asked for consent, that should keep them in check too.

andy_ppp2• 7 years ago

You’re going to persuade millions of people to install a browser extension so they can pay for content? You have the incentives backwards...

CaptainMarvel• 7 years ago

I tried signing up for Blendle, but they rejected my email address for failing validation. I contacted their customer service, but their response was incredibly poor.

klez• 7 years ago

Do you mind elaborating on what made it poor? I was waiting for them to open in Italy, so I never had any real chance of interacting with them, so I'm curious about what the experience would have been like.

eisa01• 7 years ago

Will this apply to the English service too? That has never had a subscription option to my knowledge

Freak_NL4• 7 years ago

Blendle didn't succeed in getting the major national newspapers on board, because providing access to all content would make them a publisher competing directly with each newspaper's own subscriptions.

If you consider the price of a full subscription to a quality newspaper, you can see why Blendle would be way too cheap to sustain as a publishing partner; especially with a monthly flat fee.

As a reader, I would love to pay what I am paying now for one newspaper to gain access to more newspapers — particularly worldwide (Volkskrant, NRC, German FAZ, some Belgian ones, some American ones, some British (although The Guardian is already accessible — I donate a small sum yearly for their efforts)).

I wouldn't necessarily read more, but a more varied selection of articles. A flat fee is a requirement though.

Nextgrid• 7 years ago

If you consider the price of a full subscription to a quality newspaper

Newspaper subscription prices are extremely inflated when you compare what they would’ve earning from ads (and they were happy with ads until blockers came around).

If they actually priced the subscriptions for the same amount ads would bring them from an average reader (excluding ad blockers) they would be much more affordable.

Sadly, just like the movie industry, the publishers are being greedy and shot themselves in the foot.

calcifer• 7 years ago

Guardian's annual contribution starts at €0.96 per week [1]. Greedy? If anything, that's too cheap.

[1] https://support.theguardian.com/eu/contribute

manigandham• 7 years ago

You're underestimating how much ads pay.

CarbonvanE• 7 years ago

How did you come to the conclusion that Blendle didn't get the major national newspapers on board? In the old model every single major newspapers was since the start on board and only the NRC left in 2016. With Premium all major newspapers except NRC and de Telegraaf are on board. So practically every newspaper in the Netherlands is on board with both the micro-payment the subscription model.

(disclosure: I work part-time for Blendle)

Freak_NL4• 7 years ago

How did you come to the conclusion that Blendle didn't get the major national newspapers on board?

You're not carrying NRC. Any serious collection of Dutch quality newspapers includes at least all three of Volkskrant, Trouw, and NRC. The rest is regional, tabloid (Telegraaf), or mostly irrelevant (AD).

mark_l_watson• 7 years ago

Too bad, I liked the service. I have some credit for reading articles and I wonder how they will handle that.

Doubl2• 7 years ago

It was worth a try but I hated the model. I want to pay a Netflix/Spotify ballpark figure per month and be able read all newspapers. Until then I am very happy to pay the €5 a month I currently pay for one good paper (way less than the rate they show on their site btw)

AndrewDucker• 7 years ago

Yeah. I'll happily pay £15-£20 for access to all newspapers. I'm not going to pay any one newspaper for a subscription, because I don't read that many articles from any individual paper.

Doubl2• 7 years ago

That's it, exactly. I wouldn't read an American paper too often but I'd like to have the option when there's a big American story. Ditto Australia or even foreign language papers. I'm never going to take out a sub to them but this way they'd make a little from me sometimes.

gpvos3• 7 years ago

What I'd like is unlimited access to my main newspaper, plus a fairly high but limited number of articles in all other newspapers and magazines (say 100 articles per month, spread over all other publications), maybe with the possibility to carry over unused credits for a few months. A digital subscription to my current newspaper is almost 30 EUR a month. I think this should be doable for the same price, assuming that people who read other papers will occasionally read something from my paper, and money is distributed according to popularity (apart from a base payment to one's main paper). It should be possible to get newspapers to cooperate to do this, possibly through something like Blendle.

flas9sd2• 7 years ago

A successful Blendle gives the reader independence and absolves the user of getting intimate with all the digital sales strategies at publishers. Pocket does not position itself as distributor, so I welcome Blendle as broker. They offer fulltext export to Pocket. The web based reading experience of Blendle is also solid. Though I like pay-per-article, publishers and Blendle themselves seem to disagree on its profitability.

Blendle ditches pay-per-article service

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