<story><title>USA Today is getting a paywall. Who’s the audience for it?</title><url>https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/07/usa-today-is-getting-a-paywall-whos-the-audience-for-it/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Wowfunhappy</author><text>I think the major newspapers need to get together and start offering umbrella subscription packages. Preferably via something like Scroll, which worked in any web browser via a simple cookie.&lt;p&gt;Surely the NYT, WSJ, USA Today, etc realize that at $10 per month per paper, few people are going to maintain more than one or two subscriptions. Since the incremental cost of online distribution is nearly zero, this means that the news outlets are leaving money on the table.&lt;p&gt;Make everyone&amp;#x27;s first subscription cost $10, then provide access to additional papers for 50¢ each. Or use some other type of sliding scale—I&amp;#x27;m sure there are numbers that would make sense.&lt;p&gt;The alternatives are either that a major tech company comes along and does it for them (as Apple is attempting), or that all the papers ultimately merge into 2-3 huge outlets. I don&amp;#x27;t like either of those outcomes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;NYT, WSJ, USA Today, etc have to realize that at $10 per month per paper, almost no one is going to pay for more than a single subscription&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Plenty of people, offices and venues do. What&amp;#x27;s more likely, and the direction we&amp;#x27;ve been heading for years, is we see a population that consumes paid journalism and the broader market that has ad-supported filler.</text></comment>
<story><title>USA Today is getting a paywall. Who’s the audience for it?</title><url>https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/07/usa-today-is-getting-a-paywall-whos-the-audience-for-it/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Wowfunhappy</author><text>I think the major newspapers need to get together and start offering umbrella subscription packages. Preferably via something like Scroll, which worked in any web browser via a simple cookie.&lt;p&gt;Surely the NYT, WSJ, USA Today, etc realize that at $10 per month per paper, few people are going to maintain more than one or two subscriptions. Since the incremental cost of online distribution is nearly zero, this means that the news outlets are leaving money on the table.&lt;p&gt;Make everyone&amp;#x27;s first subscription cost $10, then provide access to additional papers for 50¢ each. Or use some other type of sliding scale—I&amp;#x27;m sure there are numbers that would make sense.&lt;p&gt;The alternatives are either that a major tech company comes along and does it for them (as Apple is attempting), or that all the papers ultimately merge into 2-3 huge outlets. I don&amp;#x27;t like either of those outcomes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jpalomaki</author><text>They must take into account the loyal subscribers who are already paying the current fees. Introducing lower prices can mess up with this income stream.&lt;p&gt;It’s not easy to differentiate the product enough to collect maximum money from the both groups.&lt;p&gt;But I do agree with your thinking. For me it would be almost enough if I could get access to just those articles posted on HN for $10&amp;#x2F;month (across many newspapers and with no risk of falling to some subscription trap).</text></comment>