<story><title>Won’t Subscribe</title><url>https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/09/25/Subscription-Overload</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boplicity</author><text>As a long-time publisher, there is only one primary metric that matters to me: loyal readers. I don&amp;#x27;t publish for the occasional visitor. I publish for the loyal readers that I have worked hard to cultivate, engage, and enrichen. The primary work is one of building a relationship with a loyal readership, based on consistency and quality.&lt;p&gt;Our websites, as they&amp;#x27;re designed, are probably a little annoying to people who are not our loyal readership. That&amp;#x27;s by design; you&amp;#x27;re either part of our core audience, or we&amp;#x27;re filtering for whether you could be part of our core audience. Everyone else is secondary to the success of the business, as well as secondary to our core job, which is to serve our loyal readers, and, again, NOT our occasional readers, and certainly not the people who are likely to visit us just once and then never again.&lt;p&gt;The article suggests adding an additonal – and complex – revenue source: selling articles individually. This idea, of course, is not feasible, because it is such a huge distraction from the core business, and is potentially a distraction that has the potential to cause real harm to the core business. Successful publishing is extremely difficult. To actually be sustainable, you really can&amp;#x27;t let yourself be distracted from what matters.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>virgilp</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s the thing: with this model, it&amp;#x27;s (somewhat) easy to keep loyal readers, but it&amp;#x27;s maybe hard to get new ones.&lt;p&gt;I think this is the part that you&amp;#x27;re not disclosing here - how do you get new readers? A lot of times, a business like yours relies on the referrals from the loyal customers in order to expand. If you make it impossible for the &amp;quot;occasional reader&amp;quot; to read you, then by extension you make it extremely difficult for your loyal customers to refer you. Based on your &amp;quot;little annoying&amp;quot; comment, I&amp;#x27;m guessing you don&amp;#x27;t do that. So this means occasional visitors are free to read your content, it&amp;#x27;s just annoying to do so - and you&amp;#x27;re relying on that annoyance to convert them to paid customers (should they  find themselves coming back again &amp;amp; again).&lt;p&gt;I mean, it&amp;#x27;s a valid tactic. BUT - I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s the only one. I do think &amp;quot;subscription fatigue&amp;quot; is a real thing - people will not be subscribed to countless services.  As the competition for the subscription money sharpens, at least some publishers may find themselves pushed out of this model. I think that&amp;#x27;s all that Tim Bray was saying - and, I think he&amp;#x27;s right. There&amp;#x27;s unexplored potential out there, that you ignore at your own risk.</text></comment>
<story><title>Won’t Subscribe</title><url>https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/09/25/Subscription-Overload</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boplicity</author><text>As a long-time publisher, there is only one primary metric that matters to me: loyal readers. I don&amp;#x27;t publish for the occasional visitor. I publish for the loyal readers that I have worked hard to cultivate, engage, and enrichen. The primary work is one of building a relationship with a loyal readership, based on consistency and quality.&lt;p&gt;Our websites, as they&amp;#x27;re designed, are probably a little annoying to people who are not our loyal readership. That&amp;#x27;s by design; you&amp;#x27;re either part of our core audience, or we&amp;#x27;re filtering for whether you could be part of our core audience. Everyone else is secondary to the success of the business, as well as secondary to our core job, which is to serve our loyal readers, and, again, NOT our occasional readers, and certainly not the people who are likely to visit us just once and then never again.&lt;p&gt;The article suggests adding an additonal – and complex – revenue source: selling articles individually. This idea, of course, is not feasible, because it is such a huge distraction from the core business, and is potentially a distraction that has the potential to cause real harm to the core business. Successful publishing is extremely difficult. To actually be sustainable, you really can&amp;#x27;t let yourself be distracted from what matters.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ako</author><text>As a publisher maybe it is time to rethink your primary metric. As a long-time reader, i&amp;#x27;m not interesting in being a loyal reader, i&amp;#x27;m interested in reading the best news.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t limit myself to the music of one band, so i really appreciate spotify, and i don&amp;#x27;t limit myself to the news of one publisher.</text></comment>