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    Paywalls

    Quite often on here, usually on the political threads, a link will be posted to the NYT or Washington Post or the New Yorker and I will be dutifully click and see that I have "two free articles left this month". I suppose that if I make judicious use of various devices this number can be multiplied. It's not particularly an issue for me, but I was wondering if paywalls, also used by the likes of The Times, actually work. Do they gain more in subscribers than they lose in casual internet surfers not seeing the adverts on their sites?

    One of the two local newspapers in Valencia, Levante EMV, not so long ago introduced a partial paywall for its website, which struck me as absolutely insane given that practically every bar or café here carries a free copy of this or its right-wing rival, Las Provincias. I'm really none too sure how many out-of-town subscibers they hope to attract to the site but I can't imagine it would be many.

    Do you pay for online access for any newspapers or do you tend to play the system, get your X number of free articles a month, and rely on the many other news outlets for your info? And do paywalls really work? What's the business verdict?
    Last edited by Sporting; 17-10-2018, 05:30.

    #2
    I have personal subscriptions to the New York Times and Washington Post, and can access content from the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Le Monde and Handlesblatt via our corporate subscription with a couple of extra clicks.

    My understanding of the financials is that building a paywall has been a net benefit for publications like this that occupy the very highest reaches of the newspaper food chain (and has been particularly successful for financial papers like the FT and WSJ), but that it has not had the same positive effect for other papers like the ones you describe.

    When we were living in Italy, I tended to prefer Corriere della Sera’s marginally more traditional approach to la Repubblica’s Guardian in Italian vibe. Now that Corriere has a paywall, though, I use Repubblica , which does not.

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      #3
      Originally posted by Sporting View Post
      I suppose that if I make judicious use of various devices this number can be multiplied.
      If you just use the 'Incognito / Private Browsing' function on any of your browsers, the number can be multiplied indefinitely. It simply shuns the cookies that are used to track your free articles count.

      From my days at The Globe and Mail, we attended a talk from the WaPo guru. It's apparently working quite well for them, but I can't remember any of the numbers. I still subscribe to the paper-paper so I can get the digital version free. I think that the Toronto Star's new paywall will be a costly flop. In a city like this, there are just too many free news options for local stories to have paid value.

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        #4
        I subscribe to the New York Times Friday through Sunday. Getting a full digital subscription as part of getting any sort of paper subscription, even just Sunday only, is a really good deal.

        The LA Times has a paywall, but it must not work very well for them because I constantly get promotional emails trying to sell me digital access for cheap. Right now it's $1.50 for the rest of 2018.

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          #5
          Making money from journalism in the digital age is an interesting and complex issue that poses a number of challenges (and opportunities) for both content producers and consumers. The growing number of titles moving to subscription models suggests that traditional monetisation strategies, such as advertising, are no ........

          To read more subscribe to Southport Zeb + for only £4.99 per month. For a limited time only, new subscribers are eligible for a Southport Zeb + tea towel with a 24 month subscription.

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            #6
            (applause)

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              #7
              I subscribed three minutes ago and STILL haven't received my Southport Zeb + tea towel. Disgusting "service", will cancel.

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                #8
                You forgot 'and will tell all my friends to do same'.

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                  #9
                  I have some knowledge of how this works through my job, from a Google News traffic driving perspective.

                  I think, in effect, free content with ads doesn't work for publishing and many were at risk of going to the wall if they didn't change. As mentioned above, paywalling has been successful for some, but it's worth noting there are different methods. Some use metering (x free articles per month) others use lead-in which requires a subscription up front (e.g. NYT).

                  Publishers are also trying to force Google, Facebook etc to pay publishers to even link to them, and there's some indication the EU is on board. When Spain tried this, Google just cut them off, but the whole EU might be a different story. However, this tells me that most publishers are convinced that paywalling alone will make for a sustainable business model.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by WOM View Post
                    You forgot 'and will tell all my friends to do same'.
                    Damn it!

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                      #11
                      Is the 'Southport Zeb +' tea towel that much better than the regular 'Southport Zeb' tea towel? I don't really feel like paying more for so-called 'premium content' that actually gets my dishes dried no faster.

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                        #12
                        Can someone copy paste the Southport Zeb + tea towel here? I've lost my log in details. Honest

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                          #13
                          The Guardian's approach is fatally flawed. Ask people to donate (this in theory should work, it's how PBS in the US operates), but also drive traffic to your site through clickbait... which in turn dissuades people from contributing.

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                            #14
                            I saw a very funny desciption of that ‘paywall text fading away’ thing a while back which compared it to the experience of carefully edging away from someone loud and a bit crazy on public transport.

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