
Ask HN: Which blogs/newsletters would you be willing to pay $5/month for? - refrigerator
A lot of people are happy to pay $10&#x2F;month for https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stratechery.com. Interested to see who else out there has loyal readerships willing to pay them!
======
justaguyhere
I'd happily pay for these:

List of real life ideas/pain points that can be solved and sold with software,
with some decent research into it (not like "my uncle says he will pay $3.50
to automate his antique shop")

Same as the previous one, but in the non-profit space and not for making
money. Specific problems that I can write code for, without having to worry
about whether it is actually useful or not

Stories/commentary/interviews about companies working on solving very hard
problems with tech, regardless of whether they succeed or not (not photo
sharing apps, but problems like genetics, pharma, privacy etc)

Actionable insights/ideas on improving my abilities - creativity, problem
solving, health etc (no pseudo science, no "motivational" stuff)

~~~
timo_f
> List of real life ideas/pain points that can be solved and sold with
> software, with some decent research into it (not like "my uncle says he will
> pay $3.50 to automate his antique shop")

Does anyone know if this exists?

~~~
dhruvkar
[https://nugget.one/daily](https://nugget.one/daily)

Last i checked here sent an email with some background research. The ideas are
from people willing to pay for a solution.

Also see:

[http://www.opportunityoverload.com](http://www.opportunityoverload.com)

------
piracykills
Is it bad if I'd say absolutely none? If any I read started charging I'd find
similar content somewhere else.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Is it bad if I 'd say absolutely none?_

If you're okay with ads or donate to journalistic non-profits, I think it's
okay. Otherwise, it is unsustainable.

~~~
braythwayt
I've been blogging since 2004 with no real ads or affiliate revenue to speak
of, and it's news to me that it's "unsustainable." But then, I guess it
depends upon whether we mean "sustainable as in keeping me motivated to
write," or if we mean, "financially sustainable as in keeping me in fresh sock
garters and Camambert risotto."

I get maybe $500 a month from people buying my books, and another $20 a month
in amazon affiliate revenues from links to other people's books. If I tried to
live on this, I'd starve. But this is not unusual, and I suspect that I am
making more money than most people who blog.

Let's be clear: It's very rare for someone to make their primary living from
blogging. But that's true of most creative things, be it writing, music, art,
custom bicycle frames. These are, by and large, terrible businesses from a
venal point of view.

Most people are in it for the love, because writing scratches their own itch.
It's an awful business to be in: Like pop music, it's mostly a few big winners
scooping the lion's share of the revenues, with everyone else scraping by or
having a day job to pay the rent.

I am ok with people paying me zero dollars, because I write for myself. If I
tried to live off it, I'd have to make insane compromises, like putting out a
new book every time a new language looked to become popular, or writing
clickbait blog posts on a schedule. And even then, the odds are that I would
just get by, and need to supplement that income with speaker's fees and
consulting.

Writing for money is a questionable model for a vocation, and a terrible model
for an avocation.

Writing for yourself is an excellent model for an avocation, but unsustainable
as a vocation.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _It 's very rare for someone to make their primary living from blogging. But
> that's true of most creative things, be it writing, music, art, custom
> bicycle frames_

Some kinds of blogging/newsletter-writing is cheap. Other kinds, particularly
the investigative kinds, are not.

~~~
braythwayt
That's true, and what we are witnessing in real time is those forms of
journalism evaporate, as the web destroys their business models.

I think that blogging is not the same thing as journalism, in many, many ways.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _what we are witnessing in real time is those forms of journalism evaporate,
> as the web destroys their business models_

The _Wall Street Journal_ and _New York Times_ are doing fine. Smaller
publications, too, like _The Information_ seem to do okay. Paywalls work
because (a) online ads are crap and (b) most readers are too cheap to pay
unless forced to.

> _I think that blogging is not the same thing as journalism_

I agree. I also think this blurring of the line has caused people to expect
both for free, which is clearly untenable. That said, newspapers include op-ed
sections and some "thinker" newsletters I subscribe to ( _e.g._ Mike Allen's
political daily) have broken legitimate news.

------
ilovetux
I don't think I would pay a monthly membership for a website, but what I would
be willing to pay for is Google and Facebook to stop watching me and showing
advertisements.

If I could pay the online ad companies to pay the content creator like I was a
"click" or a "view" I could have an ad-free online experience while the
content creator continues to get paid like I had seen the ad.

The opportunity for Google is huge I know a lot of people who would cough up
$5-10/mo for an ad-free online experience.

------
CM30
None of them. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of blogs and media sources I
like, but at the end of the day I can get any information I want somewhere
else for free.

Heck, in many cases, the information I need is either paid for by taxes (the
BBC) or provided by hobbyists for free anyway.

~~~
justaguyhere
I'm not sure this is correct always. Sure you can get _much_ of the
information for free, but not _any_ , as you mention. And even if you did,
you'd be paying for it with your time, spending hours and days poring over
data and separating facts from noise. For example: if you are an investor, can
you get information on potential opportunities (stocks to buy or whatever)
without having to spend money or a lot of time? What about real estate? If you
or a loved one has a unusual medical condition and you're interested in
knowing every recent development in the diagnosis, treatment etc of the
condition, can you get it accurately and quickly for free?

Happy to be proven wrong, but I guess we'd be paying for good
information/commentary/analysis etc one way or other - with time or money.

------
rpdillon
I was recently introduced to the 3blue1brown youtube channel. Easily worth
$5/mo, IMO.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw)

~~~
aogl
Thanks for introducing this to me!

------
philosphorous
I just began paying $5/mo to be a "member" at Medium. It's meant to enhance
the discovery feature and the ability to access curated archives. Really it
was a spur of the moment decision after I found myself reading and greatly
appreciating an article from 2015[1], but I haven't really used the membership
or understood it well enough to say that I'll continue yet. I think there's
great need for a specific type of personal journalism Medium is known for, and
I do want to support it especially if it means better research and discovery.
Also given how much I've read off of Medium (good and not so good), a payment
of some sort felt due. Let's see.

[1] [https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dying-on-
airbnb-6bff8d6...](https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dying-on-
airbnb-6bff8d600c04)

~~~
buildbuildbuild
I would categorize Medium as a product rather than a publisher, there's quite
a bit of the ambiguity behind the term "website" these days.

------
thisisit
> Interested to see who else out there has loyal readerships willing to pay
> them!

So, shouldn't the more apt question be - Which blogs/newsletter you _are_
paying $x/month for?

------
nemo1618
I would gladly pay $10/month to read Slate Star Codex. Heck, I'd pay $10/month
just to have access to its archived posts.

I'd pay $5 for ranprieur.com. Not a ton of content, but he keeps me thinking
about interesting questions.

I don't follow Gwern actively but I'd probably pay to have access to his site
too.

------
gigama
I read more blogs (single articles based on headlines of interest) than
newsletters (digests that show up in my inbox). While I find many of them
interesting and informative (krebs, schneier, ars, hn...) there's so much
duplicated info around there isn't much I'd be willing to actually pay
$60/year for.

Would rather do something like cryptocurrency micro-payments per actual
article read to the end (or upvoted, clapped, etc) as opposed to spending a
set amount of money per month for potentially unhelpful content or articles I
don't get around to reading.

That would reward content creators for writing good material that actually
gets read and the economy of scale would pay based on that mutual incentive.
Such micropayments would also be a better metric than simple impressions and
clicks.

------
nottorp
5/month is too much. Consider how many different websites you're reading in
one month, then imagine they all cost $5/month. It will start to hurt.

On the other hand, sites that charge you directly have to charge a minimum
because of banking fees etc.

What we need is some middleman that will charge you $15/month then distribute
it somehow along all the sites that you wish to support. Criteria to be done,
maybe evenly, maybe based on how much you read from each...

~~~
rusbus
If Brave / BAT actually catch on, this is the exact problem they're solving

------
Broken_Hippo
There aren't many. HN is the closest, but the truth is that I'd not start out
paying $5 a month for it: I'd have to have 3 months free to test, then ....
maybe. I'd probably pay for Reuters, AP, or BBC. The thing with these is
varied content or content I check on my own.

The problem with most things bogs is that I don't get that much out of them.
They are like newspapers or magazines: Might be OK every now and then, but
nothing I'd read daily without getting bored of the content or finding it not
nearly as useful as paying attention to them occasionally. I really wish
advertisements were responsible and non-intrusive, but unfortunately this is
rarely so. It wasn't so with television, newspapers, and magazines pre-
internet either. Paid cable was filled with so many ads! Even paid channels
advertising their own advertising long after a decent cable guide on demand
existed.

My other big exception might be a cooking blog if it lacks the horrible ad
experience and stops people from forcing their morals on me (I can buy organic
flimsy brand butter if I choose, but listing it as an ingredient annoys me to
no end). But again, I'd not pay it upfront and a free full-access trial would
be necessary.

~~~
jnbiche
> and stops people from forcing their morals on me

Those are almost certainly not their morals that they're including in the
recipe, but rather their monetization strategy. Those brand-specific
ingredients are likely examples of brand placement.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
The brand specific ones are probably so. Simply listing "organic butter" isn't
such a thing, and it happens quite often. I understand enough to just use the
butter I have, but some folks truly aren't. (I once had someone tell me
ibuprofen didn't work for them: they had to have Advil. Same stuff happens
with cooking, even with ingredients mandated to be the same).

------
wchandler
I will be very reluctant to pay a monthly fee for any website.

~~~
Spivak
I'm in the same boat. I have a subscription to a music service and a VPS
provider but that's it.

Recurring charges are weird, maybe stressful is the right word. I'm constantly
pressured to use the service to feel like I'm not waisting money but then when
I do I have to keep evaluating whether it's worth it.

Perpetual licenses I have no trouble popping though.

I think my gaming habit is a good example, I probably spend on average $10-20
on games every month from the same service but I wouldn't pay $15/mo for their
entire catalog.

------
baobaba
I stumbled upon
[https://www.dailycodingproblem.com/](https://www.dailycodingproblem.com/)
recently and it's the first time I want to pay for a newsletter. I don't need
to pass a coding interview, but I used to be a competition programmer in high
school and love thinking of tricky coding problems to solve. The newsletter
includes a detailed solution to each problem (the next day.) What a great
idea.

I also used to pay for [http://railscasts.com/](http://railscasts.com/) by
Ryan Bates - back when it was a paid subscription. I paid for how succinct the
information was organized, despite there being a tonne of other Ruby blogs out
there.

------
thinkdisruptive
Almost none, unless it was something I'd read every day + found more than 1/2
articles relevant + useful. Won't even pay for NYT if only 5 or 6
articles/month add significant value.

We need a subscription business model that aggregates content like cable/pay
tv, so I can pay a fair price once, and continue grazing across most sites
without worrying about individual subscriptions or micropayments. WSJ and
Economist are only sources I would pay for (at a reasonable price) that aren't
providing specific data points I can use. And, most people wouldn't find those
as useful as I do, so it's down to personal preferences and how much of any
source you'll get value from.

It's why individual subscriptions to everything is a dead-in-the-water
business model that's going to kill off most journals. Most sites will be
abandoned if there is a paywall.

Think about it this way -- how many people would pay for The History Channel
or HGTV as individual add-on tv channels? Yet a very large number of people
will occasionally watch those sources if it's included in general
subscription, and they add value to the overall package, even if you rarely
watch them. That's the way I view 99% of online content.

And, you have to make it dead easy, and not be constantly harrassing me about
subscriptions or micropayments, or I'm gone. And, I also expect sites I'm
paying for to be ad-free and not slowing down my browser, or I won't pay.

------
vphillips
Hi,

I was curious to see the responses to this question. I run Opportunity
Overload and we have paying subscribers for our pro-tier. We started at $10
per month and now have a $50 per month plan (still working on the details of
this).

We send out the best weekly entrepreneurial opportunities in the form of
sites, side projects, domains, broad opportunities and courses that we write.

[http://www.opportunityoverload.com](http://www.opportunityoverload.com)

Focus on providing something that you would want to pay for. 'Scratch your own
itch' sort of speak.

Hope this helps, Vic

------
jwilcoxson
I was paying $5/mo for Ars Technica, and recently switched to paying $50/year,
because they were giving away a Yubikey with it. You don’t get any more
content, but no ads and full text RSS.

------
pjc50
I tell you what would be amazing: content aggregators (like HN) that charged
and distributed money to the content providers.

Unfortunately it's really hard to build a community if you charge.

~~~
rayalez
Are you familiar with steemit? They're trying to do something like that,
although the result is not as good as HN or even reddit.

------
phatboyslim
I discovered it primarily as a YouTube channel but the guy who makes
[http://iliketomakestuff.com](http://iliketomakestuff.com) has some great
projects out there, including a number of arduino based projects. I’m trying
to expand my horizon beyond web development and it appeals to my inner maker.

------
digitalni
How do you know that "a lot of people" are paying to read stratechery.com? Any
sources to back this claim?

~~~
lawrencewu
He makes $200k / year from his newsletter:
[http://www.niemanlab.org/reading/ben-thompsons-
stratechery-i...](http://www.niemanlab.org/reading/ben-thompsons-stratechery-
is-doing-200000-a-year-in-revenue/)

~~~
vasilipupkin
wow, that seems really not much for a publication focused on business
strategy.

~~~
scarface74
That was a few years ago when he said he had 2000 subscribers. He doesn't say
how many he has now.

------
Spidler
LWN.net gets a bit more than $5. You pay to get quality content a few weeks
ahead of time. Well worth the money.

~~~
danieldk
_You pay to get quality content a few weeks ahead of time._

Just a week ahead of time:

[https://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#subs](https://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#subs)

But I agree, LWN.net is awesome, I am also subscribed for $7 per month. They
have really well-researched articles about Linux and the Linux community.

------
lolikoisuru
LWN.net

It's not a blog or a newsletter but proper journalism and definitely worth the
$5/mo I pay for it. I don't think there is any newsletter that just recycles
other people's content would be worth the money.

------
nunez
LWN.net. I don't read their articles often, but seeing what's on the forefront
of the Linux project and associated work without combing through tons of
commits is useful

------
rutierut
I'm subscribed to the correspondent but it's more their mission and work I'm
supporting than actually paying to read their articles, though they are very
good.

------
aivarsk
[https://blog.acolyer.org/](https://blog.acolyer.org/) \- for summary/overview
of CS papers.

------
praptak
Seriously don't know. Anything I can think of seems like a stretch. I pay a
monthly fee for access to a popular Polish newspaper/news portal though.

------
cirgue
I would pay for a professionally edited newswire service that doesn't
advertise and doesn't sell content to anyone other than end users.

------
washadjeffmad
I'd pay $5/mo for a digital-only Lapham's Quarterly, and I'd be willing to pay
separately for The World in Time.

------
subpixel
I would pay $5/mo to use Twitter, but only if every other user paid the same
amount and there were no ads.

~~~
aldoushuxley001
I'm curious, what is it about Twitter that you'd pay for?

~~~
subpixel
If it ceased to be free it would possibly maintain its utility and gain some
civility b/c most of the people that constitute the political echo chamber
would balk at paying.

------
TheAceOfHearts
Currently I don't pay for any blogs or newsletters. I'd be willing to pay for
high quality content as long as it were still made freely available, ideally
with a permissive license. It is my belief that knowledge should generally be
accessible to society.

I support content creators that have used similar strategies in other mediums.
Some examples:

1\. Exploring ES6 [0]. The book is freely available online which means I can
access it anywhere and easily share relevant sections if the need arises, such
as when having an online discussion or explaining to a beginner how a specific
feature works. I happily bought a copy and regularly recommend it to others.

2\. Textual [1]. It's an open source IRC client which charges for the
precompiled version. I like having the option to dig into the source and
compile it myself if the need arose. Paying for it allows the developer to
continue working on bug fixes and improving the tool.

If I were more involved in the topics they covered, I'd happily start paying
for LWN.net [2]. They allow linking to articles without paywalls and seem to
produce very high quality content.

[0] [http://exploringjs.com/es6/](http://exploringjs.com/es6/)

[1] [https://www.codeux.com/textual/](https://www.codeux.com/textual/)

[2] [https://lwn.net/](https://lwn.net/)

------
hkmurakami
very good entertainment that hits my niche and isn't widely available for
free.

Investigative journalism ("sponsoring" good work being done)

Content that helps me make more money that I can't get for free elsewhere
online.

Content that helps me save costs that I can't get for free elsewhere online.

------
kevmo
I would pay $5/month for Hacker News, Drudge Report, and reddit.com/r/all.

~~~
brador
Well, [https://skimfeed.com](https://skimfeed.com) is free. Get yourself
something nice with that $5 :)

~~~
guybedo
This is nice, didn't know skimfeed. I've been working on a news aggregator
too, just released my first beta :-) [http://aktu.io](http://aktu.io)

------
CraneWorm
None

------
andr
Kottke.org. The best digest of the culture side of the Internet.

~~~
ac29
In case you didn't already know, kottke does already have a membership model:
[https://kottke.org/members/](https://kottke.org/members/)

------
Hnrobert42
I already do for Ars Technica, Wikipedia, and NPR.

------
alexpetralia
Matt Levine's Money Stuff

------
rayalez
Definitely [http://slatestarcodex.com](http://slatestarcodex.com)

Extremely engaging, educational, well-researched articles.

More articles from EY at [http://lesswrong.com](http://lesswrong.com).

Hacker News.

------
johnmax
hn

------
keenerd
I'm willing to pay $5/month for one blog: my own. That is what a basic VPS
with plenty of bandwidth costs.

edit: Interesting, this is fast approaching my most downvoted comment ever.
Wonder why that is. I didn't even bother to link my own blog in case that came
off as overly self-promotional.

If you think that content should be free, what is wrong with putting your
money where your mouth is and giving your own away?

~~~
username223
Same -- I pay about $5/mo to host a blog. Part of me wishes people would pay
to read it, but the rest of me is in touch with reality. People who want to
give me money can buy other things.

I am also willing to pay for good reporting and writing, e.g. the New Yorker
and my local paper, because they require actual work. I wouldn't pay for
Stratechery, which is just an opinion blog.

