
Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian raises more revenue than ads - gk1
http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/11/asking-members-to-support-its-journalism-no-prizes-no-swag-the-guardian-raises-more-reader-revenue-than-ad-dollars/
======
f055
This. Years ago it was obvious to most newspapers that paid subscribers are
their lifeline. Advertisers come and go, daily sales come and go, but long-
period subscribers keep you afloat. Somehow, when the respected newspapers
moved to the web, they forgot that, and kept pumping ads like crazy. This, in
essence, moved the sense of their product from quality content to clickable
content - these two don't mix. Consequently, this eroded quality journalism,
investigative, explanatory view of the world (and let's face it, TV could
never replace that void, as they are solely relying on ads to survive). And
then, a lot of bad things happened with peoples' opinions and understanding. I
am glad many outlets are now seeing the correct path. The best news source in
Poland nowadays is a wealthy, but niche, "Dziennik Gazeta Prawna" ("Daily Law
Newspaper") with great, balanced content on serious issues - that relies
mostly on subscribers. The best English periodical I have found is Foreign
Affairs, also a very subscriber-focused outlet. Note that both of these seem
to offer much better content in their paper issues than online.

~~~
drinchev
Note that Guardian is successful, because of "supporters" and not
>subscribers<. It's different than WSJ, where they lock the content, until you
pay. The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one.

~~~
harryf
> The Guardian way looks more like the Wikipedia one

Have any newspapers experimented with crowd-funding stories? This Niemanlabs
report suggests none of the big names had as of Sept 2016 -
[http://niemanreports.org/articles/crowdfunding-the-
news/](http://niemanreports.org/articles/crowdfunding-the-news/) \- wonder if
that's changed?

~~~
mfsch
There are also “De Correspondent” [1] in the Netherlands, which inspired
“Krautreporter” [2] in Germany and “Republik” [3] in Switzerland. Both De
Correspondent and Republik set new records for crowd-funding in journalism,
with the latter raising on the order of 3.5M USD. These projects used crowd-
funding as initial funding though, and not for individual stories. Their
ongoing financing is based on paid subscriptions.

[1] [https://decorrespondent.nl/](https://decorrespondent.nl/) [2]
[https://krautreporter.de/](https://krautreporter.de/) [3]
[https://www.republik.ch/](https://www.republik.ch/)

------
jimnotgym
A quick review of UK print media

1) The Times - Rupert Murdoch mouthpiece. Employs MP Michael Gove for £100k a
year after he was sacked for being a backstabber.

2) The Mail - "The EU and immigrants want to kill your children and sleep with
your sister and may even affect your house price". Billionaire owner too.

3) The Telegraph - "The Torygraph" former paper of the ruling classes, now
mouth piece of two weird billionaire brothers who live in a castle on an
island like particularly boring bond villains.

4) The Express - "Princes Diana wanted Brexit". Owned by billionaire Richard
"not a pornographer" Desmond

5) The Sun - Rupert Murdoch's gutter mouthpiece

6) The News of the World - Rupert's other paper that had to close because they
hacked the voice mail of a girl who was murdered, and therefore delayed the
police investigation.

7) The Mirror - low grade leftism, but mostly celeb gossip

8) The Financial Times - Pretty good journalism and then pages of bond prices
etc

9) The Independent. No longer in print. Billionaire Arab and Russian owners

edit: from comments there is a number 10

10) The i - a lower case Independent. Thinner, cheaper and still in print.
This main use for the i seems to be to leave it on train seats when the Metro
(a free paper they give out in railway stations) is just too cheap. The
journalism seems OK. Owned by establishment media PLC

So if you didn't want Brexit, think immigration is helping demographics, think
Princess Di should be laid to rest now and don't think the world is full of
benefit scroungers, there is only the Guardian left.

edit: formatting and a sad inability to list numbers

~~~
jraines
Well, if we're doing quick parody headlines as stand-ins, it's actually
impossible to out-Guardian the Guardian:

"I dread the day my daughter's poos get smaller"
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/08/dread-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/08/dread-
daughter-poos-smaller-girl-conform)

"Tea is a national disgrace"

"Robots are racist and sexist, just like the people who created them"

In any case, good on them for proving out this revenue model, hopefully it's
sustainable and we see gigantic yellow-orange beg-boxes on more online media
(seriously)

~~~
MarkMc
My favourite: "How ancient lentils reveal the origins of social inequality"

[https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/11/lentils-
orig...](https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/11/lentils-origins-of-
social-inequality)

~~~
a_bonobo
But that one comes from the researchers themselves:

>The weakening of a strong communal ideology surrounding food production and
storage increased the potential for dominant families to emerge, either
through consistently greater success, or through force or unequal conditions
of exchange. This in turn created the preconditions of specialisation and
social inequality upon which urban life was founded in Mesopotamia.

(and that conjecture was based on lentils found by archaeologists)

------
stillkicking
Now imagine how much more they'd make if they actually published quality
material instead of culture war clickbait and freshman opinion pieces. 'Member
when The Guardian was one of the outlets boldly reporting the Snowden and
Manning leaks? I member.

Right now on their front page I can read how democracy is being undermined "by
not distinguishing between fact and opinion". And you know what? They're right
on this front. But they categorically refuse to point the fingers at all
guilty parties, and instead stick to the targets that are politically
opportune and which they are ideologically opposed to.

e.g. I have yet to see any mainstream outlet bother to mention that Reddit's
default news and political subs turned into pro-Hillary/anti-Trump mouthpieces
in the months leading up to the US election, an effect that was presumably
related to the millions her campaign pumped into Correct The Record, and which
had a _huge_ effect in creating and calcifying the "right wing hate
subreddits" they now hysterically complain about.

e.g. I don't see anyone talking anymore about how the US pwned European
infrastructure and broke into politicians' accounts (including Merkel's). But
when Russia is said to be _attempting_ this, it is presented as akin to
cybernetic warfare. Well in that case, America has been fighting WW3 under our
noses, and they are equally reprehensible for doing so. Otherwise, this is
simply how the game is being played, and all is fair in love and war. Which
one is it? Because "muh russia" isn't a consistent stance on this. The
response appears to be for suspiciously many people to start posting
complaints about "whataboutism", in a spontaneous attempt at misdirection away
from the hypocrisy. How curious.

~~~
ouid
You and a friend go to a house on halloween and there's a bowl that says take
one. You sheepishly take two, and your friend, after you, empties the entire
bowl into his sack.

You ask of him, outraged, "How could you do such a malicious thing?!" and he
responds, "Me?!?! what about you?!"

 _This_ is whataboutism, and yeah, you're guilty of it. Our right wing is at
least two orders of magnitude more corrupt than our left wing. Pointing
fingers at "all guilty parties" means pointing fingers almost exclusively at
republicans.

~~~
ogre_magi
Both sides perceive the outgroup as the source of all evil in the world. You
could replace left/right and republican/democrat in your comment and there
would be people on the other side who sincerely believe it as much as you do.

Neither claim is accurate.

~~~
hitekker
For those curious, I'd recommend looking at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence)
or
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance).

Sometimes, right and wrong isn't always obvious. To know one from another may
require effort and thought.

Often times, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and so we develop instincts
that ensure we can take a step back and not immediately point fingers.

That's good; most of us don't think of ourselves as political idiots, where
any dog whistle will make us jump through hoops, raging at some invisible
enemy.

But there are times when the truth clearly falls much more on one side than
the other. And in those times, saying "well I thought both parties were wrong,
but it turns out that one was and is right" can be a rather scary prospect!

But I think it's better to be a little embarrassed than to run away from the
world's problems.

~~~
ogre_magi
We probably don't share the same values, and would not be able to reach
consensus on the "right side."

This is an acceptable and unavoidable situation that technocrats need to learn
to live with. People will want different outcomes, and will have different
moral matrices. People on the left and right will each disagree with the other
side's characterization of their politician's sins.

Edit: Just want to note that the parent comment was substantially edited in
ways that might make this comment seem weird.

~~~
root_axis
People on both sides pretty much share the same values; social issues are a
big exception, but the crux of the disagreement between the right and left
very often comes down to a disagreement about facts on the ground (e.g.
lowering taxes on the rich creates jobs, net-neutrality harms customers and
innovation, a minimally regulated market provides better and cheaper
healthcare than single-payer, human behavior has no or negligible impact on
climate etc)

~~~
Veelox
>People on both sides pretty much share the same values

Sorry but I think you are significantly mistaken. To give two examples of
statements that are common from each side. "Homosexuality is sinful" and "All
white people are racist." The two sides are so far apart that when someone
makes one of those statements they feel they are making an obvious non-
controversial statement but it is offensive to the other side.*

This is because each side is so far apart they cannot even agree on what words
mean. Combine this with the ease at which someone can become offended and it
makes discussion almost impossible.

*I can either or both statements if requested.

~~~
root_axis
As I already said: social issues are a big exception, but research shows that
social issues are very low on the totem-pole relative to facts based issues.
Additionally, I don't think either statement is very common, those examples
illustrate extreme individuals that are motivated by hate rather than by a
disagreement about particular _values_. Ironically, your example illustrates
my point pretty well since the black community tends to vote for liberal
politicians even though they share religious and traditional values with
conservatives. The reason for this is a disagreement about which policies are
effective not about values, and we saw this play out in the 2016 election when
Trump specifically addressed black voters with promises of more jobs, better
education, and lower crime rates in black communities.

------
caoilte
That certainly highlights the importance of the right UX, but I wish they had
invested in Patreon style features to allow support for specific authors.

I would pay £5/month to the Guardian and be happy for them to take a 30%
administrative cut if they ring fenced the rest for writers I want to support.

The Scott Trust has failed to preserve a newspaper that is fiercely
independent. Only experimenting with democratisation of commissioning and
hiring is going to break it out of the nepotist trap it has fallen into.

~~~
monksy
I would agree with the concept of only supporting the writers that you like. I
used to like the Guardian because they had good journalism. However, the
opinion pieces are absolutely atrocious and detract the quality of the paper.

For example, there was an article in my google now articles recommended from
the guardian that was "Milo Yiannopolous has huge support in Australia, men
must call him out."

~~~
calcifer
That opinion piece is titled " _If_ Milo Yiannopoulos has huge support in
Australia, men must call him out".

I wasn't aware of the article before your post, but now that I've read it, I
don't see anything controversial (much less "atrocious") in it. Care to
elaborate?

~~~
te_chris
Some men feel weirdly threatened by the possibility of a world where their
less than stellar behaviour towards women might be called out. Every comment
like the one you're replying to is the same "I loved X until they lost all
credibility and became biased by Y" where Y = calling out shitty MRA/Alt-right
activist figures.

~~~
monksy
Nice try at attempting to slander my character or political stances: but no
dice for you. This isn't about my own personal stances. It's about the
publication and if you can call it news.

I'm really not sure where the MRA or comments on women came from in my
original comment.

The Guardian (And the BBC) used to my main source for international news, and
cultural trends until about 2012ish. That's when they started heavily
featuring columnists that put out articles similar to the one that I
mentioned. I wrote a letter to an editor with a concern, it got ignored. I
stopped taking them seriously (as a whole) and reading as a primary source.

~~~
te_chris
"This isn't about my own personal stances."

I'm not trying to 'slander' your character. Your complaint with the Guardian
was literally about an article calling out Milo, a controversial bigot who, as
was recently revealed by BuzzFeed, fraternises with Nazis for his own gain.
This is a pattern I've seen recur among angry MRA/alt-right types - saying
they got sick of news source because of something related to feminism.

If you're not MRA/alt-right then I'm sorry, but I'd suggest picking your
examples more carefully.

I'm not sure why the editor owed you a reply either. You're free to not read
it. It can't have meant that much to you as you didn't seem to fight it all
that hard.

~~~
nailer
Which specific nazis did Milo fraternise with? The Daily Stormer hates him,
and he's married to a black man.

Or are you using 'fraternises' as 'contacted'? Milo is a journalist, they
contact people. The Guardian also contacts nazis. It doesn't mean they are
nazis.

------
stabbles
Can't be happier with this! Proof that people are willing to pay for quality.

In The Netherlands we just got news that public service television etc sees an
unexpected drop of income through ads (they're 60 mln euros short on budget in
2019). The quality of the online public news service is declining (clickbait
titles for instance). Hopefully The Guardian sets an example!

~~~
GuB-42
Quality? If the Guardian is considered quality journalism, the others are
probably not worth the paper they are not printed on.

Most links to the guardian I see are opinion pieces clearly made with a
certain audience in mind. It is an echo chamber: people pay to read what they
want to read.

Does quality journalism exist at all? The only exception seems to be technical
subjects, like science and engineering. And that's because there is a huge
amount of effort being made to avoid bias at every level. And even that tends
to be thrown out of the window as soon as it hits a popular journal.

Where are the journals where fact are analyzed from several point of views.
Take net neutrality for instance, where are the articles that really talks
about the pros and cons? My opinion is that net neutrality is a good thing, I
don't need a paper telling me what I am already convinced of. No, I want a
paper to first explain me what net neutrality really is, and what are the
drawbacks and how it compares to the positive aspects. It may not change my
mind but at least I will be more informed.

------
peeters
I think that most media outlets make a wrong assumption about online content.
They think that everybody wants content that's free above all else, so they
swamp their content with ads.

But I think it's more that people want diversity. I'll happily support news
outlets financially, but at $300/yr for Globe&Mail and $260/yr for NYTimes,
etc, the cost is just ridiculous.

I WANT to support good journalism, but I want to pay a set price and have it
be divided by my actual consumption. If I subscribe to two newspapers my
consumption doesn't double, so I don't want to pay double.

The salable entity in the internet era shouldn't be a subscription to a
newspaper, it should be an article.

~~~
ethagnawl
> The salable entity in the internet era shouldn't be a subscription to a
> newspaper, it should be an article.

I think this is spot-on. My guess is that a browser based micropayment
solution/ecosystem will emerge (a la Brave and its Basic Attention Token).

~~~
peeters
> My guess is that a browser based micropayment solution/ecosystem will emerge

I think so too, I think it's just a question of outlets realizing that the
lost profits from cannibalizing their subscription sales does not compare to
the income from allowing consumers to buy pieces of your publication.

~~~
peoplewindow
It was tried in the past. There were attempts to get newspapers to unite
behind single group subscription schemes. The newspapers themselves rejected
it. Problem is if a third party collects your income for you, you're not
really independent anymore. Also, they don't want to receive pennies because
someone read a single article they wrote, they want long term subscribers.
Finally it requires them to all adopt paywalls which they didn't want to do
back then (maybe these days it'd be different).

I wish I could remember the name of the scheme I'm thinking of.

~~~
justincormack
Project Alesia was the internal name.

------
scandox
I sometimes feel like there isn't much alternative to The Guardian - on the
other hand the opinion pieces are often wearisome and at times the whole thing
starts to feel like a parody of itself. It is as if, in becoming "worthy" of
"support" it has to crank itself up to an insane degree...just as sugary
drinks become more sugary over time to retain their core drinkers.

This is especially noticeable when ludicrous lifestyle pieces sit cheek-by-
jowl with slightly overwrought culture wars content. I can't find an example
today so I'll make one up:

\- Is enjoying the movie Chinatown an act of molestation?

\- Why Colombian hemp chocolate makes for the best edible luggage

I mean I both think Polanski should be in jail and that Colombia tourism
should be encouraged...but this stuff isn't news.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
What about the recent editorial condemning Taylor Swift:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/the-
gu...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/the-guardian-
view-on-taylor-swift-an-envoy-for-trumps-values)

~~~
m00g00
Notice also, no byline, and no comments allowed. The Guardian often panders to
culture war outrage bait then hides behind taking responsibility or criticism
with tricks like this, and the fact that an occasional decent article exists.

Why again does this failing rag deserve support, and why is this obvious
propaganda upvoted to the top of HN?

~~~
gsnedders
Comments are only allowed on the blog-like "comment is free" posts, which
presumably they don't consider editorials part of despite them now obviously
being part of the same platform technically (hence the /commentisfree/ URLs).

This isn't something specific to this editorial; it is the general rule the
website works by.

(As an aside, I'd much rather Comment is Free just died, because so much of
what the Guardian gets lambasted over is content posted there—and its explicit
point is less editorial control over the contents. If people don't want what
gets posted with less direct editorial control over content, just don't give
it to them.)

~~~
m00g00
No idea what their arbitrary rules are, but I noticed a review by The Guardian
of Swift's new album linked at the top of this article did have comments
enabled. Both of these are obviously opinions, so I'm not sure what the
difference is, besides the fact that one article (GP) was way more likely to
receive backlash in the comments than the other.

~~~
gsnedders
Weird. It certainly used to be the case no "newspaper" article had comments
enabled, but that definitely does. So yeah, OK, I don't understand when
commenting is enabled any more.

I mean, at least the old "newspaper" platform v. "blog" platform distinction
made sense—there were many more differences (editorial control being a major
one) than just commenting.

~~~
Nursie
For a while they had comments on almost everything, then they realised that
the majority of comments were opposed to their viewpoint, and even ridiculed
them. So they shut most of it down

That's not to say the readership wasn't with them - that's a lot harder to
quantify - but thencommenters largely weren't.

------
foobarbazetc
I pay them because it’s the only news source I actually trust.

Their live updating event pages are really great too.

They don’t always get it right with tech articles (they pissed off Pinboard a
while back — they fixed it eventually) but still a great source of
international news.

~~~
GunlogAlm
Their journalism generally is very good, certainly better than the majority of
British newspapers and tabloids. Their opinion articles, however, range from
decent to atrocious - I tend to ignore the 'Comment is Free' section now,
unless I'm familiar with a piece's author.

------
JeanMarcS
Does members having a tracker free access ? Because it seems fair that if you
pay you are not in the "if it's free you're the product" anymore.

It's important to move to this model.

~~~
xxs
Well, how do you get tracker free if you are already logged in. Tracking user
action on its own is not a sin as business should know what customers are
interested in. Selling the data to 3rd parties (and organizing the entire
operation to support) is the dirty gray area.

~~~
floatboth
Third party scripts is what everyone is talking about, yeah.

Good example: MetaFilter does not show Google Ads to logged-in members.

------
Jedd
As much as I enjoy the quality of journalism from them, claims of The Guardian
struggling, or being without sin (in the context of throwing stones around tax
avoidance, especially post-Panama & Paradise papers, and at the risk of being
labelled a whatbouter) should be considered in context.

That context is that they've got some pretty serious claims of tax avoidance
in their not-too-distant past.

The Spectator ran a story [1] the middle of last year on the subject, though
they've clearly got some fiscal & political views that could best be described
as orthogonal to the Guardian.

The Independent ran their own story a few years earlier [2] that went into a
bit more detail on the somewhat regrettable ratio of profits to domestic tax
paid.

[1] [https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/will-the-guardian-
now-...](https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/will-the-guardian-now-
investigate-its-own-tax-arrangements/)

[2] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/guardian-
med...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/guardian-media-firm-
makes-186m-but-pays-only-200000-tax-8675818.html)

~~~
calcifer
The Guardian responded to various such claims over the years in quite a bit of
detail [1].

A choice quote:

> The Guardian's current position on tax is not immensely complicated, not
> least because it is not making any profits. When GMG makes taxable profits,
> it does of course pay full corporation tax. It is officially regarded by
> HMRC as "low risk".

> When we did our series on tax avoidance in 2008, we commissioned Richard
> Murphy, the scourge of tax dodgers the world over, to cast his eye over
> GMG's accounts.

> This is what he wrote:

> "Now let's be clear: what this shows is that on trading, the effective rate
> of tax was 46%. If goodwill were added back to profit the rate would be
> about 21%, a rate that is low largely because much of the profit came from
> the disposal of assets. If that were adjusted for then [year ended 30 March
> 2008], the rate would be above the statutory rate. There is nothing abnormal
> to comment on as a result.

> The low charge is on the exceptional part sale of the Auto Trader group. No
> complicated planning was needed to produce a low tax-charge: the government
> allows for tax to be deferred in this case if funds are reinvested.

> The Guardian did reinvest the funds. That's not artificial, offshore, or
> complex. Indeed, it is tax compliant: the company is doing what the
> government wants, and for which it provides a relief. So let's stop the
> nonsense about low tax rates now: it's just wrong."

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/22/...](https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2011/feb/22/blogpost)

~~~
Jedd
Indeed, it's a tricky area.

With Panama / Paradise papers as well, most players are acting just within the
letter of the law, though arguably not the intent, or at least the spirit, and
outside observers (typically those without access to the expertise necessary
to construct their financial affairs with such tax-minimising efficiency) are
going to be frustrated by the brazen appearance of unfairness.

As I noted, Spectator and other publications are going to be strongly partisan
around any review of the Guardian's affairs.

OTOH, articles published by the Guardian, about the Guardian, asserting the
Guardian has done nothing wrong, are going to struggle to appear impartial.

------
mirimir
I would be happy to support The Guardian etc. But this persona does not have
credit/debit cards. So I have no way to pay them. I do support GnuPG and
Riseup, however, because they accept Bitcoin.

~~~
dredmorbius
The digital equivalent of a postal money order would be nice to have.

------
lars_francke
I have been on the Guardian support pages for at least a dozen times and I'd
love to contribute but I don't find they make it easy.

There's a subscription for 14,99€/month
([https://subscribe.theguardian.com/p/DBQ80F?edition=int](https://subscribe.theguardian.com/p/DBQ80F?edition=int))
then there's the premium app which is also called subscription
([https://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/aug/12/1](https://www.theguardian.com/info/2013/aug/12/1))
for 2,49 or so and then there's the Support thing
([https://membership.theguardian.com/eu/supporter](https://membership.theguardian.com/eu/supporter))
for 4,99€/month. Some of these seem to include the other options...but I'm not
sure. So I've just always given up. In addition Guardian Weekly doesn't seem
to have a digital only version?

I've really tried. And I've also tried contacting their support but instead of
answering my question they've canceled my subscription to Guardian Weekly.
That was when I've just given up.

~~~
jimsmart
In the UK we are given the option for a one-off contribution. It's quite an
oversight if they're not offering that outside of the UK.

[https://support.theguardian.com/uk](https://support.theguardian.com/uk)

------
lkrubner
It is important to remember that The Guardian is overtly and proudly a paper
of the Left. I signed up and started paying in late November of 2016 only
because Trump had won the Presidency. If Trump had not won the Presidency, I
doubt I would have ever given my money to The Guardian.

It has been reported elsewhere that the ACLU and Planned Parenthood had very
good years, in terms of fundraising. All of this is the anti-Trump effect. The
success of The Guardian fits into that pattern.

------
vonnik
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo recently wrote about the crisis in online
journalism and its ad-based model.

[http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/theres-a-digital-
media-c...](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/theres-a-digital-media-crash-
but-no-one-will-say-it)

Basically, advertisers are asking/paying for more video content, but
readers/viewers don't actually want it, which is a disaster waiting to happen.

Also, the market is flooded with VC-backed publications (Buzzfeed, Axios, ...)
dumping free content on readers in an attempt to achieve scale, and those
publications are also failing to hit their targets.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/buzzfeed-ipo-stymied-as-
reve...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/buzzfeed-ipo-stymied-as-revenue-
misses-target-dj.html)

It's hard to compete against free...

------
campuscodi
LOL @ the type of journalism The Guardian promotes... I'd rather burn money
than support a publication that published articles to support my country's
corrupt politicians. God forbid law enforcement investigate them. The Guardian
always has their back.

~~~
JoeMalt
What country is this?

------
rebyn
I’m one of these new subscribers (from Viet Nam) that this campaign appeals
to. The offer was too good to ignore ($1 for first 6 weeks, $4 each week after
for the Guardian Weekly). There’s a bit of adjustment from my side because
stories and writings in the print edition are different from my usually top-
HN, popular-Twitter articles, but I’ve grown to it. Local expats in my place
have no idea of this free int’l delivery, so for a long time they have been
paying local importers/newstands a heft ton of money for these papers.

------
BadassFractal
I'd gladly pay for a publication that wasn't cranking out clickbait, outrage
pieces and catering to their advertisers and their need to be associated with
only politically correct partners.

~~~
wccrawford
Similarly, I'd pay for a publication that brought me news I was interested in
and covered both sides of every debate, instead of obviously catering to one
side or the other constantly. They'd have to cover each side well, obviously.

~~~
opportune
This is the problem with modern media IMO, each side presents their own side
to their viewers in a logical matter-of-fact way (almost dismissively, though,
of finer details) but only picks the most egregiously bad logic / moral
failings of the other side to show to their supporters. So each side thinks
the other is crazy because they only see the ~1-5% of the other side that gets
paraded around for their idiocy. Even which pieces each side chooses to cover
are completely different: it's almost like they're not even reporting on
events occurring simultaneously much of the time.

I only trust a very small number of publishers these days, such as the
Atlantic and the Economist. Everything else is some sort of curated echo
chamber

~~~
marcosscriven
I think even The Economist can be one-sided. They don’t seem to be able to
write about the leader of the Labour Party here without comparing him to Hugo
Chavez. Not that I count myself pro-Corbyn, or even party-political. But it
does seem one-sided in that respect at least.

------
asinno
relevant
[https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking](https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking)

------
b0rsuk
I have a twisted idea to appeal to people's sense of charity:

Each person that subscribes, sponsors "no ads" visit for a random stranger.
The cookie could last for a day.

~~~
Spivak
That's just subscriber sharing links. Lots of papers do this. There's a bit of
a 'free-trial' mixed in there but the important bit is giving subscribers the
ability to share links guilt-free.

------
jchavannes
Thought I'd mention yours.org [1] which has multiple ways of monetizing
content. With micropayments it's much more feasible to support this type of
model. See their FAQ for more info [2].

[1] [https://www.yours.org/](https://www.yours.org/)

[2] [https://www.yours.org/faq/](https://www.yours.org/faq/)

------
vvpan
Part of getting people to pay you is - how easy it is to pay. One of the
things I think are exciting is that projects like MetaMask basically integrate
cryptocurrencies into your browser, making transaction very easy, safe (as
safe as crypto at least) and anonymous, no matter if the entities
participating in the transaction are in Yemen or London.

------
squeeeeeeeeeee
Asking members to support journalism, The Guardian - I'm sorry, is this a
joke? Buzzfeed (yes, that Buzzfeed... well when they're not making one of
their retarded videos and actually do some investigative journalism) has
higher journalistic value than The Guardian.

------
zerostar07
Guardian is too opinionated to say that this is a good thing. Its contributors
are more often "feeding their bubble" rather than supporting independent
journalism. You can see that their quality has gone _down_ rather than up
during this time.

------
thomaswang
Will this be the future of online publishing? This is Medium's entire business
model.

------
losteverything
People within the "journalism" ecosystem can support itself with creative and
different financial remedies. They strongly believe in their cause and benefit
to humanity.

I would focus fundraising efforts to parties that economically rely on a free
or paid press.

------
GlennS
I've been told that the paper newspaper has better content than the website.

~~~
Brakenshire
People always overplay the comment sections when they complain about the
Guardian. In the physical paper comment makes up a handful of pages, but
online because comment is free (to borrow a phrase) it can expand massively,
and ad nauseam. They are silly, but the comment sections are also incidental
to the rest of the newspaper.

I hope that being supported by subscriptions also means that they can dial
back the sensationalism. I want to support papers which aren't screaming in my
face all the time, and which support a better society.

------
amelius
One problem is that a big part of their ad revenue is going overseas.

The reason that most news sites can't run their own ads is that Google and co.
are so incredibly good at tracking us, providing more value per ad.

------
rootusrootus
I have reached the point where I think that if a respectable news organization
went subscription-only (i.e. no ads, no clickbait, no free content at all),
I'd jump on board. I want to be the customer.

------
elorant
The way I see it this model can only work for mediums with international
readership. Say for example you have a newspaper in a small country with 10M
people. Let's assume 5% of general population reads a newspaper and you have 5
major ones. That's roughly 100k readers per newspaper. Now how many of those
could you convince to subscribe? Even if we assume an optimistic 10% that
could hardly keep a newspaper afloat. You need readership in the millions to
make this model viable, or a more loyal audience like the one Germans or
Japanese have.

~~~
DamnInteresting
> You need readership in the millions to make this model viable

Not necessarily; for primarily online publications, operating costs rise
roughly linearly with readership. I operate a donor-supported publication with
a much smaller readership than the Guardian, yet we have stayed afloat for
years via donations because our costs are much lower. It's a model that can
work for practically any size of publication.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Your publication cost are roughly linear; your content creation costs are more
or less constant with an increase in number of readers. I would assume that
your content creation costs are vastly lower than the Guardian's which is why
you can get away with fewer readers. You wouldn't be able to produce content
like the Guardian on your budget, though.

------
nottorp
Funny enough, the linked site praises the Guardian's approach then hits me
with a popup to subscribe to their newsletter...

------
return0
Imagine if browser vendors added some form of online payment directly into the
browser (like , i don't know , bitcoin).

~~~
r3bl
Try to convince every website owner ever to accept the same payment methods.

Both Brave and Flattr are attempting the same, both have little to no success
for that simple reason.

~~~
return0
To be fair those are not major browsers. Firefox would be an obvious
experimental vehicle, and the choice of bitcoin would be the least
objectionable payment method (of the alternatives).

------
d23
I'd love to be able to microdonate to individual pieces of content on not just
The Guardian but across the web.

~~~
funkythingss
have you seen Flattr? Sounds like exactly that

------
edpichler
Anyone knwos about more successful examples of this business model?

------
OutOfBrain
`

------
amriksohata
The physcology behind this is more political than business, the guardian is a
lefty newspaper and is getting political support

~~~
radmuzom
While this comment is down-voted, it is not necessarily wrong. As an Indian, I
was so exasperated after Americans voted a criminal as the President that I
subscribed to multiple organizations which are considered left-wing by
American conservatives or libertarians. These include regular fees to NY
Times, Propublica and Guardian with occasional donations to various
organizations in the United States.

~~~
otalp
NYT and The Guardian are not "left-wing". They are establishment liberal and
have supported every major war the US has been involved in. They regularly
slander anti-establishment and left-wing intellectuals[1][2] and for the most
part hate or ignore people like Corbyn and Sanders.

[1] [https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-
of...](https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of-julian-
assanges-interview-went-viral-and-was-completely-false/)

[2]
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/23/noam-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/23/noam-
chomsky-guardian-personality)

~~~
icc97
The Guardian is 'centre-left' and the most left wing (it's the only one that
is left of centre) broadsheet newspaper in the UK [0].

I don't think your comment about hating Corbyn is that correct either. There
clearly were some negative articles about him and there was a columnist who
was attacking Corbyn but who has since apologised [1].

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom#Broadsheet_and_former_broadsheet_newspapers)

[1]:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/10/jeremy...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/10/jeremy-
corbyn-general-election--labour-rewrites-rules)

------
Theodores
I thought the begging letter was shown just because I had an ad blocker on.
The site works well for the ad blocking crowd, maybe they make it so
deliberately, so at least they can send you the begging message.

~~~
calcifer
> begging letter

> begging message

I keep seeing this in many online spaces and for the life of me, I just can't
understand how asking for money in exchange for value (journalism in this
case) is considered begging.

Seriously, this [1] is their ask, can you (or anyone else) show me exactly
which part of it is begging?

[1] [http://www.niemanlab.org/images/guardian-membership-
ask.jpg](http://www.niemanlab.org/images/guardian-membership-ask.jpg)

~~~
throwawayyx96
It's not so much the message as its persistence, timing and size. It shows up
every time and takes up half the screen. It would also be nice if the reader
was given some time to read actual content before being blasted with the
message again. Feels like one of those many many sites that immediately ask
you to fill out a feedback form before you've even browsed anything. If it's
not a beg, it's most certainly a nag.

~~~
calcifer
> its persistence, timing and size.

> It would also be nice if the reader was given some time to read actual
> content before being blasted with the message again.

What do you mean ? It's an _inline_ box that always appears _after_ the
article. It's not a popup, it doesn't hinder navigation, it doesn't even have
position:fixed so you can just scroll by it if you want. I don't think they
could be nicer about it if they tried.

~~~
throwawayyx96
You're mistaken. There are two separate messages - a popover that appears at
the bottom of the screen every time you browse a page (whether it be the front
page, an article, etc.) AND the more innocuous inline text at the end of every
article that you mention.

~~~
calcifer
Ah, sorry. I never saw such a popover. Probably due to adblock.

