
Bezos In 2012: People Won’t Pay For News On The Web, Print Will Be Dead - RobAley
http://www.techcrunch.com/2013/08/05/bezos-in-2012-people-wont-pay-for-news-on-the-web-print-will-be-dead-in-20-years/
======
freehunter
You know what I _will_ pay for? The newspaper on my Kindle, at a reasonable
price, with all the features of the print version. Let's take The Washington
Post just as an example. Home delivery can be had for ~$10/mo [1] (I don't
live in DC, so this is the only price I could easily find for delivery).
Meanwhile, the Kindle newspaper version of the Washington Post is $12/mo [2]
and according to the reviews, is missing:

1) Letters to the editor

2) Editorial cartoons

3) The comics pages

4) The crossword puzzle

5) The box scores

6) Classified ads

7) Sunday inserts, including coupons

8) Pictures

[1] [http://www.subscription.com/washington-
post/](http://www.subscription.com/washington-post/)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Washington-Post-Kindle-Ad-
Free/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Washington-Post-Kindle-Ad-
Free/dp/B000HC48T0/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2)

~~~
grimtrigger
Almost all the things on that list are better distributed and consumed via
your phone than your Kindle.

~~~
adamtj
Phone, Kindle, iPad, doesn't matter much to Amazon. The point is, you aren't
going to pay $12/month for the Post. You could, but you won't. Instead, you're
going to start paying $79 a year for Prime, which'll get you access to the
Post on any device you want. And also instant video, so you can drop netflix.
And free fast shipping. And _that_ will make it so easy to buy other things
from Amazon that you will. Often.

1-click was brilliant, but that's just one part of their overall strategy to
remove absolutely every obstacle they can that might possibly come between
your intention to buy and the action of doing so.

~~~
joelrunyon
I like the idea - but this would make a lot more sense if it was a straight
Amazon acquisition rather than a Bezos acquisition.

------
jacques_chester
I _still_ think that what I call "microsubscription" will fix this -- pay a
subscription to a clearinghouse, who then pays out to publishers according to
usage. If you read mostly WaPo this month, they get most of the money. If next
month HN is the main activity, HN gets the lion's share.

I am not the first to this idea. Kachingle made a flashy start but fell to
pieces first when they got into a crazy vendetta with the NYT and then
afterwards when a business-method patent application fell through.

Readability tried but ran into the problem of holding money on trust for
websites whose owners can't be identified. They also carried the overhead of
running a proxy server. Not worth it for $5 a month.

(I don't include Flattr in this list. I still think that making people _think_
about it is asking too much to make the model work.)

I stumbled on the same basic business model in 2008 and I've been chipping
away at it ever since. My honours project at university was based on
developing a secure mechanism to track users as they visited different sites.
That scheme turned out to be broken. I developed a new tracking scheme, which
is currently passing through the digestive system of IP Australia and the
USPTO.

I guess the moral is: watch this space.

(Or: give me money, I promise to do smart things with it)

~~~
rpgmaker
I came up with this without reading it from anybody but thought that this will
be something that would not benefit the content producers like the Post.
Similarly to how most individual channels wouldn't benefit if I just paid for
the ones I watched on my cable subscription.

~~~
jacques_chester
Actually, it _would_ benefit the Post and any other participating publisher --
any money is better than no money, after all. In particular, my design is
structured so that service subscribers could penetrate paywalls with the
guarantee that some payment will be made.

This creates a new segment in the market: people who would pay if the marginal
transaction costs are zero.

------
mrcharles
I always wonder why people go out of their way to dig up old quotes which
contradict current behavior. People change their minds. Or come up with new
ideas. Or have a breakthrough of some kind.

I highly doubt Bezos would have spent $250m (even if that is small time money
to him) if he still believed what he said last year.

Or maybe he still believes that, and he feels he can still do something with a
major news paper that sits within those lines.

Either way I am unsure why this is making it as an HN post.

~~~
HelloMcFly
An oldie but a goodie from John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I
change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

I'm more interested in what exactly changed his mind than I am in the fact
that his mind has changed.

~~~
mmorris
Not the same meaning, but potentially also applicable, is Walt Whitman's
quote:

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I
contain multitudes."

------
trustfundbaby
Bezos “said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often
changed their minds.”
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/10/19/jeff-
be...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/10/19/jeff-bezos-on-
people-who-are-right-a-lot-vs-wrong-a-lot-has-he-got-it-right/)

funny thing is that there is nothing that contradictory in what Bezos said in
that article and his actions in buying the newspaper

“There is one thing I’m certain about: there won’t be printed newspapers in
twenty years. Maybe as luxury items in some hotels that want to offer them as
an extravagant service. Printed papers won’t be normal in twenty years.”

This seems true, I haven't read a printed paper in almost 10-15 years and the
kids coming up today are probably not going to either. So this feels right to
me.

“On the Web, people don’t pay for news and it’s too late for that to change”

This is true too, news it commoditized. A story breaks on Twitter or CNN
within minutes. And within a day, you've discussed and argued over it with all
your friends ... so why would anyone pay for information thats free everywhere
else. What they will pay for is exclusive, well written content, that isn't
available, for free, anywhere else. That I think, is where the secret of Bezos
acquisition lies.

------
sjtgraham
Steve Jobs in 2003 "We have no plans to make a tablet computer", meanwhile the
iPhone itself was a spin out project from original iPad development efforts
that I believe started at least a year earlier. Don't take things people say
prima facie.

~~~
deveac
_> Don't take things people say prima facie._

This deal was just announced, and we don't know enough to say that we
shouldn't take Bezos's words at face value. His plans for the Post may be
taking it digital, turning it into a boutique printed offering, or a
combination of both. From the article:

 _> There is one thing I’m certain about: there won’t be printed newspapers in
twenty years. Maybe as luxury items in some hotels that want to offer them as
an extravagant service._

He can take it digital or upscale print and remain entirely consistent with
his quoted stances." Heck, -he could even keep the current model exactly as is
as long as he turns a profit and be one of the "last men standing"

 _> Printed papers won’t be normal in twenty years.” _

Really, all he was saying it that we're trending away from print. In the same
sentence that he said there would be no print in twenty, he implied there will
be some print in twenty...

------
grimtrigger
I think the biggest issue is that newspapers, just like magazines and cable,
are bundled content and consumers hate being forced into bundled content. "I
just want to read the one article that peaked my interest. Is that so hard?".
The problem is the economic model then goes from paying steady dollars for the
brand name of a good institution, to paying pennies per article (maybe based
on sensational headlines and yellow journalism).

~~~
6d0debc071
Can't really be done effectively. Banks charge for using your card. If the
cost of the transaction exceeds the cost of the content, then you can't make
money doing it that way.

And since banks rely on maintaining a reserve they have no real motivation to
allow you to make rapid transfers - especially since it would introduce people
hunting for the best interest rates.

Could hold user's accounts until they've reached a certain threshold but that
introduces risk on both ends of the transaction.

~~~
jameshart
So you're telling me that Jeff Bezos has just bought an asset which appears
currently to support no long term business model, but that, if there were such
a thing as a viable micropayment technology, could suddenly become immensely
more valuable?

I wonder if Amazon has anything interesting in the works in the payment-cost-
management space?

~~~
stonemetal
Do you mean the virtual currency they announced a while back?

[https://developer.amazon.com/post/Tx2EZGRG23VNQ0K/Introducin...](https://developer.amazon.com/post/Tx2EZGRG23VNQ0K/Introducing-
Amazon-Coins-A-New-Virtual-Currency-for-Kindle-Fire.html)

------
zbruhnke
One of the reasons Link bait titles kind of suck at times. The author of this
just like many of its readers KNOWS that Bezos didn't buy the Post to keep it
running as it is.

The reality is he's an innovator and there probably are very few people who
know exactly what he plans on doing with it(he may even be included in that
group)

But one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that he intends to change
the way news is consumed.

In the world as it stands it only makes sense that digital newspapers are
delivering stories straight to our devices as they happen.

With the Whispernet network Kindle has Bezos has an amazing opportunity to
allow papers to distribute devices for consumption that consumers can keep in
their homes and have updated as the news happens.

This is the way for them to become relevant again and I'd place a bet saying
its part of his thinking for the new way forward too.

No more newspaper delivery boys, but the writers who have for the last decade
struggled to remain relevant can come back into their own again with the
relevance of articles fresh off the wire and they already have the added
advantage of being perceived as a more reliable source than most bloggers.

I hope this becomes what it can. because it CAN be great

------
Theodores
In the journalese about Bezos's latest buy and wondering why, I have yet to
see a mention of why Bezos quit managing hedge funds to start up Amazon. He
noticed that there was a tax benefit to selling across state lines, i.e. no
state sales tax had to be paid. Hence he setup in favourable Washington state
rather than anywhere else, to keep things a lot more tax efficient than his
competitors. At the time those competitors did not notice what he was doing.

With where we are now there is the real possibility that Bezos has outwitted
everyone again with some loophole/tax perk that you would have to be an
investment banker to really appreciate.

~~~
vasilipupkin
Do you really think he set up Amazon in order to exploit a tax loophole and
not because he is a visionary who wanted to change the world?

------
officemonkey
I think he bought "WaPo" for the same reason he bought "Goodreads:" the users
of both are readers and he sells books. Specifically, the Book Review section.

Even if the print edition operates at a slight loss, controlling a popular
(perhaps the second most popular) newspaper Book Review section would be of
immense value to Amazon.

At one point in time, daytime TV existed simply to sell detergent (hence,
"Soap Opera.") I could definitely see a time where newspapers exist to sell
stuff on-line.

~~~
dudurocha
I have to disagree. In my opinion, the kindle reviews are far more influencial
than the Book Review section of WaPo. I think you are seeing in the wrong way,
Newspapers are getting less and less influential as time goes by, who wants to
read news from yesterday? So, the best move is to leverage the actual
authority WaPo has, and give them more relevance in the actual world.

~~~
pessimizer
>kindle reviews are far more influencial than the Book Review section of WaPo.

They're not. It's hard to get your book reviewed by an actual periodical of
note. Everybody has Kindle reviews. Kindle reviews can either seal the deal on
a sale or stop a sale at the last second. You probably would have never read
the Kindle reviews or even heard of the book if it hadn't been reviewed by
someone with an editorial policy.

------
eshvk
1\. Just because he is rich and famous doesn't mean he is an oracle with a
time machine. He puts on his pants one leg at a time; makes predictions just
like the rest of us, gets them wrong too.

2\. After thinking hard about it, I have decided to pay for the NYT. I still
can break through the pay wall. However their content is amazing. Saving
stuff, using their rudimentary recommendation system and occasionally getting
the print version is nice.

------
EGreg
I think you've hit it on the nail. People pay to consume on their devices.
That's the model Amazon is going for (they've explicitly said it's not the
hardware, it's the subscriptions stupid). So a Post which tantalizes you on
the web but delivers the actual articles you can only read on your device, via
a subscription. The devices are locked down, and it's not the web. Boom.

------
ape4
Its not any newspaper. Its the one with most political influence. $250M is a
small price to influence all policy makers.

------
netrus
Hm, is the patronage idea from the table already? What would I do if I had one
billion dollar of leisure money? I guess I would buy a world-leading, still
struggling social institution that has a high value for society - for just a
quarter of my fortune.

------
dschiptsov
Who talks about news? It is an asset purchase.)

~~~
daveying99
What assets? The Washington Post real estate is not being sold. It's just the
people, their pensions, and the brand that was purchased.

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archildress


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nwzpaperman
This statement has already been proven false. What it should read is:"people
won't pay for tabloid news on the web. Print will be dead."

