So how does Reddit manage to have ad-less subscriptions and yet still restrain themselves from creating obtrusive interstitial ads? Superhuman strength? Immortality? Some other heretofore unknown super power?
The truth is, there is nothing on the NY Times or WaPo that is worth paying twice for.
If I want to have the NY Times, it's $32/mo [0], plus I have to let them ride my shoulder as I go about the rest of my business online. HBO Now is $15/mo [1], the only ads I get are in between episodes and only for other shows on HBO.
I pay $15 a month for the NY Times, and I read it on all devices (laptop, iPhone, iPad). Their webpage is the best in the business, and I find it fine for all devices.
To answer your question: I do not know. But I don't find it a useful comparison; while they both produce "content", the content itself is vastly different. Producing shows with the quality of, say, Game of Thrones, is expensive, but so is having and sending reporters all over the world.
I don't think the nature of the content changes much. They both have employees to pay. They both have infrastructure costs. They both live off of people consuming their stuff. HBO has competitors who use NY Times revenue model. HBO even publishes at least a small amount of investigative journalism.
Because the nature of the content is so different, the costs may also be different.
HBO also just recently changed its entire business model. It used to not be purchased directly by consumers. The old model was they sold themselves to the cable companies, and the cable companies sold HBO to consumers. HBO Now changes that, and it's possible it will also change the nature of HBO.
NY Times creates all their own content. HBO in comparison creates a tiny fraction of their content and licenses other companies content for rebroadcast.
One would hope. The problem is, content produced on Reddit (and HN) is way better than content produced by newspapers, by a very simple mechanism: someone posts an article to Reddit/HN, people start debunking all the bullshit, misinterpretations and lies journalists wrote in that article.
Newspapers have a lot of trust to regain with people. But then again, I suppose the general population doesn't give a rat's ass about the truth, and want to read only something shocking to use as a "social object" (i.e. something you can start discussing with other people you meet).
Well, Hacker News is the exception, not the rule. Most Internet comment sections are unmitigated dumpster fires. Some are even worse than that. Even if you restrict yourself to the really good comments and discussions on the Internet, if you cut off the oxygen from the articles I think the value dries up real fast.
The truth is, there is nothing on the NY Times or WaPo that is worth paying twice for.