I think we might get to a system where summaries of news are free, but indepth articles and videos are paid.
Oh and I believe that news sites should scrap subscription only models, I should be able to pay 1-2EUR for a single article that I want to read, with no risk of the payment being a subscription.
Obviously subscriptions models should still be an alternative if the users want it.
I’d happily pay a nominal fee for news that was unbiased reporting of facts rather than opinion, and didn’t bombard me with ads or sell my data. It just doesn’t exist so I use aggregators to get a general vibe across sources.
If your website is a business, you need to have a business model. If your business model isn’t sustainable, because it relies on not annoying visitors too much, maybe look for a better one.
Btw, most newspages have adapted some 10 years ago already, showing the important news for free and additional details with paid account. A lot have the balance off tho.
The best business model is one that allows users to pay what they want. Unfortunately that means most of these sites would go out of business, which is not what they want so they’ll keep forcing more and more invasive ads on people until the dam truly breaks.
I’m fine with ads when they don’t take up half my screen or try and shift the page to to trick me into clicking on them, should a stuck with sidebar adds.
Subscription models. Some sites even combine some free articles with it, so that anyone can look into their works, but not necessarily everything. If it fits you, you get a subscription. Sort of the same way people would pay for their daily newspaper.
It can be argued that “news” should be free, and there are some news site that are basically picking up AP/AFP/whatever and repost these, but actual journalism do requires work.
The honest answer are general fees like they are used for public broadcasters. It’s not a perfect system either and it requires significant effort to keep things neutral, but overall it seems to have the best results if you compare the quality of the outcome.
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I often wonder how news websites are supposed to survive. People (myself included) want unbiased news websites without paywalls and ads.
How are they supposed to pay their staff?
News sites are in need of a paradigm shift.
I think we might get to a system where summaries of news are free, but indepth articles and videos are paid.
Oh and I believe that news sites should scrap subscription only models, I should be able to pay 1-2EUR for a single article that I want to read, with no risk of the payment being a subscription.
Obviously subscriptions models should still be an alternative if the users want it.
I’d happily pay a nominal fee for news that was unbiased reporting of facts rather than opinion, and didn’t bombard me with ads or sell my data. It just doesn’t exist so I use aggregators to get a general vibe across sources.
If your website is a business, you need to have a business model. If your business model isn’t sustainable, because it relies on not annoying visitors too much, maybe look for a better one.
Btw, most newspages have adapted some 10 years ago already, showing the important news for free and additional details with paid account. A lot have the balance off tho.
The best business model is one that allows users to pay what they want. Unfortunately that means most of these sites would go out of business, which is not what they want so they’ll keep forcing more and more invasive ads on people until the dam truly breaks.
I’m fine with ads when they don’t take up half my screen or try and shift the page to to trick me into clicking on them, should a stuck with sidebar adds.
Subscription models. Some sites even combine some free articles with it, so that anyone can look into their works, but not necessarily everything. If it fits you, you get a subscription. Sort of the same way people would pay for their daily newspaper.
It can be argued that “news” should be free, and there are some news site that are basically picking up AP/AFP/whatever and repost these, but actual journalism do requires work.
That’s what they do, then users cry about paywalls
It’s lose/lose
The honest answer are general fees like they are used for public broadcasters. It’s not a perfect system either and it requires significant effort to keep things neutral, but overall it seems to have the best results if you compare the quality of the outcome.
Who gets to collect revenue from the fees though? Where do you draw the line, are you cutting off independent journalism?