What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

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workingovertime
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What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by workingovertime »

Although I am an advocate for quality news articles, I'm starting to see more and more news websites that have subscription paywalls. It's a bit frustrating as I see articles that I want to read, only to click and find that I'm not able to read them.

I understand that these subscriptions are not very expensive, but being a frugal boglehead, every bit counts and I just refuse to pay to read a news article. With that said, do any of you subscribe to any of these? If so, do you find value in them?
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by snackdog »

Quality news costs money. Pay up or read crap.

Is this actionable or just a discussion?
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by bob60014 »

Do/did you pay for old fashioned newspaper/magazine subscriptions?
Last edited by bob60014 on Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bungo
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Bungo »

workingovertime wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:03 pm I understand that these subscriptions are not very expensive, but being a frugal boglehead, every bit counts and I just refuse to pay to read a news article. With that said, do any of you subscribe to any of these? If so, do you find value in them?
A qualified yes from me. I subscribe to the online versions of the WSJ, NYT, and WaPo. None of them would be worth it to me at the full undiscounted price, but any time they jack up the price I contact them to cancel my subscription and they make me an offer I can't refuse. Currently paying $1/week to the NYT and $40/year to the WaPo. The WSJ is currently the most expensive at $19.50/month; it's probably about time for me to do something about that. :D
dukeblue219
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by dukeblue219 »

workingovertime wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:03 pm Although I am an advocate for quality news articles, [...] I just refuse to pay to read a news article.
Thta makes no sense, sorry. Why do you refuse to pay to read news? Who do you think should pay for it?

I have no problem subscribing to a couple sources, one local and two national.
bhsince87
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by bhsince87 »

Free markets are wonderful things.

If it works out for them, great.

If it doesn't, they can lower their price.
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AnnetteLouisan
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by AnnetteLouisan »

I actually appreciate the paywalls now because they keep me from wasting too much time.

I’m a huge marketwatch fan and for a while I was reading way too much of it, especially Ask Quentin. I considered subscribing several times but didn’t want to spend so much of my time that way.

same w the NYT. They have good stories and even better comments but you can spend 8 hours reading comments on rheumatoid arthritis or really any topic.

I subscribe to the WSJ and read a few other things for free. But Time is our most important asset. serenity is a close second.
Last edited by AnnetteLouisan on Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by sherwink »

I used to subscribe to the print edition of the NYT, but no longer do. I still grudgingly pay the WSJ annual fee. Real journalism resides in a coffin largely of their own making today. They can't make a profit doing or reporting the news, so they resort to faking or focusing on popularized articles.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by JoMoney »

I think it's great. I expect pay-walls will hasten the collapse and lack of relevance for many of the outlets that weren't great even when they were sustained with more advertising revenues. People have more options now. Media people actually have use of or enjoy has no problems finding support.
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UpperNwGuy
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by UpperNwGuy »

I am hoping someone will develop a subscription service that will allow me to access 50-75 news articles a month from any of the paywall publications (NY Times, Washington Post, WSJ, etc). I refuse to subscribe to just one of those publications, or even to two of them, because the article I want will often turn out to be from some other publication that I haven't subscribed to.
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AnnetteLouisan
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by AnnetteLouisan »

UpperNwGuy wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:23 pm I am hoping someone will develop a subscription service that will allow me to access 50-75 news articles a month from any of the paywall publications (NY Times, Washington Post, WSJ, etc). I refuse to subscribe to just one of those publications, or even to two of them, because the article I want will often turn out to be from some other publication that I haven't subscribed to.
A great idea. I’d do that too.
MSN actually does something a little similar to this for free by republishing nyt, marketwatch and washpo articles.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Elric »

Original, and especially investigative, journalism isn't cheap, and the advertising only model wasn't cutting it. We do a weekend subscription to the print Washington Post, which includes complete access to the online edition, and also a subscription to the New York Times. Sometimes there are Wall Street Journal articles I miss, but not enough to subscribe. I'll probably donate to The Guardian this coming year, as I read a lot of articles from them.
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UpperNwGuy
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by UpperNwGuy »

AnnetteLouisan wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:25 pm
UpperNwGuy wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:23 pm I am hoping someone will develop a subscription service that will allow me to access 50-75 news articles a month from any of the paywall publications (NY Times, Washington Post, WSJ, etc). I refuse to subscribe to just one of those publications, or even to two of them, because the article I want will often turn out to be from some other publication that I haven't subscribed to.
A great idea. I’d do that too.
MSN actually does something a little similar to this for free by republishing nyt, marketwatch and washpo articles.
Apple News used to do it, but now when you click on one of the paywall articles from within Apple News, the paywall appears. I no longer use Apple News for that reason.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by bhsince87 »

UpperNwGuy wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:23 pm I am hoping someone will develop a subscription service that will allow me to access 50-75 news articles a month from any of the paywall publications (NY Times, Washington Post, WSJ, etc). I refuse to subscribe to just one of those publications, or even to two of them, because the article I want will often turn out to be from some other publication that I haven't subscribed to.

That's actually the way AOL started out back in the day.

It worked great for a while.
Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. William Penn
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by runner3081 »

I don't like it, but understand why they are in place.

If a site/newspaper starts charging, I find somewhere else to find my news.

Most recent example was Marketwatch. Even though their content can be junk, there was some interesting stuff. Now with the paywall, I don't go there anymore.

Also, before that, when I used to follow sports, stopped going to ESPN and SI when they put up paywalls.

With that said, I do read the following, daily, for free through the library and online through their sites/apps.
Wall Street Journal
New York Times
Los Angeles Times
Arizona Republic
Spokesman-Review
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Doom&Gloom »

I've been spoiled by free news reporting, but I really hate to see the small local papers being shuttered. I financially support my local news papers/websites, but I am not yet motivated to support national news reporting. It has not helped my attitude that Gannett (and perhaps others) began taking over local news outlets a few decades ago.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Bungo »

UpperNwGuy wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:23 pm I am hoping someone will develop a subscription service that will allow me to access 50-75 news articles a month from any of the paywall publications (NY Times, Washington Post, WSJ, etc). I refuse to subscribe to just one of those publications, or even to two of them, because the article I want will often turn out to be from some other publication that I haven't subscribed to.
I'd like this as well. Or, at the other extreme, I would also be fine if there were a service that would allow me to pay a nominal a la carte price for each article I read, on any of the major news sites, without having to have subscriptions to any of them. The current situation, where each paper wants to require its own separate subscription and plays cable TV-style price games and makes it hard to cancel your subscription (if you live outside of California), is the worst of all worlds.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by MathWizard »

Irrelevant to me.

CNN online, and over the air broadcast news are both free.
I pay for the local newspaper, and get the WSJ through my employer.

Most magazines, I can get access to through the library.

The world worked just fine before news was available online.

I do worry about the amount of "information" that people get through Facebook.

I do wish for the likes of Walter Cronkite, and Huntley/Brinkley,but maybe that it my age showing.
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AnnetteLouisan
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by AnnetteLouisan »

I also feel like, ok if they don’t want us to read their stuff, fine!!! Here you have - as a percentage of the entire US population - a limited number of well educated and relatively sophisticated readers who can access any source, often including overseas sources, and you want to lock them into some cumbersome model that makes no commercial sense. Who loses? We’ll be fine. Will they?? They should be falling over themselves trying to get our (affluent) eyeballs. My 2 cents (on prednisone).

Now if they can develop a rewards credit card that comes w 3 free subscriptions maybe…. :wink:

Or figure a way to buy electronically one day’s paper access, like an e version of buying at a newsstand.

(I Subscribe to WSJ; fam takes The Economist).
Last edited by AnnetteLouisan on Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:00 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Watty »

UpperNwGuy wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:23 pm I am hoping someone will develop a subscription service that will allow me to access 50-75 news articles a month from any of the paywall publications (NY Times, Washington Post, WSJ, etc). I refuse to subscribe to just one of those publications, or even to two of them, because the article I want will often turn out to be from some other publication that I haven't subscribed to.
I have not heard anything about it for a while but there used to be some talk of using micro-payments for things like this.

For example you could have the beginning of a news article then have the option to easily click a button to pay a nickel (or whatever) to read the rest of it.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by egrets »

Elric wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:28 pm Original, and especially investigative, journalism isn't cheap, and the advertising only model wasn't cutting it. We do a weekend subscription to the print Washington Post, which includes complete access to the online edition, and also a subscription to the New York Times. Sometimes there are Wall Street Journal articles I miss, but not enough to subscribe. I'll probably donate to The Guardian this coming year, as I read a lot of articles from them.
I subscribe to the New York Times. They have really in depth articles I don't find anywhere else, which obviously needs paying for to produce. I also read BBC.com, which is free. I occasionally read an article or so from other places, but not if I have to subscribe. I probably should donate to the Guardian, but my cheapness wins out.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Patzer »

There is a lot of bad journalism.
Free sites are a mix of good and bad. Even websites with good journalism often use click bait titles to up their clicks. If you are willing to pay the time cost of filtering through bad articles to find good ones, they you can usually find a well written article on any topic that is free to read.

If you would rather save time and spend money, subscription journalism can buy you very reliable news.
For me, for most topics, it is worth a few extra clicks to find a free article on the topic from a good source.

The Economist however, I find to be specialized to my personal interests, and to have absolutely stellar quality. So, while it is extremely expensive, I think it is worth it's cost if you are into understanding the global economy in a well researched and nuanced manner.

I also find that a major flaw in most news outlets even the paid ones, is they have a lot frivolous articles that I don't want to scan through to find something worth reading. With the Economist, I feel like almost anything they write is probably worth reading, and I rarely end up disappointed that I wasted time on an article.

I am not saying everyone should read or pay for the Economist, it is probably very dull to most people, but I do think if there is a particular news source that really meshes with you and you regularly enjoy their articles, that it is probably worth treating yourself to the gift of reading something you will reliably enjoy.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by quantAndHold »

Back in the day we all paid for a subscription to the local paper. It seems reasonable that they would charge for the same content now. Producing good journalism is expensive, and unless I’m happy reading listicles about the 10 best ice cream flavors in every state, it’s worth it to me to pay for good journalism.

I subscribe to to my local paper (I’m lucky to live somewhere that has a good quality local paper), and, because I’m a news junkie, to one of the national ones. If I wasn’t a news junkie, the local paper would be enough. They reprint the main national and international stories.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Mike Scott »

The content value in the free sites keeps getting lower and lower. I'm willing to pay for access to good content.
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It depends

Post by Bogle7 »

Search and ye shall find freebie versions of articles.
That said, we pay over a $1000/yr to get the paper versions of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times delivered to our breakfast table.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by AerialWombat »

Good journalism requires real humans with boots on the ground. That requires salary and travel costs. Somebody has to pay for that.

I pay for two topic-specific news sources. There are micro-payment systems that support the work of specific journalists, for which I gladly pay for three. There is a tiny local newspaper that I also subscribe to digitally.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by iamlucky13 »

workingovertime wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:03 pm Although I am an advocate for quality news articles, I'm starting to see more and more news websites that have subscription paywalls. It's a bit frustrating as I see articles that I want to read, only to click and find that I'm not able to read them.

I understand that these subscriptions are not very expensive, but being a frugal boglehead, every bit counts and I just refuse to pay to read a news article. With that said, do any of you subscribe to any of these? If so, do you find value in them?
I agree it is frustrating, but it is also to some degree a necessity. Quality products and services cost money to produce, and news is not fundamentally different.

For people of my generation, and I'm guessing yours to, this was not a secret to our parents, but we grew up during a complex transition to primarily online news that included a long period where online content was free, funded by online ads and/or a share of remaining subscription and print or TV ad revenue. Declining subscription numbers and plummeting value of ad views due to saturation ended that, but not before our expectations were ingrained.

Some large outlets can still get by with ad and perhaps also syndication revenue. Small to medium outlets usually can not.

The category that concerns me the most is local news. Several smaller papers in my area have closed down. One newspaper and a couple TV stations still maintain very active reporting, mainly focusing on the core city of our metropolitan area. There has been a marked decline in the variety and depth of content being produced by the other surviving papers, and all of them have had to sell to larger news corporations to survive.

This first became important to me when the local newspaper broke a significant local corruption story...not wide open such that it was actually prosecuted, but at least wide enough the rats packed up their ill-gotten gains and fled the ship. That's not the only instance, but since it's the one I paid the closest attention to, I estimated that this saved the public about $10 million on one contract that was not continued after the rats fled.

Another instance that was not clearly corrupt (although I have some doubts) involved a new courthouse where the county just kept growing their plans, and the costs were spiraling out of control. The big paper and the TV stations almost completely ignored the story. The smaller, more local paper reported on it extensively, generating a lot of public input, leading to a more reasonable plan for the new courthouse.

There's also no one else reporting on local crime, major building projects, local political races, etc. No free news source is doing interviews with suburban city council candidates, or doing features on service projects high school groups are taking on, or bringing attention to the scattered but numerous complaints about odors from an area compost facility.

As a result, it is important to me to subscribe to local news. It can also be value-added to subscribe to national and international news, but due to scale, there are naturally more options for that.

I also have a pay it forward view toward non-local local news. For example, I took a deep personal interest in the Oroville Dam spillway failure a few years ago in California. Although free national outlets were reporting on it, the best reporting by far (aside from the youtube channel of a local pilot who took an even deeper personal interest in it) was the local paper. Local subscribers there helped make that news accessible to me with only a soft paywall (limited free content). I hope my local subscription helps with the same for others.

Somewhat related, I'm intending to start a routine of donating to certain non-subscription services and projects that I use regularly, which are rather distinct from those already in my charitable giving plans. Examples include Wikipedia, Archive.org, and GIMP.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by delamer »

A lot of material is available online through our county library. We can read the New York Times and many others.

We subscribe to print editions of two national daily papers, plus our county local paper. It’s important to support legitimate journalism. Too many idiots are spreading lies via Facebook, Reddit, and other dubious sources.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Kookaburra »

Since most of the news is negative and not actionable (“man bites dog” stuff; financial porn; etc.), I skip the “news” altogether and instead read good books, watch films, and enjoy the great outdoors.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Impatience »

What’s frustrating is that they finally beefed up the paywalls so that I can’t circumvent them with browser extensions. Looking at you, Bloomberg!
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by delamer »

Impatience wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:20 pm What’s frustrating is that they finally beefed up the paywalls so that I can’t circumvent them with browser extensions. Looking at you, Bloomberg!
Yes, it’s just awful that they don’t want to give away their work for free.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by squirm »

So how is it that years ago, I used to get the local newspaper delivered to me in print, everyday, big thick newspaper. There were ads in the print, but easily ignored. I had to pay a subscription fee yearly, but seemed reasonable. Now they only deliver online (much cheaper for them) with a subscription and they have all sorts of dancing and flashing ads that is very annoying and makes reading the content nearly impossible to focus. Yet they say their hurting for money. I don't get it.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by 5outof10 »

WSJ (yearly price negotiation) currently $4/month unlimited digital and weekend paper.

Local weekly for about $50/year.

Gave up WaPo as it slid further into Huffpost and CNN territory.
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delamer
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by delamer »

squirm wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:26 pm So how is it that years ago, I used to get the local newspaper delivered to me in print, everyday, big thick newspaper. There were ads in the print, but easily ignored. I had to pay a subscription fee yearly, but seemed reasonable. Now they only deliver online (much cheaper for them) with a subscription and they have all sorts of dancing and flashing ads that is very annoying and makes reading the content nearly impossible to focus. Yet they say their hurting for money. I don't get it.
Part of it is that there are so many more places to advertise.

I grew up outside a major US city. Two daily city papers, one daily local, one weekly local. Four commercial TV stations — three national, one local. A couple news magazine weeklies.

Compare that to the number of advertising outlets today.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by bhsince87 »

squirm wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:26 pm So how is it that years ago, I used to get the local newspaper delivered to me in print, everyday, big thick newspaper. There were ads in the print, but easily ignored. I had to pay a subscription fee yearly, but seemed reasonable. Now they only deliver online (much cheaper for them) with a subscription and they have all sorts of dancing and flashing ads that is very annoying and makes reading the content nearly impossible to focus. Yet they say their hurting for money. I don't get it.
Online ads have taken away their biggest source of revenue.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by calwatch »

Another actionable tip is to use library newspaper and magazine databases to access sites which have paywalls, including the WSJ. Most good libraries have access to ProQuest, Newsbank, EBSCO Host, etc. which combined will cover almost all general purpose media. If you are in a state like California where anyone can get a card to any library in the state, make sure you get all the ones in your region, and consider picking one up if you happen to be visiting another metro area if they have the databases you want. Also, some libraries offer Press Reader which is a print-like version of major newspapers and magazines available for view.

The other tip to avoid non-cancelling subscriptions is using Visa or Mastercard gift cards. Most months one of the office stores (Staples or Office Depot) will sell $100 or $200 cards at cost or for a slight discount. While many people use them for manufactured spending, they also work great for subscriptions you just want to try out. Be aware that some websites are not well programmed to cancel when the money runs out. For example, the LA Times will not block access to your subscription when the card can't be billed. In fact, they won't even send you an email. When you put in a new card, they will happily bill you in arrears for the months missed, though.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by AnnetteLouisan »

They may not understand that many of us get free industry tailored news clips daily at work. Besides all the other free sources.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by quantAndHold »

squirm wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:26 pm So how is it that years ago, I used to get the local newspaper delivered to me in print, everyday, big thick newspaper. There were ads in the print, but easily ignored. I had to pay a subscription fee yearly, but seemed reasonable. Now they only deliver online (much cheaper for them) with a subscription and they have all sorts of dancing and flashing ads that is very annoying and makes reading the content nearly impossible to focus. Yet they say their hurting for money. I don't get it.
Ads, all ads, but especially classified ads, used to be their biggest source of revenue. Now everyone uses Craigslist.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by tetractys »

I like the free lite text only news! No adds no pictures; get all the news in 5 minutes. I only know three of them though: NPR , CNN, Christian Science Monitor.
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by muffins14 »

snackdog wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:06 pm Quality news costs money. Pay up or read crap.

Is this actionable or just a discussion?
This.

Either you need to pay with ads or pay a subscription. Employing a team of journalists to research and write and operate a global website at scale isn’t free. Consider it a civic duty to pay into a free and independent press
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by roamingzebra »

I rarely see paywalls. I follow a number of subreddits that cover a wide variety of topics and often include long excerpts of articles or entire articles.

There are other ways to avoid paywalls too.
tetractys wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:12 pm I like the free lite text only news! No adds no pictures; get all the news in 5 minutes. I only know three of them though: NPR , CNN, Christian Science Monitor.
When news first started appearing online, I thought the Christian Science Monitor had the perfect site. A lot of bolded blue hyperlinks tastefully displayed without any columns. It was so easy to get access to all the news from one page. I considered donating to them merely for their design. But they went the way of all other news sites, though not to the same extent. I haven't seen their all text site, but I have seen CNN's and I don't particularly care for it. I guess I prefer newspaper sources on the internet, leaving CNN for viewing on cable. But here is the site for those who haven't seen it:

https://lite.cnn.com/en
CurlyDave
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by CurlyDave »

It is very interesting to me that many have mentioned WSJ but no one has mentioned Investors Business Daily. For my money (and I do subscribe) IBD is a superior source of financial news.

During my pre-Boglehead accumulation phase I used their advice frequently. Now that I have been retired for 16 years and started reading this site I am closer to being a Boglehead, but still march to a slightly different drummer (QQQ instead of VOO or SPY).
Answering a question is easy -- asking the right question is the hard part.
Jeepergeo
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by Jeepergeo »

Epoch Times has top notch reporting AND they do their research before writing the story. Refreshing.
shess
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by shess »

workingovertime wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:03 pm Although I am an advocate for quality news articles, I'm starting to see more and more news websites that have subscription paywalls. It's a bit frustrating as I see articles that I want to read, only to click and find that I'm not able to read them.

I understand that these subscriptions are not very expensive, but being a frugal boglehead, every bit counts and I just refuse to pay to read a news article. With that said, do any of you subscribe to any of these? If so, do you find value in them?
At some point, I decided to explicitly pay for subscriptions to a handful of sites because I valued their articles. It's not that I wanted to login to their front page and read their stuff, it's more that I often enough found myself on their site reading an article which felt well-down, and decided that I needed to support that effort. Usually they are pretty well aligned with my political views, but not always (I mostly am trying to support sites that I think are making a good attempt at doing journalism).

There are a LOT of sites which do not bring any value-add to the table. I don't just mean clickbait sites, I also mean a lot of regional papers that mostly publish AP and Reuters feeds, with a sprinkling of local stuff. These I don't subscribe to. Fortunately, usually I only find myself on such a site from something like a human-interest story, which generally isn't all that compelling (yes, I want to know what happened, but it's in no way actionable).

IMHO, you could do worse than to give yourself a yearly news budget, then go distribute that to support the kind of journalism you want to see in the world. Also IMHO, if you've done well in your life, you should double that budget (or more) to pay it forward.
ronno2018
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by ronno2018 »

I pay for the nytimes and wapost but just signed up for twitter blu. So maybe I can cancel some things?

I have Amazon Prime so wapost is cheaper I think? I just call the nytimes at the end of my promotional subscription and say I can only afford $4 per month and they so far have said "OK, we will renew you at that rate."

Seriously, I could cancel it all and still be fine, but holy heck we need the best media at the moment...
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tetractys
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by tetractys »

roamingzebra wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:41 pm I rarely see paywalls. I follow a number of subreddits that cover a wide variety of topics and often include long excerpts of articles or entire articles.

There are other ways to avoid paywalls too.
tetractys wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:12 pm I like the free lite text only news! No adds no pictures; get all the news in 5 minutes. I only know three of them though: NPR , CNN, Christian Science Monitor.
When news first started appearing online, I thought the Christian Science Monitor had the perfect site. A lot of bolded blue hyperlinks tastefully displayed without any columns. It was so easy to get access to all the news from one page. I considered donating to them merely for their design. But they went the way of all other news sites, though not to the same extent. I haven't seen their all text site, but I have seen CNN's and I don't particularly care for it. I guess I prefer newspaper sources on the internet, leaving CNN for viewing on cable. But here is the site for those who haven't seen it:

https://lite.cnn.com/en
CSM is still there as all text and they have reader view for smartphones. https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/text/textedition
ronno2018
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by ronno2018 »

CurlyDave wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:44 pm It is very interesting to me that many have mentioned WSJ but no one has mentioned Investors Business Daily. For my money (and I do subscribe) IBD is a superior source of financial news.

During my pre-Boglehead accumulation phase I used their advice frequently. Now that I have been retired for 16 years and started reading this site I am closer to being a Boglehead, but still march to a slightly different drummer (QQQ instead of VOO or SPY).
I am happy you find them useful, but holy heck I just think so much of financial journalism is just random lameness. How actionable is the reporting? Really just pumping money each month into indexes at your asset allocation is perfectly fine? I think it is!!!
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MN-Investor
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by MN-Investor »

One of the first things I did when I graduated from college and moved to the Twin Cities was to get a subscription to the Minneapolis Tribune. I've converted to the digital subscription and only sporadically read it, but I firmly believe in supporting the local newspaper.

In the past 3 years, I've watched as newspapers have disappeared from small towns and large newspapers have been acquired and reporting staff reduced in number. It's important to have a free and independent press and, with that in mind, I now subscribe to the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, along with a half dozen smaller new sites. In all, I'm spending about $1,000/year on news subscriptions, but it fits in my budget and makes me feel good.

If there is a story behind a paywall of a news site for which I don't subscribe, I'll just Google key words that I do know and hopefully find some information at another site. A search on Twitter can be useful too.

All of this is evolving and I imagine we'll see more ways to access news while monetarily supporting the news organizations.
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runninginvestor
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by runninginvestor »

My thoughts: Thank goodness for a good library system near me. Great digital and print access if I wanted to go in.
rich126
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Re: What's your opinion on increasing # of news websites with subscription paywalls?

Post by rich126 »

My issue with news, financial, etc. sites are that:
1. Most won't let you pay a one time fee but want the subscription model which I do my best to avoid.
2. Most sites are horribly insecure with numerous ads, popups, videos, etc. Unless the paid site is much better than the free portion, it would be a waste of money to me.
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