from Hacker News

Apple News Service Said to Feature WSJ for $10 a month, Without NYT or WP

by l9k on 3/20/19, 9:50 PM with 63 comments

• by tptacek on 3/21/19, 12:52 AM

  Broken record: online newspaper subscriptions are super cheap and are remarkably useful; when you can click around a newspaper site without popups, it starts to makes sense to use them as your news portal, which quickly weans you off lower-quality free sites like CNN.

  Like the people that get the sleep apnea devices and won't shut up about how much better their life is, I'm constantly (and noisily) surprised by how shitty the news writing and presentation I was putting up with was before I subscribed to a bunch of actual newspapers.

• by GeekyBear on 3/21/19, 1:34 AM

  It's worth noting that Apple did not create the "50% revenue share" business model behind the Texture app they bought.

  The big names in magazine publishing who created Texture did.

  >New York, NY, December 8, 2009 – Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. today jointly announced that they have entered into an independent venture to develop open standards for a new digital storefront and related technology that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite media content on portable digital devices.

  http://allthingsd.com/20091208/nows-the-time-finally-publish...

  As for their revenue model.

  >That service, which was eventually called Texture, paid out 10 percent of its monthly revenue to its owner-operators, who divvied it up based on the usage their titles generated. And publishers who sold their stuff through the service but didn’t own a piece of Texture captured 50 percent of the revenue, also cut up by usage.

  https://www.recode.net/2019/2/13/18224013/apple-news-publish...

  Apparently the magazine industry and the newspaper industry have different ideas on what a equitable revenue share might be.

• by untog on 3/21/19, 1:13 AM

  I'm confused why WSJ, of all publications, is jumping on board here. A look at their subscription page shows me that the cheapest option is $15 a month. This Apple News subscription product is going to be $10 a month and Apple is taking 50% of that.

  I get the argument that Apple News will expose you to a much larger audience, but that level of revenue cut is... significant. Why wouldn't I cancel my WSJ subscription and sign up with Apple?

  (an aside, but the 50% cut just seems absurd. Just reads like Apple saying "because we can", there's no way the cost of distributing an article is anywhere near the same as the cost of making it)

• by esun on 3/21/19, 1:30 AM

  Former newspaper industry employee here... This is a mistake by the WSJ. They would be better served by reducing their ridiculous digital subscription fees and skipping Apple's extortionate gatekeeping "service".

  The newspaper industry was founded on (although nobody really understood it until the invention of the internet) being the intermediary between consumers and companies. In 2019 the business has changed to content provision. But these old line companies (and who is older line than Apple and the WSJ?) can't help but try to discover intermediary points of control.

  Pah.

• by snazz on 3/21/19, 12:20 AM

  I find it amusing that the NYT is reporting on its own business decisions.

• by Traster on 3/21/19, 1:38 PM

  I think it's so important that we move towards a model where we can subscribe to a selection of news sources for a reasonable amount. As others have pointed out, individual newspapers are as much as a netflix or spotify subscription - which may be justified. But even if everyone does move to a subscription model, it's bad for our society for everyone to have 1 source of news.

  It's even more unhealthy if I can't have an informed discussion about the news of the day with you because you got your news from the NYT and I got my news from Times of London and we got two entirely different sides of the story and we can't go and see each other's sources of information. That sounds to me like a terrible situation to put ourselves in.

  I would much rather pay $10 bucks a month and know that that revenue is distributed amongst the papers I read in proportion to how long I've spent reading each article- in exactly the same way Youtube tracks watched minutes.

• by ohnope on 3/21/19, 1:14 AM

  >the most recent terms that Apple is offering to publishers ask for a cut of roughly half of the subscription revenue involved in the service

  50% cut? And likely no access to customer data, with content embedded in a proprietary app outside of a news paper’s control... why would publishers agree to shutting off so many avenues for future innovation and strategic independence?

• by intopieces on 3/21/19, 2:01 AM

  Note to those not keen on paying money to Apple for this service: RBDigital lets you download lots of magazines through your local library. Mine even has The Economist. I still pay for a subscription because I like the audio, but RBDigital is great for people who like plain PDF scans of magazines and has the added benefit of being already paid for.

• by steven2012 on 3/21/19, 1:51 AM

  > Publishers are also concerned that they won’t have access to important data about the consumers — credit cards, email addresses and other subscriber information — as part of the deal.

  Why are credit card numbers important information? All they would know is what the credit card is, but it's not like they can sell the credit card or use that number to get more purchases, etc, from that number, can they?

• by bearcobra on 3/21/19, 1:29 AM

  As a former Next Issue/Texture user I really hope they’re going to do a better job with the UX. I really loved the idea of an unlimited magazine subscription but the execution just wasn’t there.

• by sdfsdfsdfsdf3 on 3/21/19, 1:32 AM

  I wonder for WSJ if you still have to call a high pressure sales line to cancel?

• by sqldba on 3/21/19, 2:40 AM

  What confuses me most here is that the ethics of the WSJ, as defined by the beliefs of owner Rupert Murdoch, run counter to everything Apple professes to support. I don't know why they would support WSJ and not a more unbiased newspaper.

• by crazygringo on 3/21/19, 2:22 AM

  A 50% cut seems insane. Is there context that's missing here?

  Because also, nothing is said about how the subscription is divvied up. Is the remaining 50% ($5/mo.) split among publishers by the % of articles read?

• by alg0rith on 3/21/19, 1:27 AM

  >Netflix deliver large video streams $12.99/month

  >Apple News host a bunch of text and some images $10.00

  Is it fair?