> But while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run.<p>In other words we have a wild guess this will be sustainable for news organizations.<p>Stories like this are always popular on HN but I’m convinced get upvoted because people agree with the idea of more free stuff. I’m skeptical that this will improve the quality of reporting in an already under resourced journalistic environment. Maybe it’s a good idea, but it’s hardly obvious.
Among many other things that are seeing titanic shifts right now is the media landscape. Wired has been doing some excellent reporting on a lot of recent events while you have storied outfits like the Washington Post muzzled by their owner.
>But while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run.<p>I just don't see how you can think this given the trends of subscriber counts to various outlets over the last few decades.
I just wish that those that suddenly recognize the importance of freedom will remember next time they get their preferred government in power instead of simply pretending "freedumbs" are a partisan issue and defending authoritarianism when it suits them.<p>I don't have much hope, though. The partisan hypocrisy and inconsistency in red and blue cuts deep.
> Some may argue that, from a business standpoint, not charging for stories primarily relying on public records automatically means fewer subscriptions and therefore less revenue (…)
> while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, *it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice* and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run.<p>(emphasis is mine)<p>Not, the outcimes are not as likely. This is the same argument that switching to foss and donation-based model would not result in income-loss compared to traditional business model.<p>We know from experience it does not financially work for a (very) large majority of products.<p>I laud Wired’s initiative but I hope they have considered it as a net-loss of income.
The suitable rejoinder to every tired old "somebody else's content needs to be given away" argument is the Content Creator's Creed from Goodfellas (NSFW): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3bhh8fqYs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3bhh8fqYs</a><p>As if journalism hasn't been a shrinking industry for decades. "But surely FOIA articles are different and are the perfect loss leader". No they are not — if they were you'd make a mint researching, writing and publishing FOIA articles for free rather than insisting that others do it.
I have subscribed to multiple news organizations this year because I think it's important to support the type reporting they are doing right now. I don't give money to every source that is doing great investigative work but there's at least more of my money paying for news.
Well, different publication, but I subscribed a week for a single article to “follow the money“.<p>However, I couldn’t easily unsubscribe. Same has happened to me with other too.<p>So yeah, no more paying for articles since
I'm fine with news outlets having paywalls to keep the lights on and provide great journalism. Where I wish things would change is having paywalls on articles years old that are no longer relevant to todays news.
I think journalists have an obligation to publish the documents received from FOIA for free but I don't see anything wrong with a paywall for the article.
> And yes, publishers rely on subscriptions to cover those costs — which will only increase as a result of anti-press attacks by the Trump administration.<p>[citation needed].<p>I wonder how many people browse the Internet with an ad blocker while simultaneously calling for paywalled news content to be free?<p>It's quite the entitlement to say that organizations should forgo revenue when, if people actually cared, they could easily replace 1 of 10 streaming subscriptions with a newspaper/journalism subscription.<p>This article is backed with no data beyond just shaming organizations for not fulfilling what freedom.press defines as "civic duty".