Linked – The danger of ‘I already pay for Apple News+’
There’s lots more in the full article, but this does seem to sum up the problem for publishers.
““Why subscribe to that publisher? I already pay for Apple News+” should be the question haunting journalists’ nightmares. For readers, $10 per month all-you-can-eat from 300-plus publishers sounds like a great deal today. But it could accelerate the demise of some of those outlets, leaving society with fewer watchdogs and storytellers. If publishers agree to the shake hands with the devil, the dark lord will just garner more followers, making its ruinous offer more tempting.”
As a consumer, there’s no comparison between paying various subscriptions, at various prices, and keeping track of them, and the logins that I created for each one versus having one, $10 per month subscription that gives me access to 95% of what I wanted in the first place.
No comparison at all. It’s not even close.
So as a publisher, your choice is to get on board with that, and take whatever Apple decides to dole out to you, or ignore it and try to compete with that model, and all of your competitors who exist in Apple News+.
Good luck with that. I’m sure Apple is portraying it as a win-win for publishers, but I’m not really sure there’s any way for a publisher to win. And that means there will be fewer of them, which is already a growing trend.
