A great annoyance with regards to reading news articles online is when outlets block you from access because you’ve exceeded the free monthly limit, usually some absurdly low number, like the measely five free articles per month with The New York Times. Of course, there are various methods to circumvent the paywalls - of which I won’t state here - should you be really inclined to read an article. My guess is though for the most part, people simply give up and leave after encountering a paywall.
That’s not so good for spreading news and information, is it?
It’s for sure a tricky situation: proper journalism is something worthy of supporting, and we definitely should subscribe to these online periodicals so they can continue to report on news and investigate powerful institutions. That said, even the most ardent of newspapers supporters is likely to subscribe to only two: their local newspaper, and a national one like the aforementioned New York Times or the Washington Post. At one time, that was my system: I paid for the San Francisco Chronicle, and had a subscription The New York Times.
But that leaves coverage gaps for other online newspapers and journals. What if there’s an engrossing expose on Bloomberg? Or a food-review about the hottest restaurant on the Los Angeles Times website? If I’ve already exceeded the free articles allowance for a particular month, I am shit out of the proverbial luck. I don’t want to subscribe just to read specific articles, because I don’t have the money to carry so many news outlets, and also, these places tend to make it difficult to cancel. I had to call into customer service when cancelling my subscription to the Chronicle and the Times, having to sit through their lengthy attempts to retain me before successfully cutting cord.
To go through that just to read one article? No thanks.
It’s a mystery to me why don’t these newspapers create a system for people to pay-per-article: I’d gladly fork over 99-cent to read a piece behind a paywall. Connect the system with popular online payment methods such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, and make it easy to one-click accept at the paywall popup. These companies get the revenue, and I get to read the articles I want - it’s a win-win.
I won’t even charge a commission for this idea, so someone please run with this!
This is America.