Making a Buck Online - Without Ads

A New York Times article hosted by C|Net looks at the unique position of the Consumer Reports website; they're one of the few online resources that gets by completely on subscription fees. They have no ads. One key seems to be valuing their online readers as much as their print readers - and charging both the same amount. "The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times tried charging for some online content, then abandoned the practice. For a decade, however, Consumer Reports has charged Internet readers the same price as print subscribers, currently $26 a year (or $5.99 for a month's online access or $45 a year to get the magazine both in print and on the Web). While the rest of the industry sees print readers as more valuable--because advertisers do--Consumer Reports actually makes more money from readers on its Web site, because it avoids printing, trucking, and mailing costs."

Comments

Reputation counts too

[Titoxd]

And Consumer Reports also has a reputation of not screwing people on both ends, so its clients are more than willing to pay for the content, be it in print or online. It just shows you the power that good ethics can have.

Re:Reputation counts too

[Titoxd]

Aye. Moreover, Consumer Reports is in an enviable position, as their comparisons allow people to save money, be it by getting a cheaper product, or by not spending on an overpriced piece of junk. As a result of these long-term savings, the consumer sees that CR provides value to him or her, and any company that has a product that is perceived as valuable has a captive market. I know I would think, "If this magazine can save me money any time, it might be worth the purchase price."

Re:Reputation counts too

[Fozzyuw]

The information they provide is truthful and valuable. People will pay for "data."

Exactly. I signed up for CR online when I was looking to buy a new cars in 2006 (and still had it when I bought another in 2007). To find the right car for me I spent the $30 to help read up on the cars I was interested in. It helped. I was able to read up on the past history of the cars, like the Toyota Corolla, and find it had a long history of excellent reviews. I was also able to knock a few cars off my list, like the Chevy Aveo, which had a recall in 2006/7 (I forget what year). Despite both cars having similar gas milage, the Aveo was a much smaller car (something my fiancee, who's French, felt more comfortable with given her European cars) with not as good reviews. In America, given the average size of a car is much larger, I felt safer with her having a slightly bigger car and she's adjusted to the size difference, given that roads here are also much larger.

That small amount of money I wrote off as part of the cost of a proper new-car purchase. And what's $45 when you're spending $15,000? However, I have no reason to continue until there's some other big name purchase I want to do so I canceled. I'll pick up their magazine at the gym when I see one laying around. I also found it more difficult than expected to cancel my account with CR.

Cheers,
Fozzy

I thought so...

[SanityInAnarchy]

I thought so, too. Then I read this review of the EEE PC. I was with them right up until this bit:

For more advanced tasks, consider getting a full-fledged laptop with a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and Windows Vista.

First, what does "more advanced tasks" actually mean? I could use an EEE PC for programming, ssh access, and, I'm sure, many other things that this reviewer has never heard of.

Second, and most important: Why the fuck are they recommending Windows Vista? I was curious, so I found this other page, with these gems:

Windows Vista offers an array of improvements over XP aside from visual enhancements, new multitasking features and simpler home-network setup....

And, of course, no mention of the downsides -- of why you'd want to keep XP. (Well, there's a sort of casual mention of "If Vista does nothing for you, you can still buy a new PC with XP", but no mention of the insane number of bugs that still exist in Vista.)

Microsoft offers three versions of Vista

No, it offers four.

Mac OS is considered by many to be easier to learn and use than Windows, and it's more secure against online threats because it's less of a target for malware writers.

Not to bring up the old debate again, but the fact that there is a debate is worth some mention, at least, right?

Linux, a free operating system with source code anyone can modify, is most appropriate for users who aren't intimidated by technology.... The only things you won't find are sophisticated 3D games.

Doom 3 isn't sophisticated? What about the new Unreal games?

Or did they mean "sophisticated" in the artsy/intellectual sense? As in, say, Neverwinter Nights, Neverball, Wesnoth, and the like?

I'm not claiming the situation is good for Linux gaming. But to claim there are no sophisticated games for it, even if we're all willing to ignore Wine/Cedega, is factually untrue. By "factually untrue", I mean it's in the realm of 2+2=5. Even for very large values of 2, that statement is wrong, and always will be.

You'll need additional software to access other file formats such as MP3 or iTunes.

No mention that it's free and easy to download/install this software. Oh, and it does seem to support mp3s out of the box.

As for Linux, you'll need more than just a casual knowledge of operating systems, because the interface is not entirely graphical.

That's a nonsensical statement. It's "not entirely graphical" in the same way that Windows and OS X are -- I can still run cmd.exe or Terminal. If they mean that you may occasionally have to do things with the commandline, well, that's also untrue -- and they must know this, having used Ubuntu.

If all you do is Web browsing and e-mail you can probably get by, but if you use a wide variety of applications, you're better off passing on Linux.

If all you do is Web browsing and e-mail and word documents and finances and web development and education and PDF reading and listening to music and creating music and putting music on your iPod and basic camera and photo scanning/editing and CD/DVD burning and scanning/OCR and Skype and instant messaging and IRC..... *inhal

Re:I thought so...

[Random Destruction]

And then there are just as many of us who have had terrible time with vista. My aunt got a dell that came loaded with vista. She has a hard time reading the screen, so first thing I did was increase the text size. Apparently that requires a reboot. On the fourth attempt at booting, it decided not to lock up, and I got back to the interface. Everything was ugly and I couldn't move any window more than 2/3s across the screen. There was an invisible wall. So I set the text back, and rebooted again.

Then I went to copy her mail form outlook express to windows mail. I moved the proper files over from the other computer, and loaded windows mail. I pointed it to the files, and it spat out "file in use, or wrong file type" or some other such BS. I tried saving the DB in different formats etc. Eventually I discovered that what this error really meant was "Windows mail can't import user data as a user. Please re-run this program as administrator" why the fuck couldn't they just say that?

My experience with that box has continued in a similar vein. The computer is as slow as her old box, yet has 4 times the memory and at least that many times the processing power. I find it simply inconcievable anyone could run this OS.

That aside, people do. Smart people too, so there must be more to this equation. I'm not really sure what it is, but this polarized opinion is confusing.