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

[jotok]

Oh, it's not ONLY their ethics. The information they provide is truthful and valuable. People will pay for "data."

News articles, on the other hand, are essentially stories. I like to read them, but I read them with my morning coffee on the couch. Newspapers nowadays have lost their reputation for relevance and timeliness (typically by chasing ad revenue with sensationalist stories rather than by doing real investigative journalism) and so while they are interesting and amusing, they are not worth paying for.

Subscription journals, on the other hand, I will still pay for, just like I would pay for Consumer Reports.

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

Consumer reports MUST be standalone

[LiquidCoooled]

Of all the websites, consumer reports (and in the UK; Which) must be seen as totally seperate from the products they are reviewing.
How good would it be if this edition of Consumer Reports (and its special report on Car safety) was brought to you in association with Ford?

Re:Consumer reports MUST be standalone

[the_humeister]

Why very good, what with all this Ford stock I just bought!

Content helps too

[The_Fire_Horse]

and once the reputation is established, if the content is good then I will pay for it no matter what format it comes in (and the web is certainly the easiest)

Independence

[proudfoot]

But consumer reports cannot feature ads like other papers, because it must be, uniquely independent, of the products it reviews. Other newspapers do not necessarily have to be independent.
While it would be nice if others were, I think I prefer paying less, and reading some ads.

Re:Independence

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'll agree that paying less (and reading some ads) is preferable to paying more (and avoiding ads), if that's all there was to it. For instance, sites that offer a subscription service to avoid ads just make me turn Adblock on.

However, independence has the implication that they are not being paid to say something. Now, some of the things CR says make me wonder if they're either paid to say it, or are complete morons. But the idea is what counts.

Today, I had a long talk with my dad about what he does. I'd been talking a lot about my new job, so I wanted to hear more about what he does. His company -- two corporations, actually, so they can legally do both stocks and commodities, but it's the same people -- they're, well, a financial company. As in, you can bring them a big pile of money, and they'll invest it, and you get to involve yourself at varying levels. One of the things that came out in that discussion was, he provides two options for payment -- either a commission, or a yearly payment.

Well, he recommends the yearly payment, even if it might (sometimes) cost a bit more. It's better for him, obviously, because the company then gets a stable income in the form of regular checks. But it also provides some assurance to the customer that there's never any motivation for a trade other than because it will benefit the customer.

That is, if there's a commission, a broker might encourage a lot more trades than the client wants or needs, because it generates commissions. If there's no commission, you'd think it encourages doing less, to avoid work, and that's partially true. But it also means that the motivation for everything they do is to make money for their customers, so they stay customers, and because of how powerful word of mouth is in that industry.

So yes, I would pay for Consumer Reports, and I'd pay more for that independence. Except that after reading their articles on various software, I'd never be able to shake the feeling that they were screwing me over with their other recommendations -- that their car recommendations, for instance, might sound as laughable to a mechanic as their software recommendations sound to me.

Curious

[Oddster]

Why point to the C-Net version of the article when the original article is freely available online here?

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...

[Joe Jay Bee]

So, wait, they're bad because they recommend a product you don't like for an audience you don't identify with, and don't recommend your OS of choice.

Just because you think Linux/Mac should be mentioned in glowing praise next to every mention of Vista doesn't make it so. The point of Consumer Reports is to review things, not advertise the competitors to those things.

Re:I thought so...

[Joe Jay Bee]

And sorry to reply to my own comment (mea culpa) but since when did "Independent" automatically mean "Hates Microsoft"? Some people independently like and recommend Windows. I hate this attitude if they recommend everyone buy a Mac Mini/install Linux they're free-thinking individualists, but if they recommend a cheap Dell with Vista they're being bribed by Microsoft.

Re:I thought so...

[PopeRatzo]

Some people independently like and recommend Windows.

Yes, but not Vista. The one decent point the GP makes is that if a "pro-consumer" organization recommends Vista, it either means they have not done their homework or they are getting a little taste from Microsoft. I think Consumer Reports is a useful magazine, but they occasionally get a little bit sloppy. If they in fact recommended Vista (and I have not verified that with my own eyes) then this is such a case of them being sloppy.

To be fair, I rarely use Consumer Reports for anything having to do with computers or software, because I can get more reliable expert opinions elsewhere.

NOTE: I'm offering this comment based upon my personal experience with Vista (I eventually went back to XP) and my interactions with hundreds of computer professionals whose opinions I have come to trust. I do not hate Microsoft. I might hate Steve Ballmer, but mostly because he is a sweaty friggin' maniac. I do love how he dances to "Safety Dance" though.

Re:I thought so...

[Mongoose Disciple]

I'm a computer professional, and my Vista box has been my most trouble-free Windows machine yet. To read Slashdot I would've thought it was the OS equivalent of a burning paper bag full of dog crap on my doorstep, but surprisingly my experience with it's been great.

Granted, I waited until 6 months or so after the launch to get it.

I don't see a compelling reason for most people to move to Vista, but I haven't experienced a compellign reason not to yet either.

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.

Target group for review

[Per Abrahamsen]

> 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.

And neither has the intended target audience for the review (or for the EEE PC).

> 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.

It refers to the kind of games the self-declared gamers want to use a box for, rather than the kind of games the intended audience is interested in (flash games, solitaire).

The statement is factually untrue in the sense that "the world is round" is a factually untrue statement in the context of people who believe in a flat Earth (since, to the nerd, only a mathematically perfect sphere would qualify as "round").

Congratulation, you have discovered that consumer report is not written for nerds with autistic tendencies.

> this whole Slashdot article is about them making a buck online, so are they even nonprofit?

Yes, non-profit is a legal term that doesn't involve giving away stuff for free.

And "expert" can also refer to the ability to explain complicated stuff in terms ordinary people can understand.

Re:Target group for review

[SanityInAnarchy]

If you think someone coming to you and saying "I'm a big gamer, what computer should I buy?", and you answering "Oh, you should install Linux, it plays all the cutting edge games!" is in any way NOT wrong or bad advice, I think we can all agree you're not anywhere near as competent at distilling advanced technical knowledge as you think you are.

This is what's known as a strawman argument.

No, if someone came to me with that question, I'd suggest building their own, or buying a Dell (NOT Alienware), and putting XP on it. But people don't come to me with that question, they come to me with questions like "So I hear you're into Linux, should I use that for myself?" And the first thing out of my mouth is not "yes", but "What do you use a computer for?"

If, at any point, they mention some Windows-specific program, or that they're into gaming, I'll point out that they are going to need Windows, so the best they can hope for is dual-boot.

Actually, the most frequent question is "Can you fix my computer?" Second most frequent is "How do I stay secure online?" And while it's unlikely that I'll answer that without mentioning Linux, it's also unlikely that I'll recommend they switch -- I just let them know that if they do decide to switch, I'll be willing to walk them through it.

They don't have space to go into page after page of caveats and explanations for every summary they make

Bullshit, this is the Internet. Even if they don't have space, they can link back to Wikipedia or something. But like I said, I wasn't looking for "page after page". I was looking for some simple accuracy -- things like "Most games won't work with Linux."

simply so that the average Linux user doesn't get his ego bruised.

That one's an ad-hominim attack, right there with your suggestion that I'm autistic (I'm not).

I develop HD-DVDs for a living. The very existence of my current job, and company, is dependent on Microsoft, and I have not, yet, been able to use Linux at work, even as a VM host -- nor have I spent a ton of time trying. I am not, by any means, a zealot.

For the average suburban household, buying a Dell PC with Vista is the most optimal choice.

Even if you're arguing Windows is the most optimal choice -- and I don't even want to get into that tired flamewar -- are you actually deluded enough to think Vista is a better choice than XP for those users?

CR Online is worth much more than print version.

[Don92126]

As a current Consumer Reports Online subscriber it's obvious to me why I'm willing to pay as much as the print magazine: it's worth more to me. In fact I'd even pay more for online that print in this case. When I want to go find reviews, I don't want to go dig through a pile of print and hope I haven't lost the issue with the review I need, and if I'm a new subscriber to the online service I basically just got all the back issues for free. The online service is so handy I use it for basically every major purchase I make now.