Why Digital Newsstands Stink

An anonymous reader writes "As Google prepares to compete with Apple in the digital newsstand business, both companies seem to be glossing over the fact that consumer demand for digital magazines is dropping. 'Wired's collapse from 100,000 iPad copies in June to 23,000 in November was most dramatic, but the story is not much different at Glamour, Vanity Fair, GQ or Men's Health.' Meanwhile, issues of subscriber privacy continue to crop up — Google has reportedly told publishers it will supply certain information about subscribers, and it's not clear whether users will have the ability to opt-out. And according to the Wall Street Journal, 'Apple is planning to share more data about who downloads a publisher's app, information publishers can use for marketing purposes.'"

Comments

Predicted future news:

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

People continue to prefer not paying for things. Also, most people like having privacy in their lives.

Re:Predicted future news:

[mcgrew]

I don't thionk it's a matter of "People continue to prefer not paying for things", rather people continue to prefer not paying for things that are usually free -- like books, magazines, and music, which is at your local library for free.

When you buy a print newspaper, you're buying ink and paper, and the ads pay for the content. Now they've not only done away with the cost of the ink and paper, they're charging you as much as when they had to buy paper and ink, plus selling your private information!

People prefer free water out of the fountain, yet plenty still buy bottles of it. These "magazines" are like someone trying to sell bottled water that that tastes like urine -- inferior to the free version.

Re:Predicted future news:

[vlm]

I take it you don't read for long periods of time. ... it's that trying to read for long periods of time on a monitor sucks....

Get your eyes checked. Seriously, not being a jerk, just some advice at the human level. Its like heart problems where if the doc catches it early, its no problemo vs you wait for it to start working. Being blind would kind of suck, especially if it could have been easily prevented. My grandmother has taken eyedrops for most of her life, something about an iris problem or whatever, but a lifetime of eyedrops beats the heck out of getting diagnosed after going blind. Maybe all you need is eyeglasses.

Normal healthy people can gaze into their LCD monitor or LCD TV for, frankly, the majority of their waking time, with no pain or discomfort at all. A world full of office workers gaze into their laptop LCD all day, then watch their LCD TV all night, no problemo.

"no pain no gain" is for a (inaccurate) motto for weightlifters, not readers. If reading hurts, you're totally doing it wrong.

Re:Predicted future news:

[golden age villain]

I am reading on the iPad quite often. The problem with the Wired app is that you have to pay extra dollars, even as a subscriber for the print issue, for what is basically a few videos and some cheesy animations. The really interesting content, a.k.a. the in-depth articles are not in the iPad issue. Honestly I don't see how that model could work. On the contrary, The Economist gives subscribers of the print issue the entire content at no extra cost and the app is free. You can even download the entire issue as audio files and you don't need to download an updated app every month and 300 MB of data for every single issue. Comics also make a good read. Actually reading is the only really useful feature of the iPad I found so far.

Truck delivery

[boristdog]

Hey, I've seen all those movies where they just throw a big bundle of the latest issues off the back of a truck as they pass by the newsstand.
Even with a protective case that's gotta be harsh on the iPad.

This isn't a new issue...

[sglewis100]

The privacy issue has to be framed against the fact that they have this same information on you when you subscribe annually in print form. That's why they want it so much - they are used to it! That said, Apple to date has been very adamant about not sharing this information with app developers upon download time, it's actually been a bone of contention, and a major hindrance to magazines with annual subscription offerings. Zinio and Amazon (Kindle) have sidestepped it by forcing you to purchase through their web fronts. PressDisplay does subscriptions through their web sites, and single issues for newspapers through the App Store in-app purchasing, so they get your information when you subscribe, but not when you buy one issue.

I'ts not 'cheapness'

[gurps_npc]

I, and many others, are perfectly willing to PAY good money for things that would otherwise be free.

But we don't want to watch advertisements while we do it.

Expecting people to pay for online content and ALSO see any advertisement (I mean ANYTHING, even simple words), is kind of like saying HBO wants to continue to charge their premium price for premium services but it is now going to show advertisements.

NO. You can't have it both ways,

You want ads? You can't charge. Period.

You want to charge? You can't have ads. Also, NO tracking. No ads means you don't have to tracks us (You can still track how many people read which article, but not which article any individual reads.)

As long as the greedy morons try to charge HBO prices for TBS content, surprise surprise, no one will pay.

Re:I'ts not 'cheapness'

[Dynedain]

But that's not how it works in the print world, except for a small set of free papers. The vast majority of print periodicals require you to pay (either subscription or newsstand) AND have much of the cost subsidized by advertisers.

The business model for magazine publishes is to collect a certain demographic of readers (which they verify using subscription data) that they can then market as a audience block to advertisers. They have a lot of data about this audience block, including demographics, income levels, and purchasing trends and more.

Amazon Kindle Store - Periodicals

[Fantom42]

Go look at the comments for some of the "top sellers" of periodicals on the Kindle. Things like New Yorker, or Economist. You find that there are a ton of people that want to pay for this stuff on their device, but right now the deal is no good. Here are a few examples of what people justly complain about:

- When you buy a digital subscription, you don't get website access that you do get with a print subscription.
- Missing editorial cartoons, and even articles (reported from the Kindle version of the New Yorker)
- They delete access to anything more than 2 months old. Meaning if your device crashes or you have to replace it, you lose those articles.
- Pagination and sections are done in an inconvenient way.
- The cost is no cheaper than a print subscription.

I'm sure there are others. But as a person who recently found himself with an e-book reader and would love to have magazines and newspapers on there, much of this stuff is just a showstopper. Too bad, really.

Its the cost.

[MrQuacker]

My subscription to Esquire is something silly, like $12 a year. Not taking into account the cost of the iPad, buying the iPad version of the magazine costs $5 an issue. That's $12 vs $60 a year.

So, why should I buy the digital version when the print version is not just better, but cheaper? And I dont need a specialized tool to read it.

Re:Censorship

[Daniel Dvorkin]

To be fair, as traditional media has become more and more consolidated, the companies that own the magazines, newspapers, and networks exert this kind of control too. I'm not saying I approve of this situation, you understand, just pointing out that singling out e-publication as uniquely vulnerable doesn't make a whole lot of sense.