Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
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.
Free Martian Whores!
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.
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.