- Time removed its paywall in June 2023, resulting in a rise in advertising revenue but a loss of digital subscribers, with traffic remaining relatively flat.
- The decision was influenced by broader industry trends and the publisher’s focus on working with advertisers and leveraging its brand equity in other ventures.
- Time aims to achieve profitability by expanding its direct advertising and sponsorship business, growing its global events slate, and exploring new ventures like connected television.
The problem is that Time and every other news outlet think they are the cats pajamas and deserve your subscription. They suffer a similar problem to streaming platforms except news is not exclusive.
If these companies could organize and build a “pay once, get access to everything everywhere” model, they would see subscriptions go through the roof and get more money. But since the owners of these news outlets want only their own subscribers to go up, it’s never going to happen.
I’m not going to pay for 5-10 news subscriptions no matter how great the reporting is.
But I’d be willing to pay $20 or so a month if that meant I can access any article on any news website.
> pay once, get access to everything everywhere
> thinks about Elsevier
OH GOD PLEASE NO