In today's news: Paywalls Are Everywhere

In-App Purchases = Subscriptions

Do you pay for news?  More and more websites would like you to.  Which got me to thinking - how much would it cost to subscribe to all of the top news sites?  The answer: a whopping $254.34 per month.  And that is for only the digital content - no magazines or newspapers would be showing up in your mailbox.  How can someone be expected to stay "well rounded" if it costs so much money just to hear different opinions in the first place? 

I was prompted to write this post because my main go-to site for news, Bloomberg.com, recently switched from the ad-supported model to the paid subscription model.  I was and continue to be heartbroken.  But my favorite columnist had already left and I can still get their daily newsletters in my e-mail for free, so I guess it's not the end of the world.

My research into this topic was a little more time consuming than I initially anticipated.  I wanted to make sure I covered a wide swath of mainstream news, so I built my list of sites to investigate using three categories.  I would look at the sites of the top 15 physical newspapers by circulation, the top 30 news sites by Alexa ranking, and the top 30 news apps in the iTunes Apple store.

Right off the bat there was a bit of a surprise.  Several of the apps and sites were not "original content" news sites.  For example, Google News comes in at #5 on the Alexa list, while theSkimm is #4 in the iTunes store.  Neither employ a single writer creating original content.  Several of these kinds of entries fell off my list since they were places full of links to outside articles with no unique coverage of their own.

The second big surprise was the amount of paid sites that masquerade as free sites.  You may have seen this before when you get the message that says "you have 3 free articles remaining this month..."  Sometimes this is obviously presented to you, but on a few sites I was not made aware of the paywall until I hit it.  An abrupt stop sign slammed into my browser and insisted on receiving my credit card number before I could proceed.  I burned through my free article quota on several sites during my research.  You're welcome.  I've categorized these as paywall sites, even if they had a small number of free views.

There were a couple sites with partial paywalls, where only some of the articles were hidden, but you could enjoy unlimited viewing of the rest.  The Atlantic is one example (and one of my other personal favorites).  I gave these their own category in the infographic.  A few of the sites forced you to buy an entire year or quarter at a time.  Some sites billed every 4 weeks.  I standardized the prices to make them monthly charges.

I also ignored the introductory offers and reported only the full prices.  Many of these places are trying to lure people in with "$1 per week" offers which quickly double or triple once the trial period is over.  I threw those promotional rates out the window and just recorded the full price.

Ultimately, I ended up randomly and rapidly clicking through 37 different websites over the course of an evening.  I didn't even do it in private browsing mode.  I think my computer has more cookies than a Girl Scout troop now.  But blazing through site after site, I started noting some interesting things.  Here are a few reflections:

The Houston Chronicle wins the award for the most interesting and random article I inadvertently stumbled across.

The Seattle Times and The Guardian both go the Wikipedia route and leave everything free while attempting to guilt trip you into voluntarily paying them money.  I wonder what their success rate is.

The Wall Street Journal won't let you view even one single precious article for free.  They are also the most expensive at $36.99 a month.  That's some Netflix and a whole lot of chill money right there.

The free sites are obviously being supported by ads.  Like, extremely obviously.  I don't use an ad blocker, and some of these sites were so cluttered and crowded that I was afraid my browser was going to crash.

Video ads that autoplay are a scourge to mankind and must be exterminated.

Full screen pop ups are alarming and disorienting.  My first instinct when they happen is to Alt-F4 my way back to safety and stave off what must be a Russian hacker taking over my monitor.

The Hill wins the award for weirdest ad presented to me - a vacation ad featuring four beaming and shirtless dudes in sunglasses on the beach in - get this - Tel Aviv of all places.

I saw an ad for VRBO that treated me to another glimpse of the exact properties I had been looking up earlier this week.

The ads for the paid sites on Facebook show up like an innocent story in my news feed, complete with the names of my friends who "like" the Derpity Post-Times.  I wonder - are they paying for a subscription, or did they just like the page?

The clickbait is real.  I actually stopped to read some of the titles.  They did not disappoint.

Born Before 1985? This Government Program Will Pay off Your Mortgage (Only if You Claim It)

I had better jump on that!  Here I am paying off my mortgage like a sucker.  But wait, there's more!

You Should Never Shop on Amazon Without Using This Trick - Here's Why
20 Totally Normal Things Kate Middleton Can't Do
Try Not To Laugh At These Hilarious Photos That Perfectly Depict Each State
Surrogate Hears Doctor Gasp Moments After Delivering Baby, Looks Down & Quickly Realizes Why
Mom Gives Birth To 7 Babies. Just Wait Until You See Them 18 Years Later
The Pawn Star Find That Made Chumlee Rich

The urge to click on some of those was real.

Did you ever notice the names of the sites that sponsor some of this clickbait crap?  It's the most random stuff.

Denzel Washington's Son Has Grown Up To Be Gorgeous
Faith Hill's Daughter Is 19 & She's Gorgeous

These link to sites called "Miss Penny Stocks" and "Refinance Gold", respectively.  You know, come for the hot celeb kids, stay for the stock tips.  And why not go ahead and lower you interest payment too while you're here?

The clickbait articles started to get so well camouflaged that it was almost impossible to tell them apart from links to legitimate articles on the actual site.  Like this one totally turned out to be an actual article on the same legit news site I was browsing:

The not-so-German origins of German chocolate cake

Spoiler: it's Texas.  Chalk up another one for the Lone Star State!  You never can know too much useless trivia.

After my odyssey was complete, I turned my spreadsheet of research into this lovely infographic which looks like it was designed by blind person using a braille mouse.  What can I say, I can't do design.

Sources:

https://www.appannie.com/en/apps/ios/top/united-states/news/iphone/
https://www.agilitypr.com/resources/top-media-outlets/top-15-daily-american-newspapers/
https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News