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New York Times' Print and Digital Units Reportedly Disagreeing Over iPad Content Pricing

kiljoy616 said:
Yes it did but considering how much of a Micro manager he is, I can see him pushing prices. Steve know his constituents and a percentage would pay. I would not pay, and maybe most here would also not pay. But Steve knows that he does not need all to pay just a percentage which is what apple has always done. The kind of person who is going to purchase the iPad which does not multitask from what I have read, but acts more like an ipod or iphone is not the same as real multitasking.

Now its true that multitasking would eat up battery life and that is a good reason to do things different. I can see that those who will buy the ipad will probably have not problem paying for subscription as long as they thought they where getting something others could not. Steve boy is not dumb he know he can push as long as there are those who feel they are getting an added value.

I am not saying that in the end this will be the fact or price, but I would not put it over that Steve is pushing for certain prices and he is not know for his macro management style.
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So let me get this straight...

According to you, if I'm willing to purchase an iPad that doesn't have “Multitasking”, I'd also be willing to be gouged by the NYT for an outrageous subscription price. Also, to top it off, Steve Jobs is the evil mastermind behind this pricing. Am I reading you correctly? If so, I've got one thing to say to you...

Get off the 'pipe son. It's rotting your brain.
 
Fail!

In the UK we have a free nationwide newspaper called The Metro which has excellent content. A daily newspaper only costs 30p a day (about $9 a month?) so if anyone thinks Im gonna pay $20 - $30 a month to read depressing news ... well, they must be f****g crazy!

To be honest, just like buying groceries on-line, I prefer to go out in person and do my shopping, as I prefer to sit down with a newspaper (not a $600 slab of metal) and flick through real pages!

Im sure technology companies in the future just see us all plugging ourselves into a machine to do anything ... rather than getting out there in the real world doing real things. enewspapers ... no thanks!
 
The way I see it, if you're willing to pay however much for an iPad and support Apple's business model (large profit margins, sustainable business model etc), then you waive any right you had to complain about the content providers wanting to do the very same thing.
 
MacRumors said:
The report notes that The New York Times is currently offering free access to its Web edition into 2011, making subscription costs for iPad-specific content of $20-$30 appear rather uncompetitive.
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LOL - well worded :)

to the new York times;
so the going rate for reporting human suffering is now $20-$30 a month... Wow... But of course you're not profitting from it, you're just making a living aren't you...
 
Relax

This is all supply and demand - let them charge $30 per month. Once they see how few subscribers they're getting, they'll lower the price. For print publishers, this is a very scary time and they're all pretty much freaking out right now.
 
huntercr said:
Charge $30/month and give yourself time to watch paint dry.
...
Example: if your average customer buys the WSJ, sports Illustrated or Wired, plus NYT and lets say .. Scientific American, do you seriously think he will be dropping $40/month on this? Are you so high in your ivory tower that you might actually believe that he might drop $120/month for his four magazines/news sources?? ridiculous!
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I believe the Times is about $360 a year to subscribe to on murdered trees.

Somebody computed that they could give all their present print subscribers a Kindle and save money over the 3-year subscription.

I agree about $5 a month. And that's only if the content is more than you get on the Web. And of course, they're dreaming if they think they can start charging for content on the Web. They will disappear behind the pay wall.
 
definger said:
qft

if I remember correctly, there was a fight (or still is..) between news corporations and google about this topic. And now I know why... people (90% in this thread) REALLY think news are free.
News are free as long as the Internet is a niche for the news corporations.
When they loose (paper) subscribers and revenue this "news is free" thingy is over.
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I think the point is that there are free options out there that are good, or even very good. So, the question most people on here have is, if there are such sources (which will presumably stay around for a while), why would you pay a large amount of money per month for one source? Plus, how much time do you spend on NYT every month? I mean, internet service costs ~$40-50. Why pay almost that for access to one site when there are alternatives? Most Americans can't afford it. A lot who can, have other options.
 
angrynstupid said:
This is all supply and demand - let them charge $30 per month. Once they see how few subscribers they're getting, they'll lower the price. For print publishers, this is a very scary time and they're all pretty much freaking out right now.
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Well said. Let the executives and management at NYT live and learn. Though I would only hop on the bandwagon at $20-$50 a YEAR!! and even then only if better content or features are offered over the free web edition. Change is in the wind for the publishing industry as many of the old guard in executive positions came of age either before or during the time of the Desktop publishing boom of the 1980s. For some of them DTP is about as technologically savvy as they can get, they are all thumbs when it comes to utilizing the newest technologies.
 
This is the same issue as with iTunes.

On one side you have the content provider, they are in a bit of financial trouble. the content is their *entire* business. They're profits depends on sales and per-item profit. They want to drive the price up.

On the other side you have the re distributor, they are in no financial trouble, the content is basically *none* of their business. They're profits depend on hardware sales, these sales can be driven exponentially by a top (and cheap) content distribution service which provides marketing ballast. Profit is of little or no concern. They want to drive price down.

It's would seem like a straightforward struggle surely? Apple have the advantage, Apple set the rates. Sadly, it's not been working out like that.

I do think the publishers will crack eventually, they are in somewhat of a bind in terms of securing future profit. They NEED these content deals.
 
I am not going to read my newspaper on a silly format like a 10" screen. Whatever price they come up with. No thanks. Not even when Apple is willing to pay me for it.
 
What would be a better business model, several million subscribers at $1-2/ month or a few at $30 a month? Hmmm, I guess you would have to have a masters from Wharton to figure that out.
 
Bevz said:
to the new York times;
so the going rate for reporting human suffering is now $20-$30 a month... Wow... But of course you're not profitting from it, you're just making a living aren't you...
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It is funny how the NYT reports daily on the evils of capitalism, yet seems to well embrace it when it come to their own situation. Of course, they fail to understand that capitalism doesn't work if you set your prices higher than what buyers are willing to pay.


Swift said:
I believe the Times is about $360 a year to subscribe to on murdered trees.
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Geez. Could you be more melodramatic and hyperbolic? Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go enjoy a big bowl of murdered wheat and oats. I guess I'm a cereal killer in your mind. :D
 
Neutral Gamer said:
I understand people using ad blockers for websites with annoying ads or with too many of them. But after testing out AdBlock the other day I was amazed that more or less everything, even innocuous, text only Adsense ads, were completely blocked (using the default subscriptions such as EasyList).
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I am not ashamed to say that I use Adblock at all. That said, I don't have a problem with advertising on the internet in general. It's really a case of the bad apple spoiling it for the bunch. Some adverts are so damn annoying in the way they work, or they are just garish to the point of distraction. Then you have others that make zero sense for the content you are viewing.

What I tend to do when I first visit a site, is view them as they are laid out ads and all. Once I do that, If advertising starts to jump out on my screen, is un-targeted and nonsensical and in general make the reading of said site unpleasant I will block them.
 
And yet we are all willing to pay an average of $150 a month for our Apple toys/tools: iPhone+MacBook+iPad, or more for those that also have other Apple products. Our perspective of value certainly is skewed.
 
speaking of delusional...

rabber said:
I can't believe most of the posts that I am reading here. First of all, news will not be free forever. While you can certainly cruise over to a number of free websites to get your news today, that won't be possible in the future. The same people who believe that downloading pirated music is OK will continue to believe that news is free. Someone has to pay for a quality reporter and analyst. If you want my 12 year old daughter to rehash your news, fine. That will be free. If you want to read a quality newspaper, then you should be prepared to pay for it....
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News will not be free forever? Want to make a bet on that? While I disagree with most of what you said, your assertion that that same folks who download music illegally will continue to believe that news should be free, is a bit offensive and follows faulty logic.

While you claim that someone has to pay for quality reporters and analysts, take a look at your local or mid-range paper... no really take a look. The quality of the content has been degraded, and a large portion of it is not generated, but aggregated from other sources (and increasingly more second & third tier services). The quality of the content has suffered, and very little quality content is generated anymore (not when compared to the days when it was an industry, and the product manufactured was "content").
Real "journalism" with the exception of the oft maligned bloggers (working out of their mom's basements) is largely dead.

The NYT's proposed pay model will only gather a few customers, and fail to produce an adequate profit. There is ample past history with other efforts to bear this out, but time will tell in this instance. The price needs to be low enough that folks will willingly pay it without thinking. It needs to be half that of what most folks would willingly pay for it (much like Jobs pressured ATT to come up with an unlimited data plan at half the cost, or how he priced the tablet at half of the expected cost).
 
A lot of these old media outlets are delusional. They seem to have a highly exaggerated view of their value to folks. I'm sure in addition to charging $30, these people intend to fill the virtual paper with ads as well. I don't really care because I'm not subscribing to it whatever they charge.
 
I suppose, those executives earn far too much to notice how much 20-30 USD really is.

If it is only an additional surcharge on the paper issue's price, then THEY ARE JUST MAD! How do the get these useless people?!
 
fifthworld said:
And yet we are all willing to pay an average of $150 a month for our Apple toys/tools: iPhone+MacBook+iPad, or more for those that also have other Apple products. Our perspective of value certainly is skewed.
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Skewed or rational? Just b/c you see the value of paying $1 for an e-newspaper and others do not doesn't mean everyone else has lower values, it means they don't think $1 is a rational price to pay. Why is that not a fair argument to make?

People are not saying they want to bury there heads in the sand, they are saying the NYT is not worth $1. I happen to agree. However, I do disagree with those saying its not worth .33 a day ($10/mo), though I personally wouldn't subscribe to the NYT at any price. I prefer the WSJ.

Also where are you pulling the $150/mo number from? Personally I don't spend anywhere near $150 a month on Apple products. Amortized over 3 years, which is the avg. time I keep a computer, my 3 macs collectively cost me about $100 a month. However, I need them to make money, so they are a cost of doing business, not an consumer impulse buy.
 
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