How much would you pay a year for access to content found exclusively online?
Would you ever pay an annual subscription fee to read a blog? A newspaper? A magazine? Does the publisher matter or is content the only important king?
Here’s what I pay for online access to a few of my favorite daily reads. I do not receive a hardcopy version of these publications even if they exist.
New York Times Select
I pay around $40 a year for “exclusive access” to some online New York Times content and it is not worth the extra money. The “TimesSelect” content is ordinary and uninteresting. I would pay $1,000.00 a year to read Frank Rich every day but he only publishes once a week on Sundays.
The Wall Street Journal
It costs me $80 a year for access to WSJ.com
and it is worth every cent. I do not generally agree with the editorial
purchase of the newspaper, but the writing is excellent and the insider
angles on the how and why of businesses operate is invaluable in
shaping a context of a world I do not innately understand. It is also
good to get into the other side of my mind I don’t consider much: The
conservative and money-at-all-cost thought processes.
Editor & Publisher
Yearly access to Editor & Publisher runs around $90 and I enjoy every moment of the experience. E&P is gossipier and snarkier than the National Enquirer. You can also get trends analysis on publication plans and you can track the careers of editors you admire.
Salon
I pay $35 a year for premium, advertising-free, access to Salon Magazine.
I read Salon every day. It refreshes and fulfills me. The writing is
superb. The new blog entries appear to be a lame attempt to keep
content current, so I skip over that fluffery. Joe Conason and Camille
Paglia helped build Salon‘s intellectual pinnacles and I have been inspired by them and I have been with them every moment of the construction.
Here are some online entities that I paid for and then quickly asked for a refund. The hype did not live up to the content…
The New York Sun
The New York Sun wants $35 a year for online access and while
I really enjoy their article titles, their vicious conservative bent in
the body of their writing ruins the experience if you are at all
fair-minded and even-keeled. I tried reading the newspaper for a week
before I had to call it quits and recall my subscription fee.
Variety
I think an online only subscription to Variety
costs around $200.00 a year and I had a special half-price offer I
decided to take. I immediately regretted the decision because Variety
has its own impossible syntax and grammar and it is irritating and
juvenile to try to read if you care anything at all about the English
language. When a newspaper has a glossary to try to help you figure out
what the writers mean it is time to run away with a refund. The Variety.com
site also kept mocking me by disremembering my username and password
and I quickly tired of being denied access even though I had already
paid them. They are shuttered while I am still shuddering!
Adding
it all up, it looks like I pay around $200.00 a year for online content
to four publications. That’s a lot of money for a lot of inspiration. I
don’t regret any of that money spent and I will renew all my
subscriptions.
What online subscriptions for content do you currently pay for and why
did you decide to pony over your hard-earned dollars? Will you
re-subscribe when your term is finished?