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by superuser2 3703 days ago
A non-subscribing, ad-blocking readership is no different from 0 readership at all. There is no reason to retain a user whose LTV is and always will be $0.

Professional journalists aren't going to decide one day that paychecks are overrated. Your "something else" will be one big native advertisement (in which case, why are ad-blocking users reading it at all?) or else a hell of a lot lower quality.

Employing people to serve users from which you don't and can't extract value only works in tech, and only for a few years before the next crash.
1 comments
kinkdr 3703 days ago
I think I didn't make my point clear, which was that by not allowing the ad-blocking users they risk losing the paying users too.
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mpbm 3703 days ago
That doesn't follow. If they had one reader, who paid them a million dollars per year, then they'd still be in business. So, if they had a million users, who paid them one dollar per year, they MIGHT be in business because it would cost a lot more to deliver to a million people than to one person.

By throwing up the ad blocker wall they're saving the cost of serving anything more than an ad blocker wall to the people who aren't paying them. Sure, they're limiting their audience, but they're limiting themselves to a PAYING audience.

The people who are willing to pay them might change their minds in the future, but their decision won't have anything to do with the unknown number of people bouncing off of the ad blocker wall.

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kinkdr 3702 days ago
> That doesn't follow.

What do you mean? Look the short-history of internet. It is full of stories like this. Companies that refuse to find other ways earn money from users who don't want to pay (be it actual dollars or ads) open the opportunity to new businesses who are willing to to do so.

Emails. You had to pay to have access to email. Then hotmail said, screw that, we are giving email for free, and we will find other ways to fund this.

How many companies charge for email today?

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superuser2 3702 days ago
>(be it actual dollars or ads)

There are none. All publishing can reach for right now are more subtle forms of advertising (sell editorial influence, pass off highest-bidder content as if it were reporting). This is a horrific societal problem and also still advertising.

Companies give away email for free because it helps them sell ads, or ropes you into an ecosystem that monetizes you in other ways.

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