[askura]

All the best to them. I was involved with a few Vice projects in 2011-2014 and it was honestly leadership that let them down. They have great talent but it's not easy in this day and age to run any kind of content site.

Hope they pull it off.

[nickthegreek]

Good luck to them but $100/yr sub is the cheapest tier. oof!

[Humboldtsnee]

That said, it's going to actual workers who actually do the journalism.

Supporting 404 feels better than sending money to some corp where it gets pocketed by the c suite.

[iterminate]

I wrote a long a comment theorising why $100/year is a great starting point and then discovered you can toggle between "yearly" and "monthly". So they do offer $10/month -- it's just hidden behind a toggle.

[wffurr]

You mean I can also choose $120/year?

No comment on whether either is reasonable but responding to “it costs too much” with a more expensive option is an interesting choice.

[kup0]

Only viewing total cost misses the point. For some people, it may be more reasonable for them to want to pay a fraction of the cost monthly vs. one big sum every 12 months. $10/month is more expensive, in total, over a year. However, $100 is more expensive in the short-term.

Also, paying monthly is only more expensive if the person paying decides to stay that long. Monthly payments allow flexibility to cancel rather than committing to a year.

[carlosjobim]

Let's imagine you need to read a certain story, but don't care to become a long-term subscriber. The $10 for a month option fits that use.

[eviks]

It doesn't fit, direct payment for an article fits that use, not an expensive subscription you'd have to remember to cancel

[carlosjobim]

If $10 is too expensive, then that article was not important anyway.

[googlryas]

$100 sounds much worse than phrasing it as 27 cents a day.

(cue cheesy music): "For just a quarter a day, you can save a struggling journalist from corporate overlords, submarine PR pieces, and human interest stories"

[frumper]

27 cents a day sounds worse to me. You typically can't pay for 1 day, so it's not really true.

[selectodude]

Means they need to average 4200 subscribers to pay themselves and run the place.

[jzb]

Assuming hosting costs, credit card fees, etc. - $420,000 a year for 4 people doesn't sound like enough.

[jzb]

If anybody has the magic formula for pricing, I'd be all ears. Yeah, $100 a year seems steep - but OTOH are twice as many people going to subscribe for $50? Five times as many for $20? (Or more...)

I don't know what the answer / formula is, but I pay more than that per year for my LWN.net subscription and for a few other publications. Less than that for others, but I really don't know what the "right" level would be to maximize revenue so they're able to pay themselves a decent salary and keep the lights on.

[doctorwho42]

Cheaper than being owned by a billionaire, it just is a visible cost not external cost.

[patmorgan23]

Less than $10/month

[autoexec]

Still more per month than a netflix account.

[OGWhales]

*Ad-supported Netflix account.

Ad-free Netflix is more expensive.

[Invictus0]

Ah yes, Netflix, the noted journalism company

[autoexec]

Netflix the contender for our limited attention and only one of an ever growing number of subscriptions whose cost needs to be justified. I'm guessing a streaming service, even one with netflix's catalogue, is going to provide a lot more bang for your buck in terms of minutes of quality content per dollar.

[carlosjobim]

Netflix has nothing to do with newspapers or other digital content and services that aren't video streaming.

People seem to make the comparison only because the things are accessed by using a screen, which seems to be a very simple perspective. Just because Netflix is a great bargain (for those who like their content), doesn't mean you can conclude that everything else is expensive.