[jwblackwell]

A 2% conversion rate is actually quite high. The mistake here is that they assume the reason people don't subscribe is because of the cost.

[coldpie]

Yeah a 2% conversion rate on what is essentially gutter-level spam (postcards in the mail & facebook ads) is crazy high. If they're dismayed by those results, then it seems like the study authors had no idea what they were doing.

Strong conclusions drawn from a bad study. Bad article.

[massysett]

Indeed - for me a daily paper is a liability: it is an enormous pile of garbage that has to be moved out of my house for waste collection. And indeed most of it is waste to me: ads. I do subscribe to the paper The Economist (at a cost much higher than zero) because its signal-to-noise ratio is much higher.

[metabagel]

The Economist strikes as an opinionated news source, and I typically don’t agree with their opinion.

[jowea]

Attention economy and all that.