[anonzzzies]

Lovely; a monthly sub to an article talking about monthly subs. You have to realise I will never, ever, going to pay ‘thebaffler’ and especially an article explaining that everyone wants subscriptions in a site that gives me one article and the rest is a subscription.

[smcin]

More than "one free article"; I checked and TheBaffler seems to allow you read 4 articles(/mth?) before subscription-walling.

[anonzzzies]

It literally says it at the bottom for me; from the start; maybe elsewhere it’s another number or it lies. Point stands no? Article writing about subscriptions wants a subscription.

[smcin]

Interesting; I'm in the US; where are you? Also, mobile/desktop?

(It literally doesn't say it on the webpage served to me; don't assume the same version is served to all countries)

[anonzzzies]

EU and mobile; it pops up right away and says 1 article. I tried to view another one and that indeed got me to the payments page.

[smcin]

Must be due to the GDPR then.

[anonzzzies]

Doubt it but people seem to misinterpret gdpr rules all the time.

Americans are especially paranoid about the letter of the law while here we only use the intention. It’s all only about big offenders not some blog no one reads.

[troyvit]

So ... software and content are the same thing? SaaS is the same as an article?

- Does reading The Baffler trap you in its ecosystem? If you cancel The Baffler do you lose functionality?

- If The Baffler closes up shop because it was bought by a larger newsletter does it brick any of your devices?

- I turned uBlock off for this page (it was blocking 6 things) and there are no ads. Can you say the same thing for Netflix or fricking Windows?

- Does The Baffler take what you give it and resell it because its 5,000 word privacy policy which you didn't read but had to agree to says it can?

- Will The Baffler's third rate security practices release your identity and those of your customers to private auctions on the dark web?

This is how the article supports itself. Looks like it's about $5 per article.

Still though it's interesting how you put it. In a period where everybody expects web content for free, we're paying literally trillions to subscribe to software products. As somebody who works for a content organization I'm now asking myself what aspects of the SaSS model can we take up to get people to pay our writers and editors to continue producing local news? I guess we just need to figure out what content people are keeping in spreadsheets.

[kmt-lnh]

ungated link: https://archive.md/BQqNk